COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS OF 3D TERRESTRIAL LASER SCANNING IN CONSTRUCTION QUALITY ASSESSMENT

Abstract

With the development of technology, new equipment has been adopted in construction quality assessment, including 3D Terrestrial Laser Scanner. The construction industry, however, is still hesitant of adopting new quality assessment method due to the lack of information on the cost and benefit of the new technology. The traditional quality assessment method of Manual Inspection using Laser Surveying Tool is still the choice of construction company if no thorough study has been carried out to examine what benefits 3D Terrestrial Laser Scanning (3D TLS) Technology can bring. This research aims to conduct comprehensive Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) on three quality assessment methods and make recommendations accordingly. Interviews with Lian Ho Lee Construction PTE. LTD. (LHL) were conducted to acquire important data collected from the past LHL’s 3D TLS project. The data was further processed for detailed CBA to be made. The analysis results show that 3D TLS with Automatic Data Analysis function could potentially be the future industry solution due to its low time spent, low cost and high accuracy. Traditional quality assessment method, on the other hand, is not a reasonable choice in a long term perspective. At the end of each CBA, recommendation tables were developed for organizations to select the most appropriate quality assessment method according to their needs.