Abstract
In modular construction—a type of industrialized construction—production planning is very important, as it is closely related to the project’s duration, quality, and sustainability. The constraints (production area, delivery due date) often differ for each project, yet production planning in modular construction has failed to change with the project characteristics. As a result, bottlenecks and construction delays are common problems seen in modular construction, which, in turn, decreases the production ratio, causing the production to be inefficient. To this end, this paper applied a prefabricated component in the modular production process. The paper developed a process analysis model considering constraint factors (production period, production area) to derive the optimal configuration of the prefabricated components in various alternatives. The developed analysis model was then applied to a virtual case to analyze the productivity improvement and select the optimal process. The optimal production process was derived by simulating the possible production planning within a limited production area and production timeline. The result of a simulation indicates that the production period has been halved by optimizing the process. Furthermore, by applying prefabricated components, the production efficiency was further increased because the existing linear production process’s bottleneck disappeared. The model is deemed to have the potential to optimize various production methods across production facilities or modular factories that simultaneously perform multiple projects.
Highlights
IntroductionModular construction involves the production of construction components (e.g., structures, materials, various types of equipment) that are built off-site, and modules are assembled with minimal effort on-site [1,2,3]
Modular construction involves the production of construction components that are built off-site, and modules are assembled with minimal effort on-site [1,2,3]
A hypothetical scenario based on a real modular construction factory was designed to investigate the applicability of the results of this study and analyze the effect indirectly; that is because only a few cases in the linear production method were used, but applying the case is judged to be the most suitable for verifying the usefulness of this model given that the assumptions closely reflect reality [39]
Summary
Modular construction involves the production of construction components (e.g., structures, materials, various types of equipment) that are built off-site, and modules are assembled with minimal effort on-site [1,2,3]. In modular construction, the characteristics of the construction industry must be considered In other words, it is heavily impacted by the characteristics of the order-based industry and multi-product mass productions (multiple projects happening at the same time) [6]. Order-based industry requires a fixed module delivery period, and limited use of factory sites from running multiple projects at the same time can have a considerable impact on productivity [10]. Variables such as project conditions (production timeline, factory areas) and project requirements should be considered in the factory planning process in multi-product mass production (multiple projects) [6,10,11]. Multi-product mass production is currently very challenging to be considered in modular construction due to bottlenecks [12,13]
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