Aghajamali, K; Rahimi, A; Metvaei, S; Lei, Z; Chen, Q; Suliman, A and Pirzad, A (2026) Production planning with an enriched BIM-based heuristic construction order model to improve the efficiency of complex prefabricated projects. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 152(6): 04026057, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
Prefabricated projects are increasingly employed and customized in diverse construction projects. Hence, efficient and adaptable planning is essential for improving production productivity in these projects. Concerning structural steel prefabrication projects, essential engineering specifications are necessary for forecasting labor hours at workstations and devising construction orders for steel elements, improving production productivity. Henceforth, this study develops a framework to utilize the Building Information Model (BIM) and Numerical Control (NC) data for a steel structure project and productivity data from time studies to estimate labor hours in a steel fabrication plant. The proposed framework identifies the most relevant engineering specifications for each station by analyzing the productivity data. The specifications are then extracted from the project three-dimensional (3D) BIM models and also used to develop prediction models. Consequently, the extracted specifications are integrated with prediction models to provide labor-hour estimation. Furthermore, discrete event simulation (DES) is used to simulate the assembly flow through the plant, and a heuristic approach is used to determine the optimal construction order for each steel element. The framework validation demonstrated a robust 99% correlation between labor-hour estimations and productivity reports from a Canadian steel fabrication plant. The optimization method, however, improves operations, reducing labor costs by 12.99%. A comparative analysis with the genetic algorithm (GA) highlights the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed approach, offering reduced computational complexity. This study fills a key gap in production planning by integrating BIM-based feature extraction, statistical productivity modeling, and heuristic order optimization into a practical system for prefabricated steel fabrication. Additionally, a management dashboard for production planning has been developed to enhance practical application and decision making in production management.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | building information modeling; discrete event simulation; genetic algorithm; heuristic scheduling; offsite construction; prefabrication; productivity modeling |
| Index terms: | specification, production management, genetic algorithm, scheduling, production planning, prediction model, comparative analysis, validation, construction project, decision-making, complexity, forecasting, discrete event simulation, heuristic, building information modelling, dashboard, efficiency, estimation, productivity, effectiveness, labour cost, fabrication, steel structure, modelling, estimate, prefabrication |
| Subjects: | algorithms, manufacturing engineering, production management, building construction, operations research, analytical methods, specialized materials and systems, performance management, management, professional development, contractual condition, decision analysis, information systems, cost management, systems engineering, risk assessment, modelling and simulation, financial and cost management, project delivery, prediction and forecasting, data science, data analysis and analytics |
| Topics: | Construction Technology, Cost Management, Business Strategy, Research Practice, Information Management, Construction Materials, Time Control, Contract Administration, Digital Applications, Risk Management, Procurement, Project Management, Engineering Principles, Quality Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here