Mathematical optimization methods for inner-city construction site layout planning: a systematic review

To optimize productivity and safety on a construction site, it is necessary to ensure that work crew movements are safe, easy, quick, and short. Besides, space is a limited resource in inner-city building construction and needs to be utilized optimally. Thus, mathematical methods have been employed to solve project optimization problems such as allocating construction space requirements by construction site layout planning (CSLP). This paper is aimed to present a systematic review of mathematical optimization methods used for CSLP by evaluating their effectiveness for inner-city sites: integrating the space requirements, objective function formulation, and the evolution of the methods, and then developing a framework for optimization problem formulation. Thus, a total of 99 articles on CSLP methods from journals that have been published in 27 publishers were selected for analysis. The results indicate a consistent and increasing interest in mathematical optimization methods, with the Metaheuristic class methods being dominantly applied for CSLP. Although the frequently cited optimization goals are crew productivity and safety, they are represented by a multi-objective function that only minimizes the crew movement distance among Temporary Facilities (TFs). Therefore, this study concludes that existing approaches are ineffective and proposes an optimization problem formulation variables matrix and framework for an integrated CSLP that considers crew movement from the working area to TFs and among TFs to optimize work crew productivity and safety in inner-city sites.