Cutting-edge research presented at CIB W78 Conference

Dr Aritra Pal, LORC Research Associate, and Asitha Rathnayake, PhD Candidate, presented two research papers at the 41st International Conference of CIB W78 in Marrakech, Morocco.

Dr Pal’s paper, co-authored with Dr Danny Murguia and Professor Campbell Middleton, was titled Automatic Inference of Construction Delays through Analysis of Weekly Progress Reports Using LLMs. This research presents an automated method to extract and analyse delay causes from construction project reports using natural language processing techniques. This was demonstrated by analysing 44 weekly progress reports and categorising delays by location and nature. The research also introduced a flowline diagram to visualise discrepancies between planned and actual construction timelines, explaining these gaps through identified delay causes. The findings aim to enhance the accuracy and efficiency of delay analysis, improving decision-making in project management.

Asitha Rathnayake’s paper, co-authored with Dr Danny Murguia, Dr Ashan Senel Asmone and Professor Campbell Middleton, was titled Modelling Patterns in Construction Labour Productivity. This paper presented a novel workflow to consistently extract, analyse and present available productivity data from construction sites. It was demonstrated using data from the structural frames of 11 buildings, totalling 116-floor levels. The paper also explored the concept of learning curve theory and found that, while having a learning curve does not necessarily signify good performance, its shape can reflect labour management practices on projects.