An approach for sustainable, cost-effective and optimised material design for the prefabricated non-structural components of residential buildings

Abstract Offsite prefabrication of the non-structural components of residential and commercial low- and high-rise buildings is becoming increasingly popular due to its sustainability, fast on-site execution, safety and cost-effectiveness. The benefits of offsite prefabrication can be further enhanced if it is coupled with the principles of Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DfMA), which is based on materials, labours and cost optimisation. Although DfMA has been widely used in automotive and other industries, it is not well-established in the offsite prefabricated construction industry. Moreover, there are no guidelines exist for applying DfMA in prefabricated construction. In this paper, DfMA principles are applied to the most common non-structural members i.e., timber frame wall and the plumbing drainage system of a local residential building in Melbourne, Australia. Site and factory observations for the manufacturing of these components were carried out to collect actual assembly times. Then, using the collected data, the design efficiencies of onsite-, offsite- and DfMA-based prefabrication were computed by developing a user-friendly tool through advanced MATLAB programming. Moreover, from a cost-benefit analysis, DfMA-based prefabrication was found to be better than conventional factory prefabrication of selected non-structural components. Furthermore, based on the results, a pragmatic framework for DfMA based design and execution in a real prefabricated construction project is proposed. The findings of this paper are significant as they can contribute to developing guidelines for DfMA based design of prefabricated non-structural components of residential buildings.

[1]  Ruoyu Jin,et al.  Design for manufacture and assembly in construction: a review , 2019, Building Research & Information.

[2]  Geoffrey Boothroyd,et al.  Product design for manufacture and assembly , 1994, Comput. Aided Des..

[3]  Sanjiv Kumar Jain,et al.  A literature review of lean manufacturing , 2013 .

[4]  J.Y.R. Liew,et al.  Steel concrete composite systems for modular construction of high-rise buildings , 2019 .

[5]  A. Kashani,et al.  Additive manufacturing (3D printing): A review of materials, methods, applications and challenges , 2018, Composites Part B: Engineering.

[6]  Tuan Ngo,et al.  Behaviour of Multi-Storey Prefabricated Modular Buildings under seismic loads , 2016 .

[7]  Gordon Lewis,et al.  Product Design for Manufacturing and Assembly , 2015 .

[8]  Geoffrey Qiping Shen,et al.  Holistic Review and Conceptual Framework for the Drivers of Offsite Construction: A Total Interpretive Structural Modelling Approach , 2019, Buildings.

[9]  Jingke Hong,et al.  Environmental performance of off-site constructed facilities: A critical review , 2020, Energy and Buildings.

[10]  Chengshuang Sun,et al.  Design for Manufacture and Assembly-oriented parametric design of prefabricated buildings , 2018 .

[11]  P. Mendis,et al.  Prefabrication of substructures for single-detached dwellings on reactive soils: a review of existing systems and design challenges , 2019, Australian Journal of Civil Engineering.

[12]  Kristopher Orlowski,et al.  Automated manufacturing for timber-based panelised wall systems , 2020 .

[13]  Carlos López-Colina,et al.  Design of Flexible Structural System for Building Customization , 2019 .

[14]  Charles J. Kibert,et al.  Perceptions of offsite construction in the United States: An investigation of current practices , 2020 .

[15]  Robert H. Crawford,et al.  TIME-EFFICIENT POST-DISASTER HOUSING RECONSTRUCTION WITH PREFABRICATED MODULAR STRUCTURES , 2014 .

[16]  Heap-Yih Chong,et al.  Environmental sustainability of off-site manufacturing: a literature review , 2019 .

[17]  K. London,et al.  Understanding Stakeholders in Off-Site Manufacturing: A Literature Review , 2019, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management.

[18]  Robert H. Crawford,et al.  Life cycle greenhouse gas emissions and energy analysis of prefabricated reusable building modules , 2012 .

[19]  Ke Chen,et al.  Design for Manufacture and Assembly Oriented Design Approach to a Curtain Wall System: A Case Study of a Commercial Building in Wuhan, China , 2018, Sustainability.

[20]  Sui Pheng Low,et al.  Design for manufacturing and assembly (DfMA): a preliminary study of factors influencing its adoption in Singapore , 2018, Architectural Engineering and Design Management.

[21]  Tharaka Gunawardena,et al.  Performance Review of Prefabricated Building Systems and Future Research in Australia , 2019, Buildings.

[22]  Stuart White,et al.  Novel solar tower structure to lower plant cost and construction risk , 2016 .

[23]  Lukumon O. Oyedele,et al.  Offsite construction: Developing a BIM-Based optimizer for assembly , 2019, Journal of Cleaner Production.

[24]  Wahid Ferdous,et al.  New advancements, challenges and opportunities of multi-storey modular buildings – A state-of-the-art review , 2019, Engineering Structures.

[25]  William R. Gibbs,et al.  Productivity in Construction , 1976 .