A BIM-based Supply Chain Integration for Prefabrication and Modularization

Abstract

Prefabrication and modularization helps to reduce cost and schedule time for on-site activities. The use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) helps to improve collaboration and improve the construction process. The improved installation precision provided by BIM Model-Driven Prefabrication can decrease on-site labor time and increase productivity. Prefabrication, Modularization, and off-site construction transfers activities that would have been performed on site to earlier stages of the supply chain. The implementation of Just-In-Time (JIT) delivery transfers the costs and risks associated with inventory to the supplier. Construction Supply Chain Integration can help reduce cost and waste across the supply chain particularly for large and complex buildings. This paper presents a methodology that utilizes a BIM based construction supply chain integration to reduce cost and waste in the construction and offsite manufacturing processes. It utilizes the integration of BIM with the on-site schedule and the manufacturing or fabrication schedule of the different supply chain members. The methodology utilizes the onsite schedule, lead times of prefabricated elements or modules and the transportation logistics to help reduce cost across the supply chain. The information, material and cash flows as well as the transportation logistics is utilized in generating an optimized just-in-time delivery schedule for large and complex buildings. The optimized delivery schedule takes into account the variations in the on-site and off-site schedules to forecast delivery dates of precast elements or fabricated modules.