Production-based Large Scale Construction Simulation Modeling

An advanced modeling tool is needed in the construction industry to facilitate the implementation of promising new management theories such as lean construction and lean project delivery, and to meet project planning and control needs. Construction simulation has been used to help improve construction processes for years and is the most promising innovation of the next generation of construction management tools. The practice, however, has often been limited to modeling only subsystems, or to modeling an entire system at a very high and abstract level due to limitations in its capacity and cost-effectiveness. To meet the construction industry's needs we require the simulation of an entire construction system at the production level with a consideration of: dynamic uncertainties modeling, multiple simulation worldviews, large amounts of information, information exchange with other applications, and development by multiple developers.

In this research, the author developed the simulation-based approach to facilitate implementation of lean production in order to improve the production performance of pipe spool fabrication shops. The research was then extended to an entire industrial construction system. A special purpose large scale simulation modeling system was designed and developed for industrial construction. This system could be used to build production-based large scale simulation models. The model would provide a virtual project management laboratory, which allows construction engineers to experiment with various management strategies in planning, improving, and optimizing the entire industrial construction production system.

In current practice, developing production-based large scale construction simulation models is very challenging. In this research, these difficulties are identified through theoretical analysis and through the practical application of industrial construction simulation. The research concludes that the most effective strategy to increase the capacity and cost-effectiveness of construction simulation models is to increase knowledge standardization and reuse, model decomposability, computing ability, product representation, model openness, and model development (or data manipulation) views.

Targeting the developed strategy, the author explores several methodologies and techniques, such as High Level Architecture (HLA), Industrial Foundation Class (IFC), ontology, and eXtensible Markup Language (XML) to solve the identified challenges. A prototype architecture has been designed by integrating the proposed solutions to create increased capacity for and cost-effectiveness of production-based large scale construction simulation.