- Managing, tracking and maintaining equipment
- Checking the inventory of building supplies and tools
- Tracking on-site personnel and authorizing on-site visitors
- Tracking and managing personnel time and schedules
- Securing and protecting job sites
- Implementing and monitoring safety
RFID can help to systematize on-site productivity to ensure the efficient operation of equipment, tools and personnel and increase safety and security to prevent costly losses and unforeseen expenses.
Exploring RFID in the Non-Residential Construction Industry
The availability and working conditions of equipment, supplies and tools as well as visibility of personnel and visitors on site are critical for efficient production and security during each stage of the building process. Our experience in customizing RFID solutions provides the opportunity to develop a solution that improves accessibility and visibility of various assets and personnel for optimum efficiency and cost management on job sites.
Applying Equipment Management
Forklifts, excavators, lifters and loaders and various other vital equipment on non-residential construction sites, all need to be present and in working order to ensure optimum efficiency of the building process. Expensive, heavy-duty equipment such as backhoes, bulldozers and graders should be protected at all times to prevent property loss or damage which could lead to costly, time consuming halts in production and replacement expenses; work stoppage also leads to delayed processing of building permits and building codes. The fundamentals of RFID can eliminate the guesswork out of equipment management and creates accurate data of equipment utilization and the precise location of equipment on-site. Every piece of equipment can be tagged with specialized RFID Tags. Each tag is programmed with the equipment’s detailed information. Once added to the Asset Tracking System, the equipment can be monitored for usage, maintenance records, and real-time location. This not only reduces damage and theft: it ultimately ensures that projects are completed in a timely manner avoiding costly delay penalties.
Applying Inventory Management
In addition, the ability to track asset provides a way to precisely track construction inventory throughout the site, and not only enables manager and contractors of Non-Residential Construction to determine when to replenish supplies but also reduces tool and material loss or damage. The ability to track asset can employ both RFID and GPS technology (for large, remote sites) and enables managers and contractors to effortlessly tally tools and inventory at the end of shifts/work day. This takes human intervention out of the equation, significantly removing the guesswork and fully automated the inventory management process.
Applying People Tracking
Construction project management which includes overseeing personnel tasks and hours is critical for cost efficiency of Non-Residential Construction sites; labor costs on sites comprise approximately 40 percent of the overall project costs. The ability to track people enables contractors and managers to calculate productivity in correlation to actual hours of personnel labor; tracking personnel to locate their exact positions as well as tasks assigned on site, makes it easy to predict and assess cost and hours of labor. Workers who may be working from great heights and out of the field of vision of managers and contractors can easily be located as each worker will have an RFID Tag on their body. Managers and contractors can also easily create precise schedules eliminating the double-booking of workers or overscheduling workers. Workplace fatigue (which is a leading cause of injuries and fatalities) are reduced creating a safer and healthier job-site.
Applying Access Control
Many Non-Residential Construction projects require that hundreds of workers be onsite making it difficult to identify which employees have entered or exited at any given time. Securing access to construction site perimeters is vital to eradicating the risks of unauthorized visitors entering the site. Site access control also decreases discrepancies in payroll as labor is documented. By giving each personnel an RFID Tag, RFID allows only personnel with the correct credentials such as architects, engineers, and inspectors to access the site or specific areas of the site, in turn greatly reducing the chances of injury and damage. The system is also ideal for estimating the ideal number of workers for each phase and task of the construction process; this not only optimizes operations but also keeps budgets on track. RFID is also a valuable tool to quickly locate personnel on-site in emergency situations. The system saves time and gives contractors and managers a piece of mind to focus on the tasks at hand.
Integrating with your Existing Management Software
Once developed, our specialized RFID Systems can be deployed as a standalone solution or can be integrated with other software solutions, according to each customer’s needs. At the core of our solution is GAO RFID’s AUTO-ID Engine which incorporates middleware and essential RFID functions that perform RFID data collection and information processing. Our AUTO-ID Engine seamlessly integrates with a wide variety of construction management systems so that you can access the data it collects directly via the system or systems you currently have in place. Our team comprises of seasoned professionals that can combine our RFID experience with your industry experience and provide a customized solution that will smoothly integrate the appropriate GAO RFID Solution with your IT architecture. The result is an RFID solution that is seamlessly unified with your construction management system. We can work with you to integrate the RFID tracking data collected from our custom solution with today’s leading information management systems in your industry.
Contact us for more information on how a RFID Non-Residential Construction System can be developed for your organization.