IDENTIFYING PAIN-POINTS AND OPTIMAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR AUTOMATION IN COMMERCIAL CONSTRUCTION: A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

The scope of automation in the construction field is broad and requires collaboration across multiple disciplines. But the adoption of technology in the construction sector has been lagging in comparison to the other sectors. Lean Construction researchers and practitioners aim to apply principles gleaned from lean manufacturing to create similar rates of flow for the sequence of all activities on the construction job site. The lean construction community has identified eight resources or flows that must be available for any activity to take place, namely: information, equipment, materials, labor, prior work, external conditions, space (head/time/physical), and shared understanding. Currently, these flows suffer from constraints on a typical construction job site, and so are in large part responsible for the poor performance typically observed in terms of time, cost, quality, safety, and morale. The primary objective of this research is to determine pain-points for stakeholders primarily in the commercial construction industry and explore how these pain-points can be alleviated through the application of automation and robotics. This research uses qualitative research methods to engage in a “listening tour” to learn from those now working in the industry. Industry experts were asked to respond to the following question: “What do you think are the biggest headaches in your respective roles that could potentially be aided by the development of automation and robotics? For example, if you could ask someone or something to figure out a way to make part of your job easier and more productive, what part would that be?”. Semi-structured interviews with industry experts were conducted to determine bottlenecks in construction, their experiences with automation, perceived barriers, and potential for improvement to provide insights into where innovation in automation for construction should be prioritized