Assessing the impact of materials tracking technologies on construction craft productivity

Even though previous studies indicate that construction labor productivity can benefit from automated tracking technologies for field materials management purposes, the actual impact of these technologies on construction productivity has not been fully investigated. This study attempted to quantify the productivity impact of automating the identification and localization of engineered components on industrial sites. For this purpose, an extensive field trial was conducted on a power-plant project. Data from both a traditional tracking process and an automated tracking process designed for the purposes of this study were collected. By considering the traditional tracking process as the baseline for comparison, this study quantified and assessed the impact of the automated tracking methodology. The results indicate that materials tracking technologies can significantly improve craft labor productivity.