Information Representation Schema for Tower Crane Planning in Building Construction Projects

Given the uniqueness and diversity of constraints from each construction site, tower crane planning can be a challenging task, especially in terms of collecting and presenting multiple sets of information with varying levels of detail. Several research studies have been carried out to investigate information categories necessary for tower crane planning. This paper investigates challenges related to information representation of tower crane planning in a computational environment. Also, a site-specific information representation schema for tower crane planning is presented. Requirements and information resources for each category of information are specified with the objective of visualizing and automating tower crane planning. This information representation schema was tested on a building construction project and is subject to continuous refinement based on additional case studies of building construction projects that have different characteristics and constraints. Uniqueness from individual projects is expected; however, critical constraints and characteristics are commonly shared by the entire building construction field.