Abstract :
Recent research has indicated that even though construction materials and components may
constitute more than fifty percent of total project costs, existing methods for managing them still depend
on human skills. This traditional data collection is time and labour-intensive, error-prone, and unreliable,
due to the reluctance of workforces to monitor and record the presence of large numbers of material.
Automating the task of identifying and tracking construction materials can provide timely and accurate
information on materials available to the manager. This paper investigates a new approach for integrating
the latest innovations in ADC technologies for real-time data collection in construction. In this approach,
the combination of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Global Positioning System (GPS), and General
Packet Radio System (GPRS) technologies can facilitate extremely low-cost, infrastructure-free, and
easy-to-implement solutions to uniquely identify materials, components, and equipment. The presented
system is fully automatic and will lead to their location and tracking in three phases, namely, production
sites (off-site), en-route (shipping), and construction job sites (on-site), almost instantaneously.
