A SYSTEM TO TRACK WORK PROGRESS AT CONSTRUCTION JOB SITES

To coordinate work effectively in a construction site, supervisors need to know who is doing what, where, and whether the work is progressing according to plan. Similarly, workers need to have clear instructions to execute the work effectively. Currently available solutions do not support information-sharing between the different participants in a construction site, resulting in decision bottlenecks and high coordination costs. In this paper we present a Work Tracking System (WTS) for construction. This system manages the information flows between project participants to support better communication about task scope, progress, and completion. The WTS automatically reports work progress and compares it to the original plan, allowing supervisors and workers to have a common understanding of the project status. We describe the implementation of the WTS system prototype, which leverages mobile devices and cloud computing to bring the technology to the field. We also present the feedback received from different participants in a mid-rise residential building project who evaluated the system. The evaluators liked the prototype’s 4D visualization of the work performed, its facilitation of setting work priorities, and its support for accelerating decision-making. The feedback that we received also stressed the need to include filters that allow users to sort through information more efficiently and manage tasks at different levels of detail.