Using Agent-Based Modeling to Study Construction Labor Productivity as an Emergent Property of Individual and Crew Interactions
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 135, Issue 7
Abstract
Lean construction research has shown that managing work flow effectively and maintaining labor flow on site can improve construction labor performance. Related research also shows that congestion on construction sites often leads to lowered efficiency. Using these findings as a point of departure, we use the agent-based modeling method to represent the construction site as a system of complex interactions and explore whether labor efficiency can be treated as an emergent property resulting from individual and crew interactions in space. This allows us to use a “bottom-up” approach to analyzing labor efficiency, which supplements existing “top-down” approaches to modeling the impacts of space congestion on labor efficiency. A pilot implementation of the agent-based model, and preliminary results illustrating the relationships between congestion and labor efficiency are presented. The empirical studies exhibit system behavior that support published principles of work-force management. The primary contribution of this paper is that it provides a method that can be used to efficiently utilize construction space, and develop plans and schedules that account for congestion arising from crew interactions in space.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by NSF Grant No. NSFSES 0624118 to Amlan Mukherjee. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 135 • Issue 7 • July 2009
Pages: 657 - 667
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Mar 19, 2008
Accepted: Dec 3, 2008
Published online: Mar 27, 2009
Published in print: Jul 2009
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