Optimal Construction Site Layout Considering Safety and Environmental Aspects
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 134, Issue 7
Abstract
A good site layout is vital to ensure the safety of the working environment and effective and efficient operations. Site layout planning has significant impacts on productivity, costs, and duration of construction. Construction site layout planning involves identifying, sizing, and positioning temporary and permanent facilities within the boundary of the construction site. Site layout planning can be viewed as a complex optimization problem. Although construction site layout planning is a critical process, systematical analysis of this problem is always difficult because of the existence of a vast number of trades and interrelated planning constraints. The problem has been solved using two distinct approaches: Optimization techniques and heuristics methods. Mathematical optimization procedures have been developed to produce optimal solutions, but they are only applicable for small-size problems. Artificial intelligent techniques have been used practically to handle real-life problems. On the other hand, heuristic methods have been used to produce good but not optimal solutions for large problems. In this paper, an optimization model has been developed for solving the site layout planning problem considering safety and environmental issues and actual distance between facilities. Genetic algorithms are used as an optimization bed for the developed model. In order to validate the performance of the developed model, a real-life construction project was tested. The obtained results proved that satisfactory solutions were obtained.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Cheng, M. Y., and O’Connor, J. T. (1996). “ArcSite: Enhanced GIS for construction site layout.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 122(4), 329–336.
Elbeltagi, E. (1999). “Construction site management.” Ph.D. thesis, Mansoura Univ., Mansoura, Egypt.
Elbeltagi, E., Hegazy, T., and Eldosouky, A. (2004). “Dynamic layout of construction temporary facilities considering safety.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 130(4), 534–541.
Green, J., Stephen, B., and Felipe, M. (2000). Excel 2000 VBA programmer’s reference, Wrox, Birmingham, Ala.
Forrest, S. (1993). “Genetic algorithms: Principles of natural selection applied to computation.” Science, 261(5123), 872–878.
Goldberg, D. E. (1989). Genetic algorithm in search, optimization, and machine learning, Addison–Wesley, New York.
Hegazy, T., and Elbeltagi, E. (1999). “EvoSite: Evolution-based model for site layout planning.” J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 13(3), 198–206.
Hislop, R. (1999). Construction site safety: A guide for managing contractors, Lewis, New York.
Li, H., and Love, P. (1998). “Site-level facilities layout using genetic algorithms.” J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 12(4), 227–231.
Microsoft Corporation. (2000). Microsoft Project 2000, Redmond, Wash.
Microsoft Corporation. (2002). Excel reference manual. Redmond, Wash.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). (1987). Occupational Safety and Health Administrations, construction industry, USDOL, Washington, D.C., 19–26.
Osman, H., Georgy, M., and Ibrahim, M. (2003). “An automated system for dynamic construction site layout planning.” 10th Int. Colloquium on Structural and Geotechnical Engineering, Ain Shams Univ., Cairo, Egypt, 1–13.
Sanad, H., (2006). “Optimal arrangement of temporary facilities in construction sites.” Ongoing MSc Research, Structural Engineering Dept., Tanta Univ., Tanta, Egypt.
Uniform building code (UBC). (1985). International Conf. of Building Officials, 658–660.
Zouein, P., Harmanani, H., and Hajar, A. (2002). “Genetic algorithm for solving site layout problem with unequal-size and constrained facilities.” J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 16(2), 143–151.
Zouein, P., and Tommelein, I. (1999). “Dynamic layout planning using a hybrid incremental solution method.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 125(6), 400–408.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 134 • Issue 7 • July 2008
Pages: 536 - 544
Copyright
© 2008 ASCE.
History
Received: Oct 25, 2006
Accepted: Jan 22, 2008
Published online: Jul 1, 2008
Published in print: Jul 2008
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.