BIM-enabled Sustainability Assessment of Design for Manufacture and Assembly

Abstract

Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) is an emerging concept introduced from the manufacturing sector to transform the construction industry and accelerating "off-site" capabilities. Enhancing the sustainability of DfMA is challenging and requires accounting for various environmental and managerial impacts on the process of manufacture and assembly, especially for the parametric buildings with irregular shapes and unstandardised components. It is essential to compare and make decisions among design alternatives for the best-fit sustainability in the DfMA process. However, there is presently a gap in the DfMA field. This paper proposed a novel BIM-enabled Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method for the sustainability assessment of parametric faç ade design. An under-construction parametric building was used to test and illustrate the method. A parametric faç ade was selected to demonstrate the application of DfMA to enable mass "off-site" customisation. This is a labour-intensive assembly process, which could significantly benefit from the implementation of such a method. Data collection involves archival data and semi-structured interviews. An integrated fuzzy AHP-TOPSIS was used to analysis the data. This research sheds new lights on DfMA sustainability and its decision support systems. Unlike the usual attention to the construction sustainability of on-site construction, the method involves consideration of both manufacture and assembly stages. It provides practitioners with a decision-making method to select the most sustainable faç ade alternative available for the parametric design. The findings carry implications for parametric faç ade design and show the deployment of mass customised unstandardised components. This research opens up new avenues for sustainable DfMA development.

Building information modeling-enabled platform approach to design for manufacture and assembly

“…First, DfMA and BIM were investigated to understand their potential for integration to enhance collaboration. A systematic review was conducted and presented at the EG-ICE International Workshop on Intelligent Computing in Engineering (Tan et al, 2020b). An initial BIM-enabled DfMA framework is proposed.…”

“…BIM-based DfMA uses a BIM process, tool and information source (the DfMA model) (Tan et al, 2020b) to review, check and process data (Di Giuda et al, 2019;Lee et al, 2014;Tresidder and White, 2018). BIM, digital DfMA models, components and connections can be used to streamline the processes of manufacturing and assembly.…”

“…A BIM-based DfMA process is established by Yuan et al (2018) as a linear evaluation process and applied to understand prefabricated building manufacture and assembly, but few studies take a platform approach that integrates both DfM and DfA. A new construction-oriented BIM-enabled DfMA framework has been established to prototype how Building information modeling platform approach to design 383 intelligent technologies, previously introduced into manufacturing, may be adopted (Tan et al, 2020b). Figure 19.2 hypothesizes how a BIM-enabled intelligent toolkit, BIM sources, and DfMA evaluation approach could inform a multi-criteria methodology.…”

“…Artificial Intelligence (AI), such as knowledge-based systems, case-based reasoning, neural network, and genetic algorithms, is not a new field in manufacturing-oriented DfMA, which already has about 30 years' history. These efforts are applied to four aspects: (1) design evaluation; (2) design improvement; (3) manufacturing modelling; and (4) assembly planning (Tan et al, 2020b). However, these mature technologies have not been fully applied to the design in the construction industry.…”

“…Conventional design and construction methods are facing growing challenges from emerging technologies, such as building information modelling (BIM) and design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA). BIM-enabled DfMA is expected to introduce downstream knowledge and information into the upstream design process, and help realize the 'off-site revolution' (Tan et al, 2020b). In the last decade, construction industry strategies of many countries widely adopted DfMA.…”