Development of systematic construction logistics using 'intelligent products'

A cost-effective transfer of materials and tools from supplier location to construction site along with efficient information flow is defined as systematic construction logistics. Development of appropriate IT mechanisms plays an essential role for simplified production planning and elimination of wastes from broken resource. The contribution of this study in construction supply chain is to design and develop an innovative logistics management framework using context-aware and autonomous product centric system. More specifically, the proposed framework is responsive to real-world circumstances by demonstration of autonomous behaviour, and support several lean principles to improve resource and information flows. This paper addresses (i) an innovative solution for overcoming the construction logistics information flow challenges based on the intelligent product concept, (ii) a requirement analysis phase using "Quality Function Deployment" to turn the product requirements into technical specifications and (iii) implementation of a logistics management framework prototype to develop a first proof-of-concept.