Abstract
With increased prefabrication in the construction industry, fabrication workers are tasked to assemble more complicated assemblies with tighter tolerances. However, the existing measurement tools and processes have not changed to accommodate this shift. Lack of advanced measurement tools and existing processes results in increased risk of late detection of geometric errors. To reduce these risks, three-dimensional (3D) quality control systems leveraging scan-vs-BIM methods can be adopted as part of the fabrication process. However, these systems have not been widely adopted yet by fabrication shops, because: (1) fabrication shops often do not have 3D models corresponding to shop drawings; and (2) the cost of integrating accurate 3D scanning equipment into fabrication workflows is assumed to be too high. To remove the first barrier, in this article, a framework for developing 3D digital templates is developed for inspecting received parts. The framework is used for developing a library of 600 3D-models of piping parts. The library is leveraged to deploy a 3D quality control system that was then tested in an industrial scale case study. The results of the case study are used to develop a discrete event simulation model. The simulation results from the model and subsequent cost benefit analysis show that investment in integrating the scan-vs-3D-model quality control systems can have significant cost savings and provide a payback period of less than two years.
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Data Availability Statement
All data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Scott Waters, Chas Williams, and Stacey Jenson Rose from their industrial partner, Aecon Group, who supported this research by a Collaborative Research and Development (CRD) grant jointly funded with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Canada. The authors thank Arjun Krishna, Abdullah Majid, and Minren Hung for their efforts in data collection and supporting this research. This research is partially funded by Mitacs and Glove Systems, Inc.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 148 • Issue 11 • November 2022
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 15, 2021
Accepted: Apr 29, 2022
Published online: Aug 19, 2022
Published in print: Nov 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Jan 19, 2023
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Benefit cost ratios
- Business management
- Case studies
- Computer vision and image processing
- Construction engineering
- Construction industry
- Construction management
- Control systems
- Engineering fundamentals
- Fabrication
- Financial management
- Management methods
- Materials engineering
- Materials processing
- Methodology (by type)
- Models (by type)
- Offsite construction
- Practice and Profession
- Quality control
- Research methods (by type)
- Systems engineering
- Systems management
- Three-dimensional models
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