Generating a Daily Bill of Materials at Level of Development 400 Using the Smallest Workface Boundary

Abstract

Observations and sample tests at five construction sites showed that the time required for generating a daily bill of materials (BOM) is within the range of 12–68 min. However, 20 foremen interviewed at the sites stated that, in reality, they cannot spend more than 2–3 min per day generating a daily BOM, although this information would be helpful for field control. To meet this time requirement, this study uses a building information model at level of development (LOD) 400, i.e., the fabrication level, and a concept referred to as the smallest workface boundary (SWFB), which is the boundary that encapsulates a set of LOD400 objects in the smallest workable unit to overcome their high granularity. This research also presents four types of rules to automate the generation of SWFBs to the extent possible from LOD400 objects. The SWFB concept and rules are incorporated into a protype to aid a foreman in quickly generating a daily BOM with LOD400 objects. A methodology that a foreman can use with the prototype is also provided. For validation, field experiments were conducted at sites in Abu Dhabi, Stockholm, and Lima. With the latest version of the prototype, the time requirement (i.e., not requiring more than 2–3 min per day) was met with an average of 59 s.