Description
Industrialized construction: The goal is to accelerate the pace of delivery, increase schedule certainty, and improve the flow of work. Owners and project teams are increasingly using "pop-up" near-site prefabrication facilities to achieve these outcomes. However, the promise of industrialized construction is not achieved simply by shifting the work off-site. Entering the prefab environment presents unique challenges, notably in line layout optimization, material flow, and workload balancing. Easley and Rivers—in collaboration with ICG Consulting and powered by Autodesk FlexSim technology—learned to bring together craft expertise to mitigate these risks with tried-and-true lean manufacturing methods and industrial engineering best practices. By using discrete-event simulation, the team has not only improved the reliability of delivery to the field, but it's also significantly enhanced production standards.
Key Learnings
- Learn about using discrete-event simulation to reduce wastes, and the increased potential for defects, excess inventory, and overproduction.
- Learn about fundamental lean thinking alignment, specifically the concept of one-piece flow and implementing manufacturing techniques.
- Learn about overcoming operational inefficiency as an exploration of how a committed team embraces the principles of lean manufacturing.