Location-Based Planning to Promote Safe Distancing During Construction Activities

Brazil has been harshly affected by COVID-19. Several decrees applicable at a national and local level have been emitted with general and specific protocols for construction activities aiming at social distancing. Location-Based Planning (LBP) is a valuable technique to size and allocate crews considering space availability; thus, there is an opportunity to test this production planning and control approach to support social distance at construction sites. This work proposes using LBP to verify and measure crews’ conflicts at the construction site to keep social distance as part of the COVID-19 measurement. The research was designed into two phases: (1) characterization of the scenario regarding the implementation of social distancing measures based on surveys, and (2) identification of crews’ conflicts in location-based planning and implementation of actions against Covid-19 based on a case study. The results indicated that the proposed LBP and the Minimum Distance Indicator (MDI) could help identify and reduce total and unsafe crew conflicts. The main contribution of this work is a practical implementation to verify the possibility and effectiveness of using LBP associated with indicators to promote social distancing at construction sites.