Mostafa, S and Chileshe, N (2015) Discrete-event simulation model for offsite manufacturing in Australia. In: Raiden, A and Aboagye-Nimo, E (eds.) Proceedings of 31st Annual ARCOM Conference, 7-9 September 2015, Lincoln, UK.
Abstract
Offsite Manufacturing (OSM) has potential capabilities to enhance the Australian affordable housing supply. However, OSM supply chain requires effective management between two concurrent working sites: (1) offsite factory; and (2) building site. This means that information and material flows are necessary components for managing OSM supply chain. Nevertheless, the OSM supply chain is influenced by a number of major challenges such as broken junction between offsite and onsite, jumbled onsite process and vague customer demands. To overcome these challenges, this paper developed a Discrete-Event Simulation (DES) model for OSM in Australia. The Arena<sup>®</sup> software is designed to model manufacturing and construction processes to support a high level of analysis. Arena<sup>®</sup> provides advanced capabilities to mimic the behaviour of real system entities, layout and flow logic, as well as to produce data distributions and confidence intervals for the performance measures. The actual data was collected using interview with four OSM builders in Australia. The simulation model assist to evaluate three OSM scenarios (as-is, what-if I and what-if II) with different house order information intervention to the OSM supply chain. The simulation results indicated noteworthy improvements in the house completion time. Some limitations are acknowledged as the study reports on the findings using just limited interviews. Secondly, the model was developed and tested within Australia only; as such future studies could be employ case studies and further be conducted in other countries to enhance the generalisation of the findings. Currently, there are limited studies which seek to investigate the potential of DES within the housing supply chain management. In order to address this gap, this paper contributes by developing a DES for addressing challenges associated with the supply chain within the Australian housing sector.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | arena simulation, discrete-event simulation, offsite manufacturing, modelling and simulation |
| Index terms: | modelling, Australia, case study, builder, construction process, affordable housing, housing, confidence interval, completion time, data-distribution, interview, performance measure, building site, future study, onsite |
| Subjects: | building construction, construction type, data exchange, project controls, Geography, data collection methods, research design and methodology, practitioner, performance measurement, analytical methods, site and location studies, statistical analysis |
| Topics: | Research Practice, Digital Applications, Roles and Professions, Engineering Principles, Construction Technology, Geographical Context, Site Management, Quality Management, Time Control |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCEA |
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