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works with the support of a knowledge management system which helps managers to
make decisions on scheduled logistics of waste to treatment plants and also provides the
instruction for the operating staff dealing with the plasterboard waste and also other kinds
such as medical waste etc. All the RFID fixed readers are associated with imagery
equipment, digital imagery could be automatically taken when a valid tag successfully
scanned by RFID reader. These digital imagery records will be well documented as the
evidence to verify the transportation.
Figure 7 also illustrates the system of a ‘main construction demolition site’ and near ‘smaller
construction demolition site’ which are the two typical source sites. The plasterboard waste
is designed to be bagged in the source sites during the demolition/building process and a
RFID tag is then attached to the container (bag, box, or bins etc.) immediately. Fig. 7. Frameworks for Plasterboard Waste Management System
Plasterboard waste can go directly to the landfill with mono-cell. If the construction or waste
company wishes to land fill them, the prototype system can fulfil the function of providing
the evidence by records and image. The RFID equipment and RFID reader is set on the
entrance of the landfill site to verify the arrival of the waste. When the containers pass this
gate, a record will automatically be created and uploaded to the central server to show the
logistics of the containers and the appropriate tonnages of plasterboard waste being
transported or delivered to recycling and/or landfill sites.
Hand-held devices are used by the operating staff involved in the system, including vehicle
drivers, cleaners, demolition operators and waste managers etc. The device is a small sensor
that links to the central server, and can display information from the system. The instruction
and logistical support information will be automatically downloaded from the knowledge
management system when it is required. The information notifies the operators which
container should be transported or moved to the correct location in a specific time, and also

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The knowledge is stored in productive rule (IF…THEN…) format at the rule base. The three
components compose the full Rule Based Reasoning system. The result of this layer is a
suggestion solution’ that is generated by the previously inputted rules, the reasoning aspect
including the logistic suggestion and also the guidance for the waste operators, depending
on the users requirements. Finally, the result is then passed to the highest layer -
visualisation to provide the resolutions for decision support.
The highest layer bears the communication function between the system and users. This
layer is called visualisation layer, which is designed to represent the logistical solution and
the guidance in suitable client machine, either the desktop computer or hand held device.
The visualisation layer can be associated with web-based application to represent data for
easy access and flexible monitoring, and alternatively may use as individual programme to
improve the security and more trustable evidence. The visualisation layer is also
responsible for the user’s command input; the command will pass to the lowest layer
through the kernel module.
6.2.1 Adopting of rule-based reasoning
The rule-based system is usually called an expert system, and is the most popular choice for
knowledge-based applications. A simplified definition of rule based reasoning is a
technology in which knowledge is represented by a set of IF…THEN production rules and
data is represented by a set of facts(Giarratano and Riley, 2005). The rule will be executed
when the fact matches the condition of a rule, and it may add or modified to fact for a new
rule execution until the final result is determined(Giarratano and Riley, 2005).
Rule-based reasoning has some advantages compared with other reasoning technology and
has been generally accepted as the best option for a knowledge-based system. It typically
features natural knowledge representation, uniform structure, separation of knowledge
from its processing and has the ability to deal with incomplete and uncertain knowledge.
Some features of rule-based reasoning are suitable for the prototype system, and are
discussed as follows(Giarratano and Riley, 2005).
Rule-based reasoning technology stores knowledge in IF…THEN structure meaning each

(Ant Colony Optimization) will be introduced in the system that is responsible for
generating the route plan (Colorni et al., 1991, Dorigo and Gambardella, 1997, Dorigo et al.,
1999, Qiang and Qiuwen, 2008).
The ACO module is only dealing with the vehicle routing plan, therefore it needs to be
independent from the main rule-base to reduce complications, and thus it does not need to
be converted in production rule format. It only works when the vehicle type and target site
has been decided by the rule based reasoning system; the vehicle and site information will
be passed to the ACO module as the initial parameters, then the acceptable result can be
generated in limited iterations and this is illustrated in Figure 9. Fig. 9. The 4-layer Structure with ACO Module
The work procedure of the reasoning layer starts from the time schedule and routing plan.
Firstly, the system will check the current time and query the database if there are any sites
which need to be visited in this time (day, week or month) and also query the last operation

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on that site to roughly estimate the tonnage of the waste. The estimating also takes into
account the site project, construction progress and even its financial situation.
The next step is to decide the vehicle type and the number. After the site which must be
visited in the next period has been decided and the waste tonnage of each site is estimated,
obviously the total amount of waste will be known. The vehicle type can then be decided
based on this information; the capacity of the vehicle should be larger than the tonnage and
depends on the containers used on the sites. The rule-based system will be based on these
‘facts’ to reason out the vehicle type and number. Planning the details of vehicle routing is
the function of the ACO, which firstly decides the routes to be calculated and the sites for a
single trip. Then the exact route will be calculated by the ACO, in the prototype of the waste
management system, only the original ACO will be introduced for evaluating purposes.
After the routing has been decided, the details will be passed to the visualization layer for


Application of RFID and Mobile Technology to Plaster Board Waste in the Construction Industry
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process, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is identified as one of the most practical and
applicable in real time implementation in-line with the nature where most of the systems are
made computerized. In this paper, a solution has been provided for the problem
encountered in laboratory equipment monitoring system using RFID technology. Therefore
RFID-based monitoring system has been designed and developed to solve the problem
associated with the handling of laboratory equipments. This chapter is organised as follows.
Section 2 describes related works on RFID-based monitoring system. The architecture of the
system is mentioned in section 3. Application scenario and the implementation are briefly
explained in section 4 and 5 respectively. Finally, the chapter is concluded in Chapter 6.
2. Related work on RFID in monitoring
RFID is a wireless automatic identification that is gaining attention and is considered by
some to emerge as one of the pervasive computing technologies in history (Roberts, 2006).
As the technology grows very rapidly, RFID has received considerable worldwide attention
and widely used in monitoring and tracking ranging from human identification to product

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identification. Previous research has successfully indicated that RFID has been increasingly
expanded in various fields such as retail supply chain, asset tracking, postal and courier
services, education, construction industry, medical, and etc.
The work presented by Tan and Chang (2010) who had developed an RFID-based e-
restaurant system to change the traditional restaurant services which is considered as
passive. The utilization of RFID is to improve the service quality which is customer-centered
that enable waiters to immediately identify customers via their own RFID-based
membership card. It can also provide customized services such as enhanced dining table
service; pay the bills, instant transmission of customer orders to kitchens and flexibility of
managing payments of bills and discounts. However, in Ngai et. al. (2008), designed and
developed RFID-based sushi management system to help a conveyor belt sushi restaurant to
achieve better inventory control, responsive replenishment, and food safety control, as well

Yan and Lee (2009) developed RFID application in Cold Chain monitoring system to track
the cold-chain product flowing in supply chain, ensure the products’ quality and comply
with relevant provisions during transportation. The system executes in real-time
environment and can track the location and monitor the temperature of cold-chain products
to ensure the quality. However, according to Loebbecke (2005) has done a research

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177
regarding the application of RFID in retail supply chain at a brink-and-mortar supermarket
to investigate the advantages and challenges with the early RFID applications in terms of
technological issue such as standardization, challenges on the data, network and application
layers.
Haron, et. al. (2010), designed and developed of a context aware notification system for
university students using RFID. The system aims to deliver urgent notifications to the
intended students immediately at their respective locations. A quite similar work done by
Herdawatie et. al. (2010) which integrates RFID and biometric sensor to track students in a
boarding school of their location at the selected restricted area.
As summary, based on the successful of RFID applications in various fields as discussed
above, it shows that its application is endless. This section onwards explains the RFID
application in tracking of laboratory equipments movement to ensure its availability. It also
aims at helping the lab administrator in monitoring the equipment from lost or misplaced.
The monitoring of equipments movement is not only being monitored by the lab
administrator but also by the top management through online databases.
3. System architecture
Building an automated tracking applications by integrating web services guarantee many
benefits, such as reduce clerical task and ease the management burden. The RFID-based
Equipment Tracking System is an integrated system that offers an effective solution of
managing items especially for large scale environment. It combines the RFID technology
and security devices to ensure the items are always been monitored and secured. The

Fig. 1. System Architecture Fig. 2. Physical layer of the system

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4. Application scenarios
The developed prototype is an online laboratory monitoring system that has three purposes;
which typically composed of (1) Laboratory grant access (2) Inventory control, and (3)
Online data viewing. The prototype has been applied at the UTHM research project lab. To
illustrate the concept, a sample of layout of application was provided in Figure 3. Fig. 3. Application scenario layout
In the system, RFID tag is attached to both users and equipments. The RFID reader is
located at each Laboratory to record and verify the RFID tags in the area. Each laboratory is
equipped with a surveillance camera and an alarm indicator to deal with unforeseen
circumstance events. The recorded data is stored and managed by a central computer
whereby each laboratory computer is connected via intranet connection to ease any
information received from computer lab can be easily transmitted to central computer. The
main purpose of data, which is stored at the central computer, is to ease the management to
have a look the whereabouts of equipment and record of in-out information. The
administrator will grant the personal level access, equipment status and also permit online
monitoring to authorize individual.
Legally attempt to enter a laboratory with authorize RFID identification (id), lead the
magnetic door to unlock (door open) and record the entry information. Illegally attempt to
access the laboratory, the door keep locked and activate the camera and warning sign is
indicated to the system.Once the system detects a forceful behavior such as shaking the

and equipments. Fig. 5. The main GUI of RFID-based Equipment Tracking System Fig. 6. The system flow of data management module

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The system has two main purposes; first is to register user, equipment and laboratories to be
part of the system entities. This is done by the system administrator through data
management module. The second is to keep track the equipment and to monitor the
activities of the user. The latter can be accessed through monitoring module. These two
main purposes are presented in the form of graphical user interface as shown in Figure 5.
The data management module system flow is illustrated in figure 6. This module can only
be accessed by authorised personnel to maintain the integrity of the data. Thus, system
administrator needs to enter the correct password in login page as shown in Figure 7. Users
are allowed to re-enter the password up to three (3) times for invalid password before the
system activates the alarm system. (a) (b)
Fig. 7. System administrator’s (a) entering the password and (b) warning message for
invalid access Fig. 8. Data Management Module


designed so that it can be viewed by the administrator internally (intranet access) or
remotely (internet access). Here, the discussion is focused on remote access. In order to use
this module either internally or remotely, the administrator needs to log-in to the system as
shown in Figure 11. Fig. 11. The login page of system

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Fig. 12. On-loan equipment page Fig. 13. Monitoring user’s activity remotely

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For successful login, the administrator is allowed to view and find a specific record on on-
loan equipment. Figure 12 shows on-loan equipment based on laboratory and specific date.
As shown below, the following on-loan information is taken from instrumentation lab for
Jan 5, 2011. The system is also designed so that the administrator could click on Equip ID to
view equipment details borrowed by the user.
Figure 13 shows that the administrator is able to view user’s activity at each laboratory. In
the following example, it shows who has used the instrumentation lab on Jan 5, 2011. The
user status tab contains information on which laboratory is allowed and the valid period as
shown in Figure 14. By default, this page displays the status of all users. It also could
display the status of certain user by selecting specific information, for instance UserID

/>identification-rfid-and-fingerprint-in-boarding-school-monitoring-system-b
Hsu, C-I, Shih, H-H, Wang, W-C. (2009). Applying RFID to Reduce Delay in Import Cargo
Customs Clearance Process. Computers & Industrial Engineering. Vol. 57. pp. 506 –
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2005, Bled, Slovenia.
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system: The case of a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant. International Journal of
Production Economics, Vol. 112, Issue 2, pp. 630-645.
Nor Suryani Bakery, Ayob Johari, Mohd Helmy Abd Wahab, Danial, Md. Nor. RFID
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A Complete Farm Management System based on Animal Identification using RFID

paper to handle various types of maintenance information, including checklists,
specification, and maintenance procedure. Consequently, there is serious rework progress
regarding the data capture and entry in maintenance progress. In order to enhance the
effectiveness of inspection and maintenance work in construction lab, this study presents a
novel system called Mobile RFID-based Maintenance Management (M-RFIDMM) system for
the acquisition and tracing of lab equipments and instruments maintenance information on
locations and providing an equipments and instruments maintains information sharing
platform among all participants using web technology and RFID-enabled PDAs. Integrating
promising information technologies such as RFID-enabled PDAs, Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID) scanning and data entry mechanisms, can help improve the
effectiveness and convenience of information flow in the maintenance management. The
primary objectives of this study include (1) applying such a system that integrates RFID
technology with RFID-enabled PDAs to increase the efficiency of equipments and
instruments inspection and maintenance data collection, and (2) designing a web-based
portal for equipments and instruments management and control, providing real-time
information and wireless communication between offices and instruments locations. The M-
RFIDMM is then applied in a construction lab in Taiwan to verify our proposed
methodology and demonstrate the effectiveness of maintenance progress in construction
lab. The combined results demonstrate that, an M-RFIDMM system can be a useful web-
based lab maintenance management platform by utilizing the RFID approach and web

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technology. With appropriate modifications, the M-RFIDMM system can be utilized at any
instruments inspection and maintenance service for maintenance management divisions or
suppliers in support of the M-RFIDMM system.
2. Problem statement
Maintenance management performance can be enhanced by using web technology for
information sharing and communication. Information acquisition problems in instruments

from offices to instruments locations. Data collection efficiency can also be enhanced using
RFID-enabled PDAs to enter and edit data on the instruments location. By using web
technology and mobile devices, the M-RFIDMM system for the management division has
tremendous potential to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of information flow, thus
streamlining services processes with other participants. Maintenance managers and staff
members frequently waste time by travelling to obtain information in the absence of other
efficient means of communication. The portal and PDAs enable maintenance staff members

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191
to update data from the instruments location and immediately upload it to the system;
Maintenance managers can receive maintenance information and make better decisions
regarding future instruments management and control.
The main purposes of this study include (1) developing a framework for a mobile
maintenance management system for instruments in the lab; (2) applying such a system that
integrates RFID technology with PDA technology to increase the efficiency of instruments
inspection and maintenance data collection in the lab; (3) designing a web-based portal for
maintenance management and control, providing real-time information and wireless
communication between offices and instruments locations, and (4) Evaluating the
effectiveness of the proposed system in construction lab. Figure 1 illustrates solutions used
in a real case utilized M-RFIDMM system in Taiwan construction lab. With appropriate
modifications, the M-RFIDMM system can be utilized at any instruments inspection and
maintenance service for maintenance management divisions or managers in support of the
M-RFIDMM system. Fig. 1. M-RFIDMM System Framework Overview
4. Background research
RFID is an automatic identification solution that streamlines identification and data