February 17, 2012

Ontario Road Builders’ Association Toronto convention

McMaster U civil engineering professor Razavi involves industry in academia

KELLY LAPOINTE

staff writer

Industry involvement is an integral part of educating the future of heavy civil construction, which is undergoing a shift, said the first-ever Chair in Heavy Civil Construction at McMaster University.

Dr. Saiedeh Razavi was recently appointed to the position, which is a product of a fundraising campaign where 13 associations within the construction industry pledged $1.5 million over five years, an amount that was matched by McMaster. The Ontario Road Builders’ Association (ORBA) raised $125,000.

“We wanted to bridge the two worlds of industry and academic researchers and educators together to find real world solutions for the industry,” said Razavi.

“It’s also intended to provide leadership in advancing innovation in the construction sector as well as contributing to the advancement of modern, durable and sustainable infrastructure in Ontario.”

Razavi’s background includes sensing, automation, information and communication technology for construction, infrastructure management, transportation and logistics. She has focused on bringing industry into her classes, which has included site visits and guest lecturers from the industry and academia.

At ORBA’s recent 85^th annual convention, she presented the conclusions of a 2005 workshop conducted by the National U.S. National Science Foundation, which identified the construction professional of 2020.

“What they identified was a professional that had a breadth of knowledge to be able to address diverse concerns throughout the lifecycle as well as the balanced profile of intellectual, practical and emotional intelligence,” she explained.

She said industry is an integral part of the new educational models that are being formed. Razavi added that associations can help with education through involvement with education committees, in accreditation processes or involvement in construction education programs.

Her research includes identifying the implications of implementing connected vehicle systems on transportation management for the province of Ontario. This technology would see all the vehicles, infrastructure, drivers and mobile devices connected with the ability to transfer information.

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She was also involved with a project in 2006 and 2007 involving location awareness, automated tracking for workforce materials, equipment and tools. There were two field trials, including one with Toronto’s Portlands Energy Centre, where SNC Lavalin was the general contractor.

“We showed eight times improvement in the total labour time that is spent on locating materials. Also we showed almost 18 times improvement in the number of lost items or materials not immediately found,” explained Razavi.

She said many companies have been using this technology for large projects since the study. This was a joint project between 20 industry partners and three universities.

There are different funding opportunities for research, such as provincial, federal or internal. If an industry partner or association is interested in a research program of theirs, they can come up with money or any kind of contribution and the government will match that.

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