Design for construction: utilizing production experiences in development

Abstract

The design process has a significant impact on the performance and profitability of a housing project. Therefore, decisions made during the design process should take into consideration knowledge and experience from other processes in previously accomplished projects, specifically from the production phase. How to capture and use production experience in housing has not gained enough interest, possibly leading to suboptimal improvements during the construction process. This motivates research on how onsite production experience from similar previous projects can be captured and used to improve constructability without risking customer values. Based on the concept of constructability, 'design for manufacturing and assembly' and the theory of waste, the method 'design for construction' (DFC) has been developed. The four-step model complements the conventional construction process, and consists of the following steps: (1) specify customer values and similar previous projects; (2) identify onsite waste and cost drivers in previous projects; (3) develop criteria to evaluate constructability; and (4) evaluate constructability of the design. The DFC method is exemplified and tested through a case study, in which it was shown that the method facilitated identification of all problems that were considered in the investigated project. The method also highlighted other project obstacles that potentially could have been solved to improve constructability.

Applying the Concept of Selective Assembly to Modular Construction to Mitigate Impacts of Component Variability

“…While DfMA is primarily only used in the manufacturing industry, recent efforts have been made to adopt its use for construction. Design for construction (DFC) is one of these efforts, and utilizes three key ideas: (1) design for manufacturing and assembly (DfMA), (2) lean production and (3) constructability [21]. DFC aims to capture tacit knowledge learned from previous production problems, so that unnecessary rework is minimized in future projects.…”

Design for Manufacture and Assembly Oriented Design Approach to a Curtain Wall System: A Case Study of a Commercial Building in Wuhan, China

“…Many DfMA-related conceptualizations, such as proper organizational structure [23], possible application frameworks [24,25], suitable procurement process [26], contributions to knowledge management [27], and buildability [28], emerged during that period. As summarized later by [7,29] and several other researchers, the key point for implementing DfMA-oriented design in a construction project is to make use of the onsite experience at the early design stage.…”

“…In these empirical studies, DfMA principles were applied to the design of several different types of facilities or facility components. For example, Ref [7] introduced the process of applying DfMA to the design of light walls of two multifamily, four-story houses. Jensen et al [31] reported a case study of a high-rise building project in which 72% of the frame and façade, bathroom pods, and mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) elements were designed following DfMA principles.…”

“…Previous studies have shown that one of the major challenges in construction project management is to derive a design that attends contractors' and manufacturers' requirements while meeting the demands of the client [7,25,28,[36][37][38]. By this token, forming an operative multidisciplinary team plays an important role in DfMA implementation in construction projects.…”

“…The profound impacts of design on the overall utilization of resources in a construction project are commonly recognized by researchers [6][7][8]. Accordingly, the design of a CWS would play an important role in the final performances (e.g., cost efficiency, the total generation of wastes) of the manufacture Table 1.…”