These eight subsystems were submitted and explained to three directors of Heijmans non-residential during face-to-face interviews. During these interviews, the directors were asked about which RFID systems looks worthwhile to implement in projects, based on the judgement variables ‘Applicability’, ‘Impact’, ‘Costs’ and ‘Benefits’ on a scale from ‘1’ (a very bad performance) to ‘5’ (a very good performance). Therefore, each director fills in an empty version of Table 29 Validation RFID systems author on page 45 from his point of view. The directors should be able to judge the potential added values of these systems in non-residential construction projects of Heijmans since these directors covers most of the responsibilities of the projects at Heijmans non-residential. These are the directors of the contemplated departments which should apply these RFID systems. The findings of all the three directors will be interchanged between the directors after the last interview in order to validate the findings, obtain new insights and it will serve as a triangulation feature of the findings to guard the internal validity of this study. The findings will be given below. The directors are:
- Director of ‘Design and Engineering’ - Director of ‘Projects’ (Realization) - Director of ‘Maintenance & Utilization’
5.6.1 Validation by the director of ‘Design and Engineering’
This director sees many interesting applications of a RFID system in the projects of Heijmans non- residential. Even, he made the question:‘why do we not apply this technology already?’. The director sees many advantageous for the main contractor but less for subcontractors, manufacturers and logistic service providers. Therefore, the main contractor should pay companies earlier in the supply chain to attach the RFID tags to their products. The costs of the systems consist mainly of the RFID tags since the other costs can be spread out over multiple projects. For this director, it is of great value to have more information about the performances of the realization phase and the utilization phase since it can help to sharpening the tender price of Heijmans in new projects. Heijmans should become owner of this data, rather than submitted to clients, after a maintenance period, or project partners since this data has a great competitive advantage. The cost/benefit ratio can be expressed as follows:
€ Realization phase + € Exploitation phase + # = ℎ ℎ
RFID System Sub system Applicability Impact Costs Benefits Total
Subsystem A. ‘Sustainability’ Re-use products 4 4 4 4 12 Reduce kilometres 2 3 3 3 11 Subsystem B. ‘Productivity’ Off-site 1 2 1 2 6 On-site 3 3 2 4 12 Subsystem C. ‘Control’ Arrival 5 4 2 5 16 Storage 3 2 2 3 10 Subsystem D. ‘Building Management’ Information 3 2 1 4 10 Sensors 4 3 3 5 15
Page|48
5.6.2 Validation by the director of ‘Projects’
This director recognized the differences in the structural part and installation part of non-residential construction projects. Heijmans outsource many of the structural related activities. The activities related to the installation part of a project are different since products are ordered by the internet, there are digital invoices and the products are mainly finished products (compared to the structural activities which mainly order products by phone or fax, uses paper based invoices and products are often composed of multiple other products). The suppliers for the installation part of a project are often only a few big wholesalers, which can perfectly manage the material flows. In case of creating information about the outsourced activities, the director recognized the danger of becoming partly responsible for the outsourced activity once Heijmans has information over it. It is not without a reason that Heijmans outsourced some of his activities. The added values this director recognizes are related to the utilization phase, however, a well-organized BIM model offers already many of these added values.
RFID System Sub system Applicability Impact Costs Benefits Total
Subsystem A.
‘Sustainability’ Re-use products
3 1 2 1 7 Reduce kilometres 4 2 4 1 11 Subsystem B. ‘Productivity’ Off-site 1 1 2 1 5 On-site 1 1 2 1 5 Subsystem C. ‘Control’ Arrival 3 1 3 2 9 Storage 4 3 3 3 13 Subsystem D. ‘Building Management’ Information 3 3 3 3 12 Sensors 5 5 3 5 18
Table 31 Validation director department of 'Projects'
5.6.3 Validation by the director of ‘Maintenance & Utilization’
This director was apportioned about the RFID system since the director sees only an added value in very specific cases. In general, the products have to be high-value goods (between €25.000, - and €50.000, - a piece). This has to do with its impact on time, quality and budget when such a product is missing. The director mentioned the unwillingness of clients to pay extra for a more sustainable realization phase or a more sustainable building. A contractor cannot bring in extra sustainable measures since they cost extra money while the contracting authority during a tender mainly is focussed on the project price. This director sees a great value in the subsystem ‘Information’ since the tags can store locally as-built drawings, leaving the multiple revision drawings apart. However, the revenue model of Heijmans will change once subcontractors uses the right information, lowering the proportion of work Heijmans has to do for them. The director also recognized that more information is not always better for a project team.
RFID System Sub system Applicability Impact Costs Benefits Total
Subsystem A.
‘Sustainability’ Re-use products
4 1 4 4 13 Reduce kilometres 5 1 1 1 8 Subsystem B. ‘Productivity’ Off-site 1 1 5 1 8 On-site 2 3 4 3 12 Subsystem C. ‘Control’ Arrival 5 4 3 4 16 Storage 2 2 4 2 10 Subsystem D. ‘Building Management’ Information 5 4 4 4 17 Sensors 3 3 3 3 12
Sustainability Control
Building Management Productivity
5.7 In conclusion
In this chapter, eight RFID subsystems were identified and explained. These subsystems are conceived, based on the findings from the within-case and cross-case analysis, made in Paragraph 4.1 and Paragraph 4.2 of Chapter 4 Results Interviews. The eight identified RFID subsystems are:
* Re-use products * Arrival
* Reduce kilometres * Storage
* Off-site * Information
* On-site * Sensors
These eight subsystems are compared in paragraph 5.5 with the use of comparable variables (seeTable 19 Comparison variables RFID systems on page 36). Afterwards, each subsystem has been judged, based on the findings obtained in this study so far, on the subjects‘Applicability’, ‘Impact’, ‘Costs’, and ‘Benefits’. Simultaneously, these 8 RFID subsystems were submitted and explained to the following directors:
- Director of ‘Design and Engineering’ - Director of ‘Projects’ (Realization) - Director of ‘Maintenance & Utilization’
These directors have judged the eight subsystems on these four judgement variables as well. The findings of the directors has been given in Paragraph 5.6. One can see the variation in the findings between the three directors and the findings of this research in this paragraph. The most remarkable findings in these judgements are coloured in the table below:
Validators
A = Director of Design & Engineering B = Director of Projects (Realization) C = Director of Maintenance & Utilization D = Researcher of this study
RFID System Sub system Applicability Impact Costs Benefits Total
Validator: A B C D A B C D A B C D A B C D A B C D*
Subsystem A.
‘Sustainability’ Re-use products
4 3 4 1 4 1 1 5 4 2 4 2 4 1 4 4 12 7 13 15 Reduce kilometres 2 4 5 5 3 2 1 4 3 4 1 3 3 1 1 3 11 11 8 17 Subsystem B. ‘Productivity’ Off-site 1 1 1 4 2 1 1 2 1 2 5 3 2 1 1 3 6 5 8 14 On-site 3 1 2 2 3 1 3 1 2 2 4 1 4 1 3 3 12 5 12 8 Subsystem C. ‘Control’ Arrival 5 3 5 3 4 1 4 5 2 3 3 3 5 2 4 5 16 9 16 20 Storage 3 4 2 4 2 3 2 4 2 3 4 1 3 3 2 4 10 13 10 18 Subsystem D. ‘Building Management’ Information 3 3 5 3 2 3 4 5 1 3 4 5 4 3 4 4 10 12 17 22 Sensors 4 5 3 2 3 5 3 2 3 3 3 2 5 5 3 3 15 18 12 11 Table 33 Summary of the findings of the validators
(*findings of the total score are included the priority of the experts from the case studies)
Based on the total score of all validators, see total score in Table 29 until Table 32 and the relative score assigned by the experts of the case studies (Table 15 Most important added value of a RFID system in Paragraph 4.1.6 Prioritization added values on page 27), the following RFID subsystems are considered to be worthwhile to implement to improve the construction logistics of non-residential construction projects (the total score has been given between brackets):
1. System C. Control: subsystem ‘Arrival’ (61)
2. System D. Building Management: subsystem ‘Information’ (61)
3. System D. Building Management: subsystem ‘Sensors’ (56)
4. System C. Control: subsystem ‘Storage’ (51)
5. System A. Sustainability: subsystem ‘Re-use products’ (47) 6. System A. Sustainability: subsystem ‘Reduce kilometres’ (47)
7. System B. Productivity: subsystem ‘Off-site’ (37)
8. System B. Productivity: subsystem ‘On-site’ (33)
Although the three subsystems ‘Arrival’, ‘Information’ and ‘Sensors’ are considered worthwhile to implement, the diversity in the findings of all validators visualizes the differences in the level of support by these validators, which will obstruct the implementation of a RFID subsystem in practice. Conclusions will be drawn upon in the following chapter.
Worthwhile to implement