Facility planning and schedule design in the pandemic: Eliminating contacts at construction workplace

The construction industry has been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated restrictions on person-to-person contacts issued by the government. A construction site usually has a high number of workers working at the same time; therefore, the question of how to ensure their safety during the pandemic—that is, how to protect them from getting infected—has become an urgent problem. In this study, we propose a bi-objective integer programming model to establish the optimal schedule plan under COVID-19 regulations. We develop a solution method and conduct numerical experiments to solve and validate our model. The optimal schedule plan can avoid contacts between workers of different groups while minimizing the total costs of complying with government policy. Our proposed model can be applied in practice to help project managers establish a reasonable and cost-effective schedule plan. This study contributes to reducing the operating costs of contractors and protecting the health of construction workers.