https://doi.org/10.24928/2020/0012

Agent-Based Modelling and Simulation of Construction Crew Performance

Lynn Shehab¹, Ali Ezzeddine², Farook Hamzeh³ & William Power⁴

¹ Master’s Student, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, American University of Beirut, Lebanon, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002-2708-3550
²Master’s Student, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, American University of Beirut, Lebanon, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0003-1668-5481
³Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering Dept., University of Alberta, Canada, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002-3986-9534
⁴Productivity & Performance Manager, DPS Group, 4 Eastgate Avenue, Eastgate Business Park, Little Island, Co. Cork, Ireland, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0001-5791-846X

Abstract

The construction industry suffers from chronic problems in project delays, crew ineffectiveness, and productivity loss. One of the root causes of such problems is improper planning and control. Project control requires not only sufficient experience, but also proactive decision-making and awareness. In order to ensure proactivity and problem awareness, simulation coupled with Lean Construction principles are used to inform the analysis of workers’ performance and conditions on site, facilitate production control, and detect possible future shortcomings or delays. This paper presents an Agent-Based and Discrete-Event model that allows project controllers to simulate current or future project states within the Weekly Work Plan (WWP) of the Last Planner® System (LPS) in order to orient the project activities and performance as desired. This model can be used to help generate more realistic planned production rates considering LPS metrics for crew capacity and performance. Factors resulting in the non-completion of tasks are taken from data of a real project over the course of 94 weeks. The simulation model is applied to an example project to explain the goals behind the proposed model. Results indicate that the proposed model is useful as a basis for a decision support system for project planners to evaluate the reliability of their planned production rates.

Keywords

Agent-based modelling and simulation (ABMS), discrete-event simulation (DES), lean construction, project control, Last Planner® System (LPS)

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Reference

Shehab, L. , Ezzeddine, A. , Hamzeh, F. & Power, W. 2020. Agent-Based Modelling and Simulation of Construction Crew Performance, Proc. 28th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC) , 1021-1032. doi.org/10.24928/2020/0012

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