Discrete event simulation analysis of product and process platforms: A bridge construction case study

Product and process platforms have been promoted as possible enablers of increased productivity in civil engineering. However, such platforms are traditionally applied in mass manufacturing industries where production assets are employed in continuous production of uniform products, which strongly facilitates continuous improvement. The discontinuous nature of project-based production in civil engineering restricts such possibilities. Thus, if platforms are implemented there is a need for methods capable of evaluating the performance of integrated product and production process configurations in specific projects. A possibility, explored in this paper, is to use database-driven simulation. As a case study, a configurable simulation model, based on standardized process patterns and values stored in a platform, has been developed of the production for a bridge concept. The presented results provide evidence that database-driven simulation can support efficient platform evaluation and development by integrating product and process information, even in discontinuous, project-based industrial sectors. The results specifically demonstrate that this approach can be used to evaluate effects of different configurations of construction methods on working time requirements without time-consuming updates of models.