Review of Construction Automation and Robotics Practices in Indonesian Construction State-Owned Enterprises: Position in Project Life Cycle, Gap to Best Practice and Potential Uses

Abstract

Construction Automation and Robotics is the anticipated technology to overcome productivity issues and work accidents. This research aims to analyze the implementation of Construction Automation and Robotics at Indonesian Construction SOEs from the perspective of real project implementation based on project life cycle, comparison with best practices, and potential uses, through the qualitative-comparative analysis of the literature as well as questionnaires and in-depth interviews. It attempts to report how this technology is implemented in Indonesia as a comparison tool for other countries. This research identifies that seven Indonesian Construction SOEs have been using Construction Automation and Robotics technology, where Drones, Virtual Reality, and Prefabrication and Modularization are the most popular and mostly implemented in the construction phase. Compared to best practices, those implementations are still in the adoption stage. It has not reached its full potential through the development stage due to insufficient collaboration between contractors, technology companies, and universities. Although the construction market in Indonesia has not directly demanded in-project applications, this technology is potentially considered to improve the completion of construction projects, especially the interaction prospects of Digital Twin and BIM. This study provides complete positional information on Construction Automation and Robotics type in the project life cycle in theory and practice as a benchmark for construction technology research. This study fills the research gap and pioneers Indonesia’s Construction Automation and Robotics implementation research in international journals by providing the latest and comprehensive overview and comparing it to good practices from the USA and China.