The argument for fully automated construction waste management
I want to design robots for a class assignment
Reduced liability and cost for the company
Robots can’t request workman’s compensation or sue their employer for an injury. In 2010 out of all the construction industry’s spending on employee compensation, 4.4% was spent on workman comp, almost 3 times as much as any other industry. [1] A lot of these risk factors have to do with the age and experience of the workers, younger or newer workers tend to file for more workman’s comp than older, experienced ones. between 2005–2008 the costs from low level fall injuries [usually inexperienced workers] cost $427 million annually and made up for around 60% of workman’s comp claims. [2] With this information as an example, replacing human workers with mechanical ones would eliminate the trend of younger or newer workers injuring themselves and would eliminate the need for workman’s comp entirely when it came to managing construction waste. This would also save time on site for workers busy building, which leads into my next point:
Efficiency
Robots, not being human, do not need to stop working to eat or to use the bathroom or to rest. They can be programmed to do tasks in the most efficient manner possible and will not stray from the given instructions. Though, alternatively, if deep learning were used, the robots could learn and teach themselves the most efficient way of handing and disposing of waste on-site. For example, they could initially be programmed to pick up a piece of scrap metal and take it to the correct disposal bin and then for every new waste item encountered repeat that action. But if the robot were to be self teaching or utilize machine learning, it might first organize all of the same waste into one pile and then move it all at once to save time and space. Multiple robots could also be used for this and each of them could focus on one material to sort or dispose of. Also, there’s the simple fact that machines are faster than humans.
Cost [again]
The initial cost of fully automating any part of an industry is astronomically high, there’s really no getting around that. BUT over time this will ultimately pay off in the form of [as mentioned earlier] no workman’s comp, no need to pay your mechanical employees salary, no need to pay for time off or give raises…etc. The overwhelming point we kept coming back to in our project research is that time is money. Most building managers don’t want to put in the time to sort construction waste, and opt to toss it, since it ultimately costs more to recycle it because of the effort it takes. With a fully automated system taking care of a usually labor intensive and time consuming job, will eventually pay for itself in the very long run.
Quality control
This goes back to efficiency, but robots are able to preform the same task over and over with no variation. In something like construction or sorting waste, this is very important. With human workers, the tedious and hard task of sorting waste is wide open for error. if you’re tired or not paying attention you may place one material in the wrong bin, or get fed up and just toss it in the trash when you get too tired. Robots won’t do this, ensuring 100% quality control and the ability to truly reduce, reuse and recycle construction waste.
Examples of automation and AI in construction currently in use
The ATMA truck, it “learns” from a regular truck that it follows around. The regular truck has a NAV system that will send GPS signals to the ATMA truck so it follows it’s exact path.
Autonomous equipment driving technology from 3D Robotics+ United rentals. This heavy machinery is being used in select rental yards and can be “called” by a person with a tag in something called “pied-piper” mode. The machines will also always sense a person wearing a tag in order to avoid hitting them, it doesn’t matter if the wearer is behind a wall or a bush, the robot will still “see” them and avoid hitting them.
