Automated Components–Vehicle Allocation Planning for Precast Concrete Projects
Publication: Journal of Management in Engineering
Volume 38, Issue 6
Abstract
To move precast concrete (PC) components to the site through vehicles in a PC project, a construction manager must establish a PC components–vehicle allocation (CVA) plan everyday by integrating factory, transport, and site information and by reflecting various considerations for CVA. However, in practice, the manager establishes the plan manually, which often leads to an increase in transportation costs due to inefficient use of vehicles and plan errors. Thus, this study develops an automated method for CVA by deriving considerations for CVA via interviews and literature review and by formalizing a CVA process that satisfies the considerations. The process has the following five steps: determining component loading type, developing preliminary CVA, determining vehicle loading type, crashing CVA for reducing the number of vehicles, and setting site arrival time and type of vehicles. Charrette test results indicate that the automated method can generate CVA plans faster than practitioners and reduce the number of vehicles by taking the derived considerations into account comprehensively. This study contributes to the off-site construction management theory by formalizing the process knowledge about how to deal with different considerations in CVA. This can help alleviate social and environmental problems, such as increased transportation cost and carbon dioxides emission by supporting decision-making of construction managers in planning installation of PC components and allocating them to vehicles.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by the Korea Agency for Infrastructure Technology Advancement (KAIA) grant funded by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (Grant No. 22ORPS-B158109-03).
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Management in Engineering
Volume 38 • Issue 6 • November 2022
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 21, 2022
Accepted: May 18, 2022
Published online: Aug 1, 2022
Published in print: Nov 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Jan 1, 2023
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Automation and robotics
- Business management
- Concrete
- Concrete construction
- Construction (by type)
- Construction engineering
- Construction management
- Construction sites
- Continuum mechanics
- Design (by type)
- Dynamic loads
- Dynamics (solid mechanics)
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering materials (by type)
- Engineering mechanics
- Highway transportation
- Infrastructure
- Load factors
- Managers
- Materials engineering
- Personnel (type)
- Personnel management
- Practice and Profession
- Precast concrete
- Solid mechanics
- Structural design
- Structural dynamics
- Systems engineering
- Transportation engineering
- Vehicle loads
- Vehicles
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