Design of a dashboard for monitoring the performance of a tower crane in a construction project

Abstract

The tower crane is an equipment with a high operating cost and critical for the advancement of vertical constructions. Therefore, the need arises to have instruments that allow controlling the performance of the tower crane in vertical construction projects. In this investigation, a dashboard was created, which makes it possible to measure and control the performance of the tower crane during the execution of the construction project. The designed tool was implemented in the construction of a building with a structural system composed of walls, columns and posttensioned slabs. Only one tower crane was studied. On some occasions, logical and reasonable causes were provided to explain a certain behavior of the analyzed tower crane. However, these causes may be neither the only ones nor the definitive ones. Work sampling was used to obtain representativeness in the samples. It is estimated that the proposed tool will bring the following improvements: focus of the tower crane on the most critical tasks; measurement and improvement of the productivity of various tasks essential for advancement; determination and reduction of the percentage of downtime; better monitoring of incidents and reduction of accidents, which reduces the time in which the project is stopped due to accidents; and, finally, greater monitoring of tower crane maintenance, which reduces the time in which the equipment is stopped due to failures. The cost of implementing the tool presented is viable for most companies in charge of vertical constructions. The cost-benefit ratio of the proposed instrument was estimated at factor of 9.8, which suggests that the benefits of the tool are considerably greater than its costs.