Development of a smart design system

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The primary advantages of industrialization of the construction process (modular and offsite method) are anenvironmentally-friendly construction process, short completion time, and cost-competitive technology. Fortislight gauge steel (LGS) Structures Inc. focuses on producing walls and bath units in their factory and then shipsthem to sites for installation. Since their core value is to reduce onsite construction time while improving thequality of the delivered product, the management team has focused on reducing the cycle time of theprefabrication process in the factory for better productivity. However, its full potential in terms of productivityimprovement has not yet been realized since labour-intensive tasks in the manufacturing process entail manynon-value added activities which its completion is heavily reliant on worker intuition and experience due to thelack of architectural and structural information (i.e., cutting patterns for boarding design) in the shop drawings.In this respect, the guesswork and rules of thumb are replaced with scientific and engineering sequences oftasks for productivity improvement. We thus propose an integrated solution which has the followingprocedures: (1) identification of issues such as lack of design information or heavy physical demands whichmay cause productivity and safety reduction; (2) development of a framework for estimating cycle time andefficiency evaluation to establish correlation factors which affects safety and productivity between constructionmethods (operational variables), sequences of tasks (physical demand variables), and design variables such asdimensions of walls and of opening space; and (3) development of a smart design system which determinessheathing and drywall sheet layout on wall panels by optimize engineering (e.g. boarding sheet layout) andphysical demand (e.g. minimum posture risk) factors. The proposed system will minimize wastes(non-value-adding activities) of tasks and material utilization. The smart design system is expected to beimplemented in order to improve productivity and safety of the Fortis manufacturing process.