Formalization of the Features of Activities and Classification of Temporary Structures to Support an Automated Temporary Structure Planning

Temporary structures (i.e., scaffolding, shoring) represent an area of considerable significance in the construction process, having a large influence on the quality, safety, speed, and profitability of construction projects. However, current industry practice does not have a systematic way to generate temporary structure plans due to the lack of a formalized way to represent the specific project situations and the planners' rationale to select temporary structures for a given specific project situation. Temporary structure planning is in general handled manually and is time-consuming and error-prone. Information-technology-based methods are the most promising approach to improve the timeliness, correctness, and consistency of the temporary structure planning process. Building on and extending the prior work on representing product and process information, this paper presents formalized component and action features that helps represent specific project situations. We also formalize a taxonomy for temporary structures that helps select appropriate temporary structures for given situations. The formal representation of features and taxonomy for temporary structures provide the theoretical foundation for developing a computer-assisted method that helps construction engineers generate temporary structure plans rapidly, consistently, and thoroughly.