The Laing O’Rourke Centre Lecture Series

Provided by Mr Michael Enstone, MSc Student – MSc in Systems Engineering & Innovation

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Abstract

Construction quality is one of the biggest challenges facing the construction industry. A key aspect of delivering a quality product on time and within budget is the ability to understand where issues are occurring or about to occur such that they can be solved before they impact on the delivery of the project. This research aimed to determine if the site photography produced incidentally could be used to provide automatic monitoring of site progress. It was recognised that additional information collected at the time an image is taken could be useful to achieve this aim. 

Smartphones were selected as a technology that could achieve the goals of the project. An app was developed to store and categorise the imagery produced by a construction site to enable later analysis on a web based server system. 

The application and web interface were successfully tested and used on a research for the Wellcome Trust’s Genome Campus at Hinxton. The process was adopted by the contractor who found it easy to use. It was also tested with consultants who considered the app was generally helpful and time saving for producing reports.

Michael Enstone

About the speaker

Michael Enstone is a building services engineer for AECOM with varied project experience, from combined cooling, heat and power installation to the refurbishment of listed buildings. During his MSc Michael has developed a smartphone application to improve the information provided by photographs taken on site. The academic literature has similar ideas; however these often require additional equipment or processes.  A systems way of thinking led Michael to use existing smartphone cameras to collect richer information that can enhance site monitoring.  When photos are taken on site the orientation and location of the phone is recorded and can be used to categorise photos in a database.