Feasibility of an Automated Inspection Process Adoption for Quality Housing Delivery in South Africa

Housing inspection is an essential task to ensure quality delivery during construction operations, in accordance with relevant building manuals and standards. It is critical to ensure that customers are satisfied with housing delivery by monitoring construction activities per stage inspections. The evidence gathered from housing construction inspectors as well as from previous studies suggests that the effectiveness and efficiency of inspection processes currently in the South African construction industry are unsatisfactory. This paper reports on South African research that explores the feasibility of adopting an automated inspection approach to incorporate digital technologies such as 3D laser scanners, drone technologies, and Building Information Modeling (BIM) into the housing construction inspection process to facilitate more effective and efficient data collection, processing, and reporting for improvement of the inspection process. The paper also discusses the interview results of housing construction inspectors about the possibility of adopting an automated inspection approach. The results show that the automated approach with the new digital technologies has the potential to improve housing construction inspection for the delivery of quality housing. The research efforts will also enhance the current knowledge of the housing construction inspection process.