Optimal material logistics planning in congested construction sites

Hisham Said, Khaled El-Rayes

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Scarcity of construction site space imposes serious challenges for contractors in planning material supply and site logistics. Existing models of material logistics and site layout planning face critical performance limitations in congested construction sites, due to their inability of modeling and utilizing interior building spaces for long-term material storage. Such limitations result in crowded exterior space, lower productivity, and higher material procurement costs. This paper presents the development of a new Congested Construction Logistics Planning (C2LP) system that facilitates the optimal utilization of interior building spaces by considering shifting some of the non-critical activities in order to generate sufficient interior space for material storage areas. Accordingly, the model is designed to optimize two main conflicting objectives; minimizing site logistics costs and minimizing project criticality. Site logistics cost include material ordering, stock-out, carrying, and layout costs. Project criticality is quantified using a new metric that represents the decrease of available floats of non-critical activities because of their shifts to create sufficient interior storage spaces. These two objectives are optimized considering four main categories of decision variables: material supply, interior storage plan, exterior layout, and shifting of non-critical activities. The model is designed to incorporate a group of critical constraints, such as exterior layout and activities-materials spatiotemporal constraints. The performance and capabilities of the proposed model are evaluated using an application example of the construction of a multi-storey building in a congested site.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationAnnual Conference of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering 2011, CSCE 2011
Pages2505-2514
Number of pages10
StatePublished - 2011
EventAnnual Conference of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering 2011, CSCE 2011 - Ottawa, ON, Canada
Duration: Jun 14 2011Jun 17 2011

Publication series

NameProceedings, Annual Conference - Canadian Society for Civil Engineering
Volume3

Other

OtherAnnual Conference of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering 2011, CSCE 2011
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityOttawa, ON
Period6/14/116/17/11

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Engineering

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