DEVELOPING RFID-BASED ELECTRONIC SPECIMEN AND TEST CODING SYSTEM IN CONSTRUCTION QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Abstract- Although the collection of a detailed, accurate and sufficient volume of information, and subsequent timely delivery are vital for effective quality control and management in construction, existing methods for material and specimen tests and laboratory activities are manually reliant on the human recourse to paper and pencil. Data collected using manual methods are time and labour-intensive. They are also error-prone due to the reluctance of workers to monitor and record the flow of large quantities of tests. This study investigates an automated approach that deals with a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) facilitated quality management system. The proposed system focuses on the gathering, monitoring, managing, and sharing of accurate data amongst all participants (i.e. consultants, contractors and owners) and also in the material test laboratory. In this research, the need for a new coding system is highlighted in which RFID tagging has to be taken into consideration. In order to automate the task of specimen identification and quality data collection in any laboratory activity, each RFID tag is equipped with a unique Electronic Specimen and Test Code (ESTCode). An ESTCode is used as a specimen and test identity code, which forms the base of reports and contains related information for a particular specimen and test. In order to form the backbone of technology adoption in real scenarios, and to identify driving factors in this field, this paper also introduces an implementation framework for the selected technology in construction quality management. One of the current significant technologies in the world of automatic identification and data capture technologies is RFID, which has received much attention of late. RFID has been identified as one of the ten greatest contributing technologies of the 21st century, because of its potential benefits such as ready availability, ease of handling, and affordability [6]. In earlier research, Jaselskis et al. [7] summarised RFID technology and surveyed its potential applications in the construction industry including, concrete processing and handling, cost coding of labour and equipment, and material control. RFID has been used in some recent research to improve the process of capturing quantities of work data at construction sites, in terms of accuracy and completeness, to eliminate secondary tasks caused by missing or inaccurate data. This minimises the time and labour used for retrieving information