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Background
As offsite prefabrication and modular construction continue to gain momentum into the future, material supply chain becomes increasingly complex for modern construction projects. Pre-engineered material supply presents itself as a driver for planning crew installation operations on site that involve skilled labor and heavy equipment.
Me...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... shop, a large amount of raw pipe and pipe fittings (e.g., elbow, tee, flanges) are fabri- cated into pipe spools through a series of operations such as cutting, fitting, welding, quality control check- ing, stress relief, hydro testing, painting and other surface finishing. The typical fabrication process of one pipe spool is illustrated in Fig. 2. After the engineering drawings are received and all required materials are available, cutting sheets will be released to the fabrica- tion shop. Pipe, as the main component of spools, will first be cut to the desired length and the end surfaces of the pipe are beveled to the specification in the drawings. Then, the pipe sections and ...
Context 2
... shown in Fig. 2, design drawings provided by owners or engineering companies are the basis to perform work breakdown and activity sequencing. The isometric (ISO) drawing represents the details of the 3D structure of the pipe in the form of a 2D diagram. Figure 3 shows the iso- metric (ISO) drawing of one sample spool. It shows the required materials, ...
Context 3
... optimization algorithm is re-run to generate an alternative schedule under the constraints of updated material supply status. For this scenario, the deadline constraint is removed from the mathematical model shown in Eq. (1), as the deadline constraint of spool 3 cannot be satisfied due to the material delay. The resulting schedule is shown in Fig. 12. The fabrication process is suspended from the 335 th minute to the 600 th minute, on which point of time the materials are ready in the shop. The up- dated duration becomes 1078 min and Spool 3 is fin- ished at the 1078 th minute, which is beyond the preset deadline (the 960 th minute). The corresponding material ...
Citations
... These studies have primarily addressed a single supply chain stage and have addressed issues like inventory management [38], vehicle routing [39], and integrated truck planning [40]. Some researchers have proposed optimization models that integrate various supply chain stages, such as combining production with logistics [41] and logistics with installation [42]. These integrated approaches aim to provide more holistic solutions but often ignore the uncertainties and dynamic interactions, which are critical in real-world applications. ...
The shift from traditional on-site to off-site construction marks a significant evolution in the construction industry, characterized by increasing levels of prefabrication. These advancements enhance construction efficiency, reduce lead times, and mitigate environmental impacts, leading to modular integrated construction (MiC). However, MiC presents complex supply chain challenges, particularly in the transportation of prefabricated components and fully integrated modules. This study addresses these challenges by employing a multi-agent simulation using AnyLogic to optimize MiC transport logistics. The simulation models the interactions of various agents involved in the MiC process to improve operational efficiency and reduce costs. Results demonstrate that using three vehicles per supplier minimizes total transport costs, effectively balancing fixed and variable expenses while eliminating penalties for project delays. The findings highlight the cost efficiency of MiC, showing potential savings due to centralized assembly and optimized logistics. These significantly reduce material transportation and related costs, contributing to the overall efficiency and sustainability of construction projects. These insights underscore the value of multi-agent simulation in addressing the complexities of MiC supply chains.
... Hsieh (2015) presented that a mathematical formulation depends on partners and their locations to manage workflow between them in a construction project supply chain. Liu et al. (2017) considered supply chain management for piping spool fabrication projects. Liu and Lu (2018) developed Liu et al. (2017) methodology for construction projects and consider a resource-constrained project scheduling problem when the material delivery time is dynamic and finite crew resource available. ...
... Liu et al. (2017) considered supply chain management for piping spool fabrication projects. Liu and Lu (2018) developed Liu et al. (2017) methodology for construction projects and consider a resource-constrained project scheduling problem when the material delivery time is dynamic and finite crew resource available. They engaged these features to show theirs' impacts on labor, material inventory cost, and project performance. ...
Construction project-oriented companies face numerous challenges, including resource constraints, efficient network design for material delivery, an uncertain nature of decision making, and the increasing importance of environmental issues. This paper proposes a multi-objective mixed-integer mathematical model for the optimal management of a construction project supply chain for multi-project scenarios, with the goal of minimizing total costs, tardiness, and environmental impact. The model considers various environmental factors, such as greenhouse gas concentrations, noise, dust emissions, and visual pollution, as well as inventory management to handle resource constraints in a three-echelon supply chain network. To deal with the inherent uncertainty in project duration times, the model uses a robust optimization approach, and a branch-and-cut algorithm is proposed as a solution methodology. The effectiveness of the proposed model is demonstrated through a case study in petroleum construction supply chain. This paper contributes to the field of construction project management by offering an integrated approach that addresses the complex challenges faced by construction project-oriented companies, resulting in improved efficiency, sustainability, and overall performance.
... Although modules may have similar sizes and dimensions, their internal designs and components differ (Mohamed et al. 2007). Therefore, timely delivery of raw materials, product variability, material availability, workforce performance and availability, shop loading and capacity, and offsite prefabricated elements are critical to the success of industrial modular construction projects (Liu et al. 2017). Figure 1 illustrates the typical process of pipe spool fabrication, which begins with the owner's requirements and design specifications. ...
... The second phase includes a case study of a pipe spool fabrication process. The authors narrowed their findings to a research paper by Liu et al. (2017), which provided all the necessary data to build a simulation model. The model was then used to mimic a case study of three pipe spools fabricated in a workshop for an oil sands expansion project in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. ...
... The duration of each pipe spool's Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) activities -ranging from A1 to J1 for Spool 1, A2 to D2 for Spool 2, and A3 to R3 for Spool 3 -were obtained by solving the mathematical models associated with the constraints mentioned above. The resource requirements, including both labor and materials, for delivering each WBS of the three pipe spools are presented in Table 2. Liu et al. (2017) presented an activity on node (AON) network diagram that established the logical relationships associated with each spool from start to finish. The AON diagram closely reflected the actual sequencing and execution of work in the fabrication shop. ...
... Moreover, Wang and Hu [85] integrated manufacturing, storage, and transportation in an improved production scheduling model for precast construction using a GA. Liu and Lu [86], finally, proposed a two-step optimal project scheduling method that integrates supply logistics with the production stage in consideration of crew availability constraints. Their model was found to achieve an optimum balance between material supply and project demand by minimizing the cost of material inventory and idle crews. ...
Efficient planning and scheduling of operations within the offsite construction supply chain is critical for the successful completion of projects. Despite significant efforts and the application of various approaches to improve planning and scheduling practices, the existing literature in this field lacks coherence and a comprehensive review that establishes the scope, boundaries, and categorization of planning and scheduling in supply chain operations remains unexplored. To address this research gap, this paper presents a structured framework for supply chain management that encompasses strategic planning, master planning and scheduling, and detailed planning and scheduling. Through an analysis of the literature, this paper identifies areas that have received insufficient attention from the research community, specifically strategic planning, the procurement stage, and logistics operations. To advance the field, future research should focus on the development of integrated planning and scheduling models that simultaneously consider multiple operations and incorporate realistic features of transportation and onsite tasks.
... Although OSC has a multi-echelon SC, these studies considered only logistics. To provide more holistic and comprehensive solutions that improve the overall performance of OSC-SC, other studies proposed optimization models to address problems in multiple OSC-SC stages, such as "production + logistics" [17] and "logistics + installation" [18]. With the increasing global attention to sustainability, few studies have recently developed optimization models to reduce the environmental impact of OSC-SC operations [5,19]. ...
... The factors of ML-MiC that represent stakeholders' decisions are identified from the [17] Find the optimum truck's dispatching time and no. panels carried by each truck to minimize the total transportation and storage costs Optimization (MILP) [18] Find the near-optimum stacking plan of panels in Aframe vehicles to minimize the total number of trucks required to transport panels Optimization (heuristics) [19] For each MiC module, find the optimum assigned truck, its dispatching time and loaded position inside the truck to minimize the total transportation and storage costs ...
... PDC < PDC cur (18) TSCE < TSCE cur (19) DV l ≤ DV ≤ DV u (20) where TSCC= total supply chain costs estimated from the simulation model (Eqs. (3)-(11)),; PDC= project's duration estimated from the simulation model (Eq. ...
Multimodal logistics (ML), which involves multiple transportation modes, has been increasingly used to import prefabricated modules from overseas factories. However, the literature lacks automated tools that help modular construction stakeholders estimate, discern, and optimize the impact of their decisions when using ML. This study imparts three contributions: 1) develop a hybrid multi-agent model to estimate the impact of multiple logistics and construction decisions on different key performance measures (KPMs); 2) conduct a diagnostic analysis using design of experiment to identify the logistics and construction decisions and their interaction effects that impact the KPMs significantly; and 3) optimize these decisions to minimize the project duration, total costs and emissions using metamodeling. The diagnostic analysis results show that construction KPMs are influenced significantly by some logistics decisions and vice versa, calling for more collaboration between stakeholders. The obtained near-optimum solutions show a trade-off between the project duration, total costs and emissions.
... To fill this gap, researchers have been inclined to address problems in multiple SC stages to obtain holistic solutions that improve the whole SC performance. Some studies tackled problems in the production and logistics stages (Hsu et al. 2018(Hsu et al. , 2019Chen et al. 2017; Wang and Hu 2017;Fang and Ng 2019), whereas others focused on problems in the logistics and construction stages (Zhai et al. 2018(Zhai et al. , 2019(Zhai et al. , 2020Liu et al. 2017Liu et al. , 2020aSalama et al. 2017) to minimize SC costs. In addition to improving the economic performance of the OSC-SC, some researchers proposed different approaches to minimize the environmental impact of OSC-SC decisions (Kong et al. 2018;Zhu et al. 2021;Heravi et al. 2020). ...
... Other researchers integrated the logistics and construction stages. In the context of industrial MiC projects, Liu et al. (2017) developed a constraint programming model to find the optimum of the following decisions: order quantity of required materials, number of labor crews, and schedule planning of required modules. The objective is to minimize the number of paid labor hours. ...
This study examines the logistics planning in modular integrated construction supply
chain (MiC-SC). Existing models overlook two important characteristics of the MiC-SC:
the dynamic behaviour of its stakeholders and the uncertain interactions between its
activities and resources, making their applicability limited in real practice. Also, the
literature lacks an understanding of which logistics and construction decisions
significantly impact the MiC-SC key performance indicators (KPIs) (e.g., project
duration, MiC-SC costs and emissions). Moreover, optimizing logistics and construction
decisions to achieve a trade-off between these KPIs is yet to be addressed. To
improve, this study contributes by: 1) developing a multimethod simulation model that
captures the dynamic behaviour of MiC-SC stakeholders through agent-based
modelling and the uncertain interactions between their internal activities and resources
using discrete-event simulation. The model considers more realistic features: traffic
condition, site layout, heterogeneous truck types, and uncertainty of activities duration;
2) integrating the developed model with the Taguchi approach (TA) to identify the
significant logistics and construction decisions that impact five KPIs: project duration,
construction costs, construction emissions, logistics costs, and logistics emissions; and
3) applying a simulation-optimization (SO) approach to find the near-optimum logistics
and construction decisions that maximize the MiC-SC sustainability through minimizing
the project duration, its total costs and carbon emissions. The model’s applicability is
demonstrated using a case study of a high-rise MiC project. Interestingly, the TA
analysis highlights some interactions between logistics and construction decisions,
calling for collaborative decision-making between stakeholders. The proposed SO
approach could provide them with near-optimum decisions that minimize the project
duration, MiC-SC costs and emissions.
... When demands are changed, the production schedules are adjusted, and the batch plants will have to quickly respond to meet the changing requirements from the contractors. Due to these complex interdependencies, the contractors and the suppliers always fail to ensure a good balance of supply and demand [195]. As a result, the concrete is delivered either too much, causing a waste of unused concrete on site, or too little to meet the changing demand. ...
... When demands are changed, the production schedules are adjusted, and the batch plants will have to quickly respond to meet the changing requirements from the contractors. Due to these complex interdependencies, the contractors and the suppliers always fail to ensure a good balance of supply and demand [12]. As a result, the concrete is delivered either too much, causing a waste of unused concrete on site, or too little to meet the changing demand. ...
... The extra-order quantities and the outsourced quantities can neither be negative or larger than the increased quantities ΔQ i , which is ensured by Eqs. (12) and (13). The total of the extra-order quantities and the outsourced quantities should not be over the required increased demand; therefore, Eq. (14) is needed to constrain the determination of the reasonable extra-order quantities and outsourced quantities. ...
Although advancements have been made in the management of projects due to the digitalization and automation technologies, the efficient use of digital data is still lacking for the coordination of the supply chain. This paper presents an approach that allows data-driven and schedule-oriented supply chain coordination in the face of demand fluctuations. The approach consists of two main steps that contractors should take: 1) monitor the demand fluctuations based on a 4D model that captures the as-built status and updated look-ahead schedules, 2) make decisions to modify original orders to accommodate the demand fluctuations where orders are determined by a heuristic evolutionary algorithm. As a proof of concept, the coordination approach is demonstrated using an example project featuring a five-day in-situ construction of concrete walls. Results from this example show that using the approach improves the responsiveness of concrete planning and ordering. As a result, this leads to improved collaboration between suppliers and contractors in construction projects.
... Multiple examples of scheduling algorithm implementation are available in the literature [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. Among the relevant achievements, Srinivasan and Pandharipande [27] designed a self-configuring scheduling protocol for ultrasonic sensor systems using a timeslot allocation algorithm, which simplified the deployment of ultrasonic sensor systems. ...
... Among the relevant achievements, Srinivasan and Pandharipande [27] designed a self-configuring scheduling protocol for ultrasonic sensor systems using a timeslot allocation algorithm, which simplified the deployment of ultrasonic sensor systems. Further, Long et al. [32] proposed a time-division-multiple-access-based energy consumption balancing algorithm for general k-hop wireless sensor networks, where one data packet is collected in a cycle; the results demonstrated the effectiveness of the algorithm in terms of the energy efficiency and timeslot scheduling. A distributed ultrasonic sensor system has also been used in many application scenarios [36][37][38][39][40]. ...
Compared to the conventional ultrasonic phased-array system, a large-element phased-array system employing the total focusing method (TFM) can yield improved image resolution and accuracy, providing more flexible scanning methods and image merging functionality. In order to meet various forms of ultrasonic multi-group scanning, an architecture for multi-group scan integration called the “asynchronous distributed ultrasonic TFM system” is proposed, and a novel scheduling algorithm called “the sum of start time and processing time adjacent (SSPA) algorithm” is presented. The architecture adds a focus and group scheduler (FGS) and signal processing scheduler (SPS) to the traditional ultrasonic phased array system and constructs a signal processing arbitration (SPA) with several signal processing modules (SPMs). The FGS provides the focus parameters, pixel memory range, and number of pixels in each group. The SPS controls the SPA for the ultrasonic scanning data obtained from the elements, with SPM-sharing output data; hence, the optimal priority order and SPM assignment are realized, enabling switching of reading operations among the first-in−first-out memories for signal processing and minimal time-slot waiting. The SSPA algorithm is used to solve the job-shop scheduling problem with start time, which considers the processing time and start time, in order to reduce the time slot after each scheduling using adjacent operations. Therefore, the architecture enhances the flexibility of the multi-group scan, and this algorithm decreases the makespan, achieving higher efficiency compared to conventional scheduling algorithms. The reliability and validity of the algorithm are substantiated after its implementation using FPGA technology. The SPM utilization rate and the real-time performance of the ultrasonic TFM are improved. Thus, the proposed algorithm and architecture have considerable potential application in multi-sensor systems.
... Unfortunately, the process of the reallocation will make the time slice resources more fragmented, and increase the complexity of the scheduling algorithm. Multiple examples of implementation for the scheduling algorithm are available in the open literatures [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. Srinivasan et al. designed a self-configuring scheduling protocol for ultrasonic sensor systems by using an algorithm of the timeslot allocation, which simplified the deployment of the present detection system [16]. ...
High data transmission efficiency is a key requirement for an ultrasonic phased array with multi-group ultrasonic sensors. Here, a novel FIFOs scheduling algorithm was proposed and the data transmission efficiency with hardware technology was improved. This algorithm includes FIFOs as caches for the ultrasonic scanning data obtained from the sensors with the output data in a bandwidth-sharing way, on the basis of which an optimal length ratio of all the FIFOs is achieved, allowing the reading operations to be switched among all the FIFOs without time slot waiting. Therefore, this algorithm enhances the utilization ratio of the reading bandwidth resources so as to obtain higher efficiency than the traditional scheduling algorithms. The reliability and validity of the algorithm are substantiated after its implementation in the field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology, and the bandwidth utilization ratio and the real-time performance of the ultrasonic phased array are enhanced.
