Location tracking and data visualization technology to advance construction ironworkers' education and training in safety and productivity

• Construction worker education and training can leverage more technology.
• Technology is shown that tracks and visualizes the location of workers in real-time.
• Algorithms were developed that allow safety and work sampling analysis.
• The approach was tested in a worker training center under realistic conditions.
• Objective data recording and information visualization are possible.

Most construction worker education and training environments apply traditional teaching methods to educate workers about hazards and productivity in the workplace. Many rely on using conventional teacher–student classroom settings, but there are few effective interactive methods applied which can objectively engage trainer and trainees and assess their performance during and after training sessions. Presented is a novel approach towards integrating real-time location tracking and three-dimensional immersive data visualization technologies in existing construction worker education and training environments. The scope is limited to steel-erection tasks performed by union ironworkers in an indoor training center. Results to analysis and visualization of the gathered data from training session are shown. The potential for assessing and improving the trainers' and apprentices' safety and productivity performance is explained. Since such technologies have hardly been used as part of existing construction education and training techniques, the opportunities including return on investment and user feedback were studied. The results show that unsafe practices in worker training environments can be detected and visualized and furthermore their training effectiveness can be indirectly measured.

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