A framework for real-time simulation of heavy construction operations

This paper describes a framework of real-time simulation for modeling heavy construction operations. Compared with the traditional offline simulation that uses stationary inputs, the capability of real-time simulation to dynamically incorporate new project data and adapt to changes in the operating environment offers the promise of improving the accuracy of project forecasting. In the proposed real-time simulation framework, dynamic data from construction operations are constantly captured and fed into a process-simulation model for short-term scheduling purposes. A prototype system was developed to demonstrate the structure of the proposed framework and its feasibility. The benefits of this simulation approach and future research requirements for achieving a higher-level modeling automation are also discussed in this paper.