Construction worker hoisting simulation for sky-lobby lifting system

Effectively transporting construction workers to their workspaces located at height is crucial in high-rise building constructions because excessive hoisting time can lead to productivity loss and schedule delay. High-rise building constructions are characterized by a small number of hoisting equipment and a large amount of construction resources to be hoisted. Accordingly, a sky lobby system has been applied in high-rise building construction sites to increase the performance of lift systems. However, the performance of sky lobby systems can be significantly changed according to the configuration factors, such as the number of shuttle and local lift cars and the sky lobby floor location. Nevertheless, previous studies did not yet focus on the relationship between these factors and the performance of sky lobby systems. Therefore, we examined herein that relationship by using a discrete event simulation method. Through the simulation experiment, we found that the configuration parameters could have a significant influence on the system performance. The configuration parameters showed non-linear and complex patterns in the lifting performance, thereby making it difficult to find an effective configuration method to increase the performance of lift systems and even deteriorating the performance of lift systems in the commonly used range of configuration parameters. Therefore, the configuration parameters of the sky lobby system should be more carefully planned with quantitative methods before being applied to high-rise building constructions.