ANALYSIS AND AUTOMATION OF SEQUENCING AND PLANNING FUNCTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

工业建筑运营严重依赖于制造和模块化技术。然而，他们面临着许多挑战，这些挑战降低了这种建设方法的好处。工业建筑设施的要素具有独特的设计和配置，需要在制造设施中进行定制。与传统制造不同，这些元素的制造顺序各不相同。这些元件还需要在模块化单元中预先组装，并按不同项目的顺序在现场安装。材料交付、资源可获得性和设计更改的变异性和不确定性要求制造、组装和现场安装操作的计划和排序必须高度适应，以保持最佳性能。由于这些操作的复杂性和在执行过程中动态变化的大量因素，在这些操作的计划和控制中人工输入是基本的。然而，人工计划和排序选择的最佳性和对性能的影响还没有得到定量评估，这些选择自动化的潜力也没有得到充分的研究。 这项研究服务于将加拿大工业建筑业务转变为一个集成良好、自动化和高性能的生产系统的长期愿景，该系统能够有效地适应每个项目的独特要求。主要目标是通过自动化工作流程中的关键计划和排序功能来提高制造、组装和现场安装操作的性能。第二个目标是确定持续需要人工输入的职能，并更好地了解这些职能对业绩的影响。成功实现这些研究目标可以大大帮助简化和优化工业建筑承包商的业绩，并提高加拿大工业建筑行业在竞争日益激烈的全球市场中的地位。

Industrial construction operations rely heavily on fabrication and modular techniques. However, they face many challenges that reduce the benefits of this construction approach. Elements of an industrial construction facility have unique designs and configurations and need to be custom built in fabrication facilities. Unlike traditional manufacturing, the fabrication sequence varies among these elements. The elements also need to be pre-assembled in modular units and installed on site in sequences that vary from one project to another. Variability and uncertainty in material delivery, resource availability and design changes necessitate that the planning and sequencing of fabrication, assembly and site installation operations be highly adaptive to maintain optimum performance. Manual human input in the planning and control of these operations is fundamental, due to their complexity and the large number of factors that change dynamically during execution. However, the optimality and effect of manual planning and sequencing choices on performance has not been assessed quantitatively, and the potential of automating these choices has not been sufficiently investigated. This research serves a long-term vision to transform Canadian industrial construction operations into a well integrated, automated and high performance production system that adapts effectively to the unique requirements of each project. The main objective is to improve the performance of fabrication, assembly, and site installation operations through the automation of key planning and sequencing functions in their workflow. A second objective is to identify the functions where manual input is continuously needed and develop a better understanding of their effect on performance. Success in achieving these research objectives can significantly help streamline and optimize the performance of industrial construction contractors and improve the position of the Canadian industrial construction sector in an increasingly competitive global market.