An automatic scheduling approach: building information modeling-based onsite scheduling for panelized construction

Panelized/modular construction is increasingly adopted within the industry as a primary construction method, with in-plant fabrication and on-site assembly as two of the main processes. Each of these two processes involves a different emphasis regarding productivity improvement: for in-plant fabrication, manufacturing process management is the main focus, while, for on-site assembly, scheduling and management of assembly operations are of particular interest. This paper proposes a generic approach by which to generate the on-site schedule automatically based on a building information model (BIM), considering the structural supporting and topological relationships among building elements, as well as knowledge of steel panel construction. The BIM model is developed in an Autodesk Revit environment, based on which precedence relationships of elements are derived automatically, and is utilized to perform the on-site schedule through the Autodesk Revit Application Programming Interface (API). The generated schedule results are exported into Microsoft Project for further analysis, such as resource leveling. A case example is provided to demonstrate and validate the methodology. This paper explores the implementation of BIM, with the scheduling of panelized construction as the focus. This research lays the foundation for further implementation of BIM using Autodesk Revit.