A DEVELOPMENT OF A SUPPORTING SYSTEM FOR CONSTRUCTION SITE LAYOUT PLANNING

Abstract

Construction Site Layout Planning (CSLP) for building construction is a crucial process that requires variety of knowledge and experience. A planner has to study numerous aspects in order to gain an effective CSLP. Otherwise problems that affect the productivity of a project could occur and lead to cost and schedule overruns. This study investigated the factors affecting CSLP and proposed a system for implementing CSLP in the first stage of a construction project. The data collection was divided into two parts. First, an exploratory interview with a group of experts in CSLP was conducted to acquire the principles of works as reflected in real practice. Second, a multiple case study was applied to five different cases where the experts were asked to manage CSLP from their knowledge. Tabular method was applied to find similarities and differences between cases in order to verify factors affecting the CSLP and to create knowledge rule bases. These rule bases were sent back to experts to validate whether the interpretation was correct to gain the generalizations, validity, and reliability of the results. The outputs of this research are the factors influencing CSLP and a proposed system in assisting CSLP. The factors affecting CSLP are divided into thirteen groups which are the design of the building, constraints of components, relationships between components, location of the site, traffic on the site, method of work, site constraints, specifications and regulations, free space, man power, availabilities of components, duration of the project, and type of the building. A guideline was developed based on these factors and was used as the core of the proposed system. The system acts as a supporting system developed in IF-THEN-ELSE basis. The validation of the results was conducted with the rule bases and the proposed system. The rule bases were assessed in one of the case studies, and the proposed system was justified based on the comparison of layouts between experts and low expertise engineers. It was found that rule bases were suitable while the system can assist low expertise engineers to be able to do CSLP.