#26 - BIM and Construction Management - 3

Safety Management

Construction is one of the most hazardous industries in the world due to its unique nature including frequent work team rotations, exposure to weather conditions, and high proportions of unskilled and temporary workers. Safety management includes the processes required to assure that the construction project is executed with appropriate care to prevent accidents that cause personal injury, death, or property damage. Accidents and their consequences are a major concern in the construction industry both in terms of human suffering and the direct and indirect costs to the industry.

Many researchers have addressed the lack of integration between construction and safety. Traditionally, safety is achieved through periodic meetings and training. Virtualization of the projects before the actual construction phase allows safety managers and CMs to simulate their safety precautions and identify potential safety problems. For example, Popov et al. used 3D simulation to locate cranes such that their booms do not hit structures; Alshawi et al. gave BIM’s visualization technologies a central role in safety training; Vacharapoom and Sdhabbon defined a rule-based hazard identification model using BIM to analyze and anticipate unsafe conditions; Sulavinki et al. proposed BIM models to incorporate safety-related activities into construction schedules, and Hu et al. defined the analytical procedures based on 4D simulations to reveal potential safety threats.

Schedule Management

Construction planners generally use CPM-based networks and bar charts to explain the proposed schedule of a project. The CPM schedule does not provide any spatial information or any information about the complexities of the project components. Therefore, to discover the spatial aspects of a project, planners have to examine 2D drawings and conceptually associate the components with the related activities. Because CPM networks are an abstract representation of the project schedule, users need to interpret the activities to comprehend the sequence they convey. The final results may be arbitrary given that different planners should have unique perspectives on developing a project schedule. In addition, the current CPM strategies no longer permit planners to explicitly describe the constraints of a construction project, consisting of the availability of resources, the site conditions, and the availability of capital, which can be essential factors for making decisions. Consequently, planners can only decide the impact factors of project scheduling in their minds, which is time-consuming and frequently prone to mistakes. Except, it is very tough to integrate the time and cost information within the current CPM scheduling framework, one of the reasons being that schedules generated by using the CPM approach are activity-based, while in the construction process, the project is completed according to work items. The work items comprise the cost and useful resource information of the project, however, aren't well connected to the activities of the project schedule.

4D models integrate 3D geometry with time as the fourth dimension. Any building component in a 4D model consists of geometric attributes that describe its 3D shape, in addition to a time characteristic that suggests the start and finish times of the construction of this element. A 4D model of a structure can, therefore, be used to graphically simulate the sequence of construction operations, thereby presenting the operator with a digital, visual understanding of the construction process. 4D visualizations may be utilized by a wider variety of project participants at varying levels of abilities and experience.

Next article, Project Integration Management

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