Industry Challenge

Problem Statement

In a large construction site, hundreds of workers enter the site in a 15-minute time duration in the morning and leave the site in a similar time span in the evening at the end of the shift. Recording their attendance in such a short span of time is a laborious process. Moreover, the job is not permanent in nature and workers keep changing quite often. Recognising such a large number of workers, controlling, and managing them is not an easy affair. Hence, automation is the only way out, which includes registering each worker with all relevant details including his biometrics, recording all his in-out movements using face recognition or such similar methods and/or access control systems. Using such an automated attendance recording system, the wage computation and disbursement of the same through banks also could be automated.

Problem Definition

The real problem starts once these workers punch-in. They punch in at the entrance and then move towards their work spot which could be in a slightly far away tower and at a higher floor of a high-rise building. In a large construction site, there will be hundreds of partially completed rooms/flats spread over multiple towers and floors. If a worker chooses not to work after punching in, he has got enough places to go, sit and relax which in many cases goes unnoticed and/or is very difficult to catch. Moreover, labour cost comprises around 20% of the cost of construction of a building, which is quite substantial. Less monitored, tracked and supervised workforce, mostly migrant labourers in nature, having a very low level of commitment as well as skill set (more than 95% of the workers in the construction sector are not formally trained) can result in a substantial cost increase. The increase in cost could be of many reasons like,

- Lesser work output

- Higher wastage

- Poor quality of work and the resultant reworks

The cost increase on account of the above could be as high as 10-15% of the total project cost. In other words, the entire profit from the project will get nullified and the project will go into the RED. Therefore, it is important that every worker who has checked in reports at his work spot without time loss, engaged productively in identifiable (at any point of time including in future) works, with the output for the day recorded against the worker.

Every item of work is booked against respective workers and is identifiable at any point of time (even after a long time). Complete record of output quantity, quality of work and rework history will also be available. Average work output of each worker over a period, best as well as poor performers could also be identified. Great performers could be incentivised, and poor performers could be retrenched. Every worker who has punched in will have to be booked against a specific item of work in the beginning of the shift and the output quantity as well as a quality recorded at the end of the shift.

PROPOSED SYSTEM

The proposed system is a smart phone/tab based one. The system uses predesigned information (item of work, its measurements, specification etc.) loaded sketches for work allocation and recording the outputs. No physical measurement or calculation is involved. By doing so, the system will also give you automated work progress in terms of cumulative quantity of each item of work completed, work in progress and percentage completion/progress of each item as well as the entire project. Balance work of each item, the resources and time required for the same also will be readily available. 

Reconciliation of materials and manpower used, comparison of such expenditures with allowable expenses etc. are to be automatically done. 

Proposed system will be considered as a module extension from the existing attendance management module, where attendance details can be fed in real time to the module as and when needed. 

Simplicity and ease of use by the supervisors by click, drag operation, in areas of work on a floor plan image, through the Tablet/Smartphone App is envisioned. 

Linking or working with BIM or some such system to be explored.