Process flowcharting and simulation of house structure components production process

Stimulated by the success of management innovation in the manufacturing industry - culminating in lean production, many homebuilders attempt to model the construction process on manufacturing. Currently, much of the focus has been on the use of factory-built structural components, which reflects the inherent characteristics of the residential construction industry that medium and large homebuilders construct high volumes of houses with a similar structure. However, many such attempts failed due to operation management problems. This paper presents a hybrid approach that combines process flowcharting and simulation for helping prefabricators analyze and improve their production process. In the research, the process flowchart and process activity chart are used to identify opportunities for process improvement, and simulation models are built in Simphony, a special purpose simulation (SPS) tool, to do what-if analysis and to predict productivity. The results of this study indicate that process flowcharting coupled with simulation is an effective way to plan process improvement.