Modeling and Automation of Industrial Construction Operations

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Industrial construction projects represent a significant sector of the Canadian economy. These projects involve large investments from the energy sector and support thousands of jobs and are subject to competition from overseas construction companies. Modular construction is a common practice for industrial construction especially on Canadian oil-sand projects. In modular construction, most of the project is assembled from pre-fabricated components that are custom built off-site according to unique designs. These components include thousands of pipe spools, equipment and vessels, and structural steel elements. They are shipped to site either separately or pre-assembled in modular units for final installation. Industrial construction projects are often fast tracked and involve millions of man-hours provided by several parties along the engineering, procurement, fabrication, and site installation phases. The performance of operations in these phases is affected by the unique designs of the different components, design changes that happens during construction, deviations in material delivery by different suppliers, and availability of resources. This results in a fairly complex supply chain that can easily cause project cost and schedule overruns if not properly managed and optimized. Optimizing these operations is of great importance to retain the best value for investors in this sector and to maintain an advantage for Canadian contractors to be able to compete and export their know-how in an increasingly competitive global market.