Quantification of machine effectiveness in building and construction industry

Abstract

Building and Construction industry highly depends on different kinds of heavy machines and machinery vehicles when it comes to performing different construction tasks. Since the current industry is not heavily concerned about measuring the effectiveness of machines, a considerable amount of budget is wasted due to the misuse of machines. Hence, there should be a proper method to monitor their effectiveness and to eradicate their misuse. Effectiveness can be achieved by analyzing the matrices, Availability, Performance, and Quality. Availability measurements can be acquired by analyzing the machine's on/off times and also the idle times, and by introducing a GPS and sensor equipped tracking device, the availability of machines can be tracked. The device is capable of acquiring the geographical location and the on/off state of the machine. Performance can be acquired by analyzing the task and the details of the machine. Excavating, Digging, Scraping, Spreading, and Loading are some of the construction activities and different machines are used for different purposes. This paper reports on a reliable way of calculating the performance by using specially designed algorithms for each type of machine. The algorithm uses a data driven questionnaire for each and every machinery vehicle to evaluate the quality factor. Each question has a weightage value where questions can be rated based on the value. By analyzing and calculating the outputs of availability, performance and quality factors, the system is able to calculate the effectiveness of the machine.