On-machine Control and Documentation Systems for the Quality Management of Roads

Quality management of the construction process is finding its way into the construction industry and authorities. with the goal of higher profitability, increased efficiency, reduced cycle-time, decreased call-backs and warranty work, and increased customer satisfaction. To reach a total quality management throughout the whole lifecycle of a construction (consisting of the steps 'planning', 'design', 'construction', ‘operation and maintenance' and ‘deconstruction’), all the single steps have to be connected. As each construction is an unique, it's difficult to get key figures for the quality assessment, hence the quality of the process itself has to be assured.

To acquire quality figures, the people and machinery involved in the construction process and the process itself have to be well described. Moreover they must deliver process values that allow the judging of the quality achieved. In other words, the issues addressed and to be solved by quality management in construction can be dubbed as “Information Management on construction worksites result in higher quality”. This implies

• the role of building and construction as a product
• the need for initiative of the involved industries (contractors, construction machine manufacturers and IT-business)
• owners of infrastructure that define quality standards and agreements on transfer of relevant information between processes and acting players.

The data acquired on a machine can be divided into three types: machine data, process data and project data. Machine data consists of measurements close to the machine e.g. engine speed, oil pressure, fuel level. Process data is more related to the construction process. Considering a road paver for example, process data would consist for instance of layer geometry (thickness, width) and material values (amount, temperature). Project data comprises data acquired by all machines involved in the construction process. In the example of road construction, this includes among other things road geometry, number of compaction passes of all rollers and density measurements. Modern construction equipment gathers machine and process data to a certain extend. To acquire project data, all involved parties have to exchange data. This data exchange has not been established yet, although noteworthy attemps were undertaken. The full article will describe the means to provide the required data and information technology that cope with the requirements of quality management in construction. Within this part the specialities of road construction and new products and processes enhancing the TQM are presented.