Modeling and Automation of Industrial Construction Operations

工业建设项目是加拿大经济的重要组成部分。这些项目涉及能源行业的大笔投资，支持数千个工作岗位，并面临来自海外建筑公司的竞争。模块化建筑是工业建筑的常见做法，特别是在加拿大的油砂项目上。在模块化建筑中，大部分项目都是由预制组件组装而成，这些组件是根据独特的设计在异地定制建造的。这些部件包括数千个管轴、设备和容器以及结构钢件。它们可以单独运往现场，也可以预装在模块化单元中进行最终安装。工业建设项目往往是快速通道，涉及工程、采购、制造和现场安装阶段的几方提供的数百万工时。这些阶段的业务绩效受到不同部件的独特设计、施工过程中发生的设计更改、不同供应商在材料交付方面的偏差以及资源可用性的影响。这导致了一个相当复杂的供应链，如果没有适当的管理和优化，很容易导致项目成本和进度超支。优化这些业务对于保持该领域投资者的最佳价值以及保持加拿大承包商的优势，使其能够在竞争日益激烈的全球市场中竞争和出口他们的技术诀窍具有重要意义。

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.