Identification of information requirements using simulation for supporting construction productivity assessment

Project managers need to assess how well construction crews are performing in terms of productivity. This paper presents the preliminary results of an effort carried out by the authors to develop a simulation based framework to support the identification of the information requirements for assessing productivity performance. A prototype to test the proposed framework for the identification of information requirements by studying the assessment of earthmoving productivity is introduced. Based on literature regarding the factors that can affect earthmoving productivity, several scenarios, representing different factors that affect earthmoving productivity, have been created and studied. These scenarios have been simulated to help to identify the information items required for assessing earthmoving productivity, such as hauling distance and loading time. Several potential data capture technologies, such as GPS, RFID and On-Board Instrument can help in acquiring the information items identified in this paper.