Optimisation of site layout planning for multiple construction stages with safety considerations and requirements

This paper develops a mathematical formulation to model and optimise site facility locations inside a construction site for a construction project's different stages. The existence and dimensions of a construction project's available locations and site facilities can be varied across the construction stages. Without proper planning, unnecessary facility relocations may be required in each construction stage, resulting in a higher construction cost and longer construction time due to the need to dismantle and set up site facilities. Site layout plans should be optimised using a multiple-stage model to avoid unnecessary changes to facility settings across construction stages, improving efficiency. The proposed site layout problem with multiple construction stages is formulated as a binary-mixed-integer-linear programme, which can be solved by a standard branch-and-bound algorithm using the commercial software package LINGO. The mathematical objective function established in the solution process aims to minimise the total cost, which consists of the material transportation cost between the relevant site facilities and the dismantling, setup and relocation costs for all of the involved site facilities in each construction stage. Numerical examples using the proposed mathematical model to optimise different site layout settings for a construction site are given, including (1) a reference site layout plan using the conventional static single-stage approach, (2) a multiple-stage construction site layout plan and (3) a multiple-stage site layout plan with additional safety design considerations. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.