According to McKinsey, the productivity growth in the construction sector averaged a mere 1% a year over the past two decades. Among other reasons, the slowdown in the industry’s growth can be traced back to the inefficient management over the construction assets.
Currently, to track where assets are located and how they are utilized, construction workers make notes about assets’ locations and operations performed with them on paper and then enter the data into spreadsheets. Several rounds of manual data entry lead to 88% of spreadsheets being erroneous, not to mention the amount of time construction workers lose on tracking.
In this article, we’ll show how technologies can help construction companies optimize asset management.
The technology stack
To effectively track a variety of assets, which travel to and from numerous construction sites and storage facilities, construction companies can leverage asset tracking solutions based on RFID and IIoT.
RFID
The RFID technology is used to automatically identify and track assets labeled with RFID tags. Each RFID tag gets a unique ID that is stored in a data warehouse. An ID is correlated with the information about an asset carrying a tag.
RFID readers are used to fetching information from tags. Once a tag gets into the range of an RFID reader, it emits a radio signal that carries the tag’s ID. The reader takes in the ID and relays it to the cloud server for further processing together with the data about the location of the reader and the time of the reading.
IIoT
The role of IIoT boils down to providing cloud storage for asset data and performing analytics on this data to provide insights about the locations, movements, and properties of tagged assets. The analytics component of IIoT takes in the IDs of scanned tags, correlates them with the location of the reader and the time of the reading and states where the assets are located at a particular time. By tracking the locations of the assets over time, an IIoT solution records the movements of the assets.
However, the capabilities of IIoT are not limited to basic analysis. An advanced analytics module of an IIoT solution allows carrying out more complex tasks, e.g., identifying optimal volumes of construction materials for a particular site based on the past material consumption data, as well as stating the optimal replenishment date based on the current material volumes and material consumption dynamics.
The insights gained with asset data analytics are communicated to the asset management specialists and construction site workers via the web or mobile apps, for instance, as live asset availability maps.
What assets can be tracked
Applied together, RFID and IIoT technologies can streamline the management over:
- Heavyweight construction equipment. Technology-driven solutions allow workers of storage facilities and construction sites to quickly identify the location of the required vehicles, while the managers get the opportunity to track the locations, movements, and utilization of vehicles remotely.
- Lightweight construction tools. Asset tracking solutions provide construction site workers with real-time data about tools‘ availability and allow asset managers to control employee access to expensive and dangerous tooling.
- Construction materials. Technology-driven solutions reduce the time it takes to search for the required materials at storage locations, provide the data about when the materials arrive at construction sites and thus help to optimize material carrying costs.
How RFID and IIoT work together
Here is an example to illustrate how RFID and IIoT cooperate to optimize construction asset management at several levels.
Say, a construction company needs to deliver 4 backhoe loaders, 70 power tools, and 200 sheets of fiberglass to a construction site. The assets get labeled with RFID tags. At the same time, at the exits of the relevant storage yards and warehouses, construction company workers use fixed or handheld RFID readers to scan the tags.
As the required assets leave the storage facilities, RFID readers automatically scan the tags attached to the assets, as well as packages containing assets and pass their IDs to the cloud server for processing. The analytics module of IIoT analyzes the incoming data records and states when the assets have left corresponding storage facilities. The analytics component subsequently updates the status of the assets in the data warehouse.
Once the assets arrive at the construction site, another RFID reader, at the site entrance, is used to check if all of the required assets are delivered. In case any asset is missing, the solution provides the data about the last known location of an asset, and sends an alert to a corresponding specialist.
What benefits smart asset tracking brings
Along with the ability to locate critical assets and track their movements, asset tracking solutions provide the following benefits:
- The protection of assets against theft and unauthorized access. The NICB indicates that in the US, up to $1 billion worth of equipment and tools are stolen each year. With asset tracking solutions in place, it is possible to control employee access to equipment. Moreover, asset managers get notified in case a piece of equipment is operated during an unauthorized time and/or outside an approved area.
- The possibility to improve equipment utilization. By tracking the movements of assets, construction companies can view which pieces of equipment are in high demand at which facilities, as well as which equipment is underutilized. Asset managers can make data-driven decisions regarding whether it is necessary to rent/buy additional equipment or it is possible to retrieve underutilized pieces from other sites.
- More efficient equipment maintenance. Knowing when, how and for how long an asset is utilized, construction companies can optimize equipment maintenance plans and adjust the scheduled activities to avoid both failures and over-maintenance.
What points of concern exist
To get visible productivity improvements and expected ROI of an asset management solution, before rolling the solution out, it’s important to consider the following limitations:
- RFID tags should be securely placed to assets to make sure the tags are not damaged during operations (which is particularly relevant for heavyweight equipment used in harsh environments). A tag, for instance, can be fixed with a frame welded to the equipment for protecting the tag from physical impact.
- The price for the materials and tools to track should be high enough for an asset tracking solution to pay off. While the price for RFID tags has fallen over time to a few cents, RFID is still not economically viable when applied for tagging low-value assets.
To sum it up
Asset tracking solutions based on RFID and IIoT allow construction companies to access the data about the locations and availability of the construction assets, as well as to analyze the utilization of the movable equipment. Data-driven decisions allow construction companies to decrease construction delays, reduce labor costs, and eliminate the over-purchasing of materials.
