INTEGRATION OF TABLETS AND SMARTPHONES IN CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS: CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS

The construction sector has a high degree of decentralisation of information, a high degree of mobility and a high rate of mobile content access in comparison with other big industries. Consequently, there are trending investigations for implementing mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets in the industry. This paper is aimed at reviewing the main technologies related to mobile devices as well as suggesting solutions to some of the main challenges of the construction sector by adopting smartphones, tablets and their latest technologies. A literature review was performed highlighting the main technologies that currently can be used to develop solutions to construction projects such as Augmented Reality (AR), Building Information Modelling (BIM), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Cloud Computing (CC) and Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC). It was found that these technologies have been merged in order to provide solutions for complex challenges in construction projects. In addition, a case study was analysed where BIM, GIS, and MCC were implemented in order to successfully address the project's requirements. The review of the literature provided enough information for this paper to suggest solutions to some of the main challenges in the construction sector, namely: materials, finance, design, knowledge and management.

Keywords: mobile cloud computing; AEC sector; augmented reality; Building Information Modelling; Geographic Information Systems.