Lean Project Management using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Abstract

Development of a lean and automated progress tracking system is one of the most challenging subjects in the construction industry. Since the current methods depend on individual and manual inspections of the site, they may have various problems. For instance, results include a natural bias since field personnel makes interpretations depending on their educational and expertise level. From the practical point of view, manual data collection and their comparison with construction drawings and schedules are inefficient as it takes too much time. With the recent advancement of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) into the market and inclusion of lean project management principles, project management studies are inclined towards the digital and lean approaches. Within this perspective, the objective of this study is to reveal the use of UAVs as a lean project management tool. This paper indicates merely that UAVs have the potential for such a purpose.

Interoperability of Digital Tools for the Monitoring and Control of Construction Projects

“…Visual information from regions that are difficult to access can be easily collected; for example, daily photographs arranged in chronological order make it possible to track changes at a construction site. Therefore, there is the possibility to control the oldest state of the stored information, as all of them are collected in a database [43]. Studies using vision-based technologies for progress monitoring can be grouped into three categories: (i) studies on the generation of as-built 3D models integrated with BIM, (ii) studies using image processing and machine learning methods to monitor the construction progress and (iii) studies using unmanned aerial vehicles for autonomous data collection [44].…”

“…Additionally, data fusion using overlapping time frames or overlapping location information from multiple sources is possible by matching the same timestamps or locations. In this way, it is possible to validate the geometry of 3D models with geospatial techniques, such as GPS coordinates, and thus perform centimeter-level precision measurements, such as length, area, and volume measurements [43]. These accuracy measurements make it possible to evaluate the amount of work performed and efficiently and accurately identify construction deviations [19].…”

UAVs’ efficient assembly: Lean Manufacturing implementation in a UAVs’ Assembly Company

“…Although there is a lack of research about the study of drones' manufacturing and lean manufacturing implementation, drones have proved their ability to cope and be a support in Lean manufacturing implementation projects. Ersoz, et al [14] incorporated the use of UAVs in the construction sector and proved their effectiveness to support continuous improvement, visual control (Jidoka) and sharing of knowledge activity between departments (Worker Involvement), which are some of the lean principles. Tezel and Aziz [15] connected the gap between the utilization of drones and the principles of lean construction.…”