Analysis of automated data collection technologies for field materials management

Materials handling operations on construction job sites are error prone and significantly decrease construction productivity. The deployment of automated data collection and sensing technologies on construction job sites can highly improve field materials management, eliminate data entry errors, and accelerate data collection processes. Based on their technical characteristics, benefits and barriers are discussed for each presented technology. Then, a case study demonstrates and quantifies some of the benefits of the deployment of a positioning technology within locating processes of large industrial projects. In a complementary effort, this thesis investigates the integration of materials' data within model-based information systems. A common pool of project information containing materials' identification and location would stimulate communication and collaboration among project players as a starting point to improve field materials management.