Automation Consideration During Project Design

Automation as pertaining to the construction industry is the use of mechanical and electronic means to achieve automatic operation or control to reduce potential exposure, time, or effort while maintaining or improving quality. Contractors utilize automated technologies on projects as a means of saving cost, reducing project durations, improving quality and consistency, and gaining other related project benefits. Communication between the constructor and designer of the construction means and methods to be used is often limited as a result of contractual relationships and competitive bidding requirements. This commonly leads the designer to assume conventional construction equipment will be implemented rather than specialized automated technologies. For this and other reasons, designer consideration in a project?s design of the use of automated construction technologies is limited. This paper describes a study to investigate the ability of designers to consider the use of automated construction technologies in the design of a project. The study identifies design practices that facilitate the implementation of automated technologies and exposes barriers, within both the design process and the overall project development process, to the consideration of automation in the design. The findings of the study can be used when one is considering the implementation of construction automation technologies during the design process.