Mapping the Practice of Site Layout Planning in the Construction Industry

Marcano Pina, Agnei Victoria

Mapping the Practice of Site Layout Planning in the Construction Industry

dc.contributor.advisor	Sadeghpour, Farnaz
dc.contributor.author	Marcano Pina, Agnei Victoria
dc.contributor.committeemember	Zangeneh, Pouya
dc.contributor.committeemember	Caird, Jeffrey
dc.date	2023-11
dc.date.accessioned	2023-07-17T18:20:10Z
dc.date.available	2023-07-17T18:20:10Z
dc.date.issued	2023-07
dc.description.abstract	Site Layout Planning (SLP) is a key activity for construction management and the overall success of construction projects. Past studies in this field have approached multiple techniques to solve SLP as a decision-making optimization problem. However, construction practitioners in the industry typically use intangible or subjective methods to plan the site layout, with the support of multiple tools that are not directly designed for planning construction sites. The mismatch between the available developments from research and actual methods approached in practice directed to the exploration of the practice of SLP conducted by practitioners to define the requirements needed in an SLP tool. Semi-structured interviews were conducted among forty-seven highly experienced construction practitioners who self-identified as fully responsible of SLP activities. Constructivist grounded theory and content analysis were used as the methodological basis to collect and analyze the data. From the analysis of 18635 transcript lines, 5028 codes were obtained, resulting in 190 labels, 60 categories, and 5 themes. The emergent themes describe the components of SLP as site characteristics, purpose, decision-making variables, tools and technology, and planning perspectives. The first part of the results details the practice of SLP, and the considerations and approaches taken by SLP practitioners when conducting a SLP, where the focus is to produce a functional site layout in the early stages of the project. The final part of the results presents the tools and functionalities that practitioners currently use to plan a site layout and highlights the need to integrate these functions and requirements into a single tool that can be practical for the construction industry. The requirements include resource properties and pairwise spatial relationships, planning documents and regulations, layout assessment metrics, and tool modules that facilitate addressing every stage of the planning as identified in the first part of the results. Finally, the aim of this study was to present a guideline for future developments in SLP to ensure their implementation in practical settings. This guideline was designed through the exploration of processes, needs, and requirements of the final users.
dc.identifier.citation	Marcano Pina, A. V. (2023). Mapping the practice of site layout planning in the construction industry (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1880/116753
dc.identifier.uri	https://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/41595
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher.faculty	Graduate Studies
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.
dc.subject	site layout planning
dc.subject	construction industry
dc.subject	planning tools
dc.subject.classification	Engineering--Civil
dc.title	Mapping the Practice of Site Layout Planning in the Construction Industry
dc.type	master thesis
thesis.degree.discipline	Engineering – Civil
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary
thesis.degree.name	Master of Science (MSc)
ucalgary.thesis.accesssetbystudent	I do not require a thesis withhold – my thesis will have open access and can be viewed and downloaded publicly as soon as possible.