JAPAN'S AUTOMATED WORKFORCE

Abstract

The findings of an ACI-sponsored study mission to Japan are reported. The Japanese have found that greater automation and robotic technology at the building site can boost productivity, improve safety and working conditions, and help compensate for the smaller construction work force. Assembly line techniques and robotic systems once found only in factories have moved onto the construction site. In Japan, machines that can replace workers are called construction robots. These machines operate on automation levels that range from those that repeat a fixed sequence to those that determine their own action based on recognizing their surrounding environment. Some are operated by remote control. Experimental and practical construction robots have been used to build tunnels, maintain buildings, and demolish structures. The article describes equipment to screed, finish and grind concrete floors, and fabricate reinforcement. Machines for placing concrete, consolidating concrete, cutting concrete, painting exterior walls, and constructing tunnels and tunnel linings are described.