DEVELOPING RFID-BASED ELECTRONIC SPECIMEN AND TEST CODING SYSTEM IN CONSTRUCTION QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Although the collection of a detailed, accurate and sufficient volume of information,
and subsequent timely delivery are vital for effective quality control and management in
construction, existing methods for material and specimen tests and laboratory activities are
manually reliant on the human recourse to paper and pencil. Data collected using manual methods
are time and labour-intensive. They are also error-prone due to the reluctance of workers to
monitor and record the flow of large quantities of tests. This study investigates an automated
approach that deals with a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) facilitated quality management
system. The proposed system focuses on the gathering, monitoring, managing, and sharing of
accurate data amongst all participants (i.e. consultants, contractors and owners) and also in the
material test laboratory. In this research, the need for a new coding system is highlighted in which
RFID tagging has to be taken into consideration. In order to automate the task of specimen
identification and quality data collection in any laboratory activity, each RFID tag is equipped with
a unique Electronic Specimen and Test Code (ESTCode). An ESTCode is used as a specimen and
test identity code, which forms the base of reports and contains related information for a particular
specimen and test. In order to form the backbone of technology adoption in real scenarios, and to
identify driving factors in this field, this paper also introduces an implementation framework for
the selected technology in construction quality management.