Search results

The future construction site will be pervasive, context aware and embedded with intelligence. The purpose of this paper is to explore and define the concept of the digital skin of the future smart construction site.

The paper provides a systematic and hierarchical classification of 114 articles from both industry and academia on the digital skin concept and evaluates them. The hierarchical classification is based on application areas relevant to construction, such as augmented reality, building information model-based visualisation, labour tracking, supply chain tracking, safety management, mobile equipment tracking and schedule and progress monitoring. Evaluations of the research papers were conducted based on three pillars: validation of technological feasibility, onsite application and user acceptance testing.

Technologies learned about in the literature review enabled the envisaging of the pervasive construction site of the future. The paper presents scenarios for the future context-aware construction site, including the construction worker, construction procurement management and future real-time safety management systems.

Based on the gaps identified by the review in the body of knowledge and on a broader analysis of technology diffusion, the paper highlights the research challenges to be overcome in the advent of digital skin. The paper recommends that researchers follow a coherent process for smart technology design, development and implementation in order to achieve this vision for the construction industry.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

This research paper explores how human resource management can embrace new perspectives to create smart and happy workplaces post-pandemic. Analysis of smart human resources and human resource analytics findings revealed opportunities to connect these areas and to use data-driven talent practices to optimize organizational and individual outcomes. The key results show that aligning smart technologies with competency development, while applying analytics ethically to elevate engagement, can transform competitive advantages. Major managerial insights from the paper include adopting smart tools to actively empower employees, and developing analytics measuring the impact of smart practices on happiness.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Sarah Burroughes and John Bartle describe the highly innovative SMaRT scheme operated by Nottingham Community Housing Association. This demonstrates how the application of new technologies can allow the remodelling of conventional supported accommodation and floating support approaches to create a whole new approach to supporting independence.

Anecdotal evidence abounds of people in workplaces who use common sense in their work practices. Until now, the idea of common sense being a key concept in workplace learning and practice has not been valued too highly. Attempts have been made in psychological and philosophical literature to understand how common sense knowledge differs from theoretical knowledge. This study represents an initial attempt to use people’s experience in workplaces to understand how they see common sense as an important element of workplace learning. Using a phenomenographic research approach, it was revealed that people held seven different understandings of common sense in workplace experiences. For them, common sense was experienced as: a gut feeling, an innate ability, knowing how, learning, using others, demonstrable cognitive abilities, and personal attributes. These variations offer a broader approach to thinking about common sense in work practices.

Highly‐skilled knowledge workers make location decisions in response to many determinants. This paper seeks to focus on life‐time earnings and the desire to pursue a personal research program – a life‐long pursuit of interesting puzzles.

A conceptual discussion and approach are taken.

The paper argues that access to personally interesting research problems and institutional support structures which allow them to be pursued should be considered alongside pure earnings factors in understanding why researchers and scientists move internationally – and why they may stay put when the economic incentives to move appear high. A nation's innovation policies can be important for influencing such workers' decisions and the impact of these policies shaped by migration flows. This little‐researched connection is explored in the final, policy‐oriented section.

Provides insights on why, in a world of intensifying competition for scarce knowledge workers, countries can ill afford negative net migration of highly‐skilled workers.

Divides into two the strategic thinkers on the office of the future – the traditional “business as usual” brigade with large concentrations of staff, or those who advocate permutation of location for employees, who go to work without “going” to work. The former camp dies hard and inroads by the latter have so far been negligible. However, feels that now could well be the point of take‐off for the second approach, with movable sites, movable staff, adaptability of IT (teleworking), leading to greater staff motivation, cost‐effectiveness and increased productivity.

The construction industry remains one of the most hazardous industries worldwide, with a higher number of fatalities and injuries each year. The safety and well-being of workers at a job site are paramount as they face both immediate and long-term risks such as falls and musculoskeletal disorders. To mitigate these dangers, sensor-based technologies have emerged as a crucial tool to promote the safety and well-being of workers on site. The implementation of real-time sensor data-driven monitoring tools can greatly benefit the construction industry by enabling the early identification and prevention of potential construction accidents. This study aims to explore the innovative method of prototype development regarding a safety monitoring system in the form of smart personal protective equipment (PPE) by taking advantage of the recent advances in wearable technology and cloud computing.

The proposed smart construction safety system has been meticulously crafted to seamlessly integrate with conventional safety gear, such as gloves and vests, to continuously monitor construction sites for potential hazards. This state-of-the-art system is primarily geared towards mitigating musculoskeletal disorders and preventing workers from inadvertently entering high-risk zones where falls or exposure to extreme temperatures could occur. The wearables were introduced through the proposed system in a non-intrusive manner where the safety vest and gloves were chosen as the base for the PPE as almost every construction worker would be required to wear them on site. Sensors were integrated into the PPE, and a smartphone application which is called SOTER was developed to view and interact with collected data. This study discusses the method and process of smart PPE system design and development process in software and hardware aspects.

This research study posits a smart system for PPE that utilises real-time sensor data collection to improve worksite safety and promote worker well-being. The study outlines the development process of a prototype that records crucial real-time data such as worker location, altitude, temperature and hand pressure while handling various construction objects. The collected data are automatically uploaded to a cloud service, allowing supervisors to monitor it through a user-friendly smartphone application. The worker tracking ability with the smart PPE can help to alleviate the identified issues by functioning as an active warning system to the construction safety management team. It is steadily evident that the proposed smart PPE system can be utilised by the respective industry practitioners to ensure the workers' safety and well-being at construction sites through monitoring of the workers with real-time sensor data.

The proposed smart PPE system assists in reducing the safety risks posed by hazardous environments as well as preventing a certain degree of musculoskeletal problems for workers. Ultimately, the current study unveils that the construction industry can utilise cloud computing services in conjunction with smart PPE to take advantage of the recent advances in novel technological avenues and bring construction safety management to a new level. The study significantly contributes to the prevailing knowledge of construction safety management in terms of applying sensor-based technologies in upskilling construction workers' safety in terms of real-time safety monitoring and safety knowledge sharing.

Through the resource-based view (RBV) and contingency theory, this study empirically investigates the impacts of smart manufacturing systems' maturity levels on the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Moreover, it aims to examine how industry types (i.e. high- and low-tech industries) and human-resource factors (i.e. the proportion of production workers to total workers) as contingency factors influence the effects of smart manufacturing systems.

The study conducted an empirical investigation of a sample of 163 Korean manufacturing SMEs. This study used an ordinary least squares regression to examine the impacts of the maturity levels of smart manufacturing systems on financial performance. Moreover, the impacts on operational efficiency were analysed using data envelopment analysis based on bootstrap methods and Tobit regression.

The RBV results indicate that the higher the maturity levels of smart manufacturing systems, the higher the financial performance and operational efficiency. Moreover, based on contingency theory, this study reveals that the effect of the maturity levels of smart manufacturing systems on financial performance and operational efficiency depends on firms' industry types and the proportion of production workers.

This study shows that the introduction of smart manufacturing systems can help SMEs achieve better financial performance and operational efficiency. However, their effectiveness is contingent on firms' industry types and the characteristics of their human resources.

Since the effects of the maturity levels of smart manufacturing systems on SME performance differ depending on their industries and the characteristics of human resources, managers need to consider them when introducing or investing in smart manufacturing systems.

Based on the RBV and contingency theory, this is the first empirical study to examine the moderating effects of industry types and the proportion of production workers on the impacts of the maturity levels of smart manufacturing systems on the financial performance and operational efficiency of SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main features of smart work centers (SWCs) and show how these innovative offices would support the implementation of smart working and related changes in workspaces (“bricks”), technologies (“bytes”) and organizational practices (“behaviors”).

In this study, scientific literature is combined with white papers and business reports and visits to 14 workplaces, including offices designed as SWCs, co-working spaces, one telecenter, one accelerator and one fab lab. Primary data were collected through interviews with managers and users and non-participant observation, whereas secondary data included web-sites, brochures, presentations, press releases and official documents.

The authors developed research propositions about how the design of spaces and the availability of technology within SWCs would support the “bricks” and “bytes” levers of smart working. More importantly, the authors assumed that this new type of workplace would sustain changes in employees’ behaviors and managers’ practices, thus helping to overcome several challenges traditionally associated with remote working.

The exploratory nature of the research only provides preliminary information about the role of SWCs within smart working programs. Additional qualitative and quantitative empirical investigation is required.

This study provides valuable knowledge about how the design of corporate offices can be leveraged to sustain the implementation of smart working.

This study advances knowledge on workplaces by focusing on an innovative design of traditional offices (SWC). It also lays the foundations for future investigation aimed at testing the developed propositions.

Most scholarly and governmental discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) today focus on a country’s technological competitiveness and try to identify how this supposedly new technological capability will improve productivity. Some discussions look at AI ethics. But AI is more than a technological advancement. It is a social question and requires philosophical inquiry. The producers of AI who are software engineers and designers, and software users who are human resource professionals and managers, unconsciously as well as consciously project direct forms of intelligence onto machines themselves, without considering in any depth the practical implications of this when weighed against human actual or perceived intelligences. Neither do they think about the relations of production that are required for the development and production of AI and its capabilities, where data-producing human workers are expected not only to accept the intelligences of machines, now called ‘smart machines’, but also to endure particularly difficult working conditions for bodies and minds in the process of creating and expanding the datasets that are required for the development of AI itself. This chapter asks, who is the smart worker today and how does she contribute to AI through her quantified, but embodied labour?