| Informal, verbal communication of work instructions negatively affects labor productivity, workface questions, rework, and safety. Despite this, contractors rely on verbal communication because the state-of-practice method to produce better-quality and more formal work instructions is time intensive, error prone, and produces instruction with inconsistent format and content. Moreover, even with a method to produce work instructions that addresses the above challenges, the contractor needs implementation guidance to correctly address the implementation challenges.;The main research challenge to address this problem is the informality of the information and method involved in producing work instructions, so this research formalized this information and method. I developed a template for good work instructions (field instructions template) based on characteristics of good work instructions from the literature and testing of instructions on cast-in-place (CIP) concrete projects. This template formalizes the content and format of good work instructions in the CIP-concrete-construction domain. I also developed a method (FIPAPM) to produce Field Instructions (work instructions that use this template) from information contained in Product And Process Models. The FIPAPM method uses information schemas that formalize the information contained in the product and process models, enabling the identification and processing of this information to produce field instructions. Finally, I developed a guideline to implement the FIPAPM method based on implementation barriers and strategies found in the literature, and an implementation case study where I used the FIPAPM method on a CIP concrete project.;I validated the field instructions template using prospective field validation on two CIP concrete projects. This validation consisted of producing field instructions for the daily work and, after one week, interviewing field management and laborers to assess the impact of using such instructions. This validation showed that the interviewees felt that the use of field instructions has a positive impact on labor productivity, workface questions, rework, and safety. I validated the FIPAPM method and related information schemas using a charrette experiment where students used three methods to produce instructions. Then, I compared the time the subjects used to produce the instructions, the correctness (i.e., how complete, correct, and immediately accessible the instruction is), and the consistency (i.e., how similar the content and format of the instructions are across the subjects) of the instructions produced with each method. This validation showed that the FIPAPM method enables a faster, more correct, and more consistent production of work instructions than the state-of-practice method. Based on these validations, I claim the following four contributions: (1) A list of characteristics of good work instructions. (2) A format and content template that implements those characteristics specifically for CIP concrete construction. (3) A method to produce field instructions from product and process models. (4) A set of information schemas that enable this method.;This research also has several practical contributions that address the identified problem and broader implications that increase its value. The practical contributions addressing the problem are that it positively impacts labor productivity, workface questions, rework, and safety, enables contractors to produce good work instructions, and reduces the challenges of implementing the presented method. The broader implications are that it enables contractors to track work instructions, increases the contractor's benefits from using 3D models, enables contractors to model their construction knowledge for training and process reengineering purposes, and reduces variability of construction methods and practices throughout a company. |
