Flow Production of Pipe Spool Fabrication: Simulation to Support Implementation of Lean Technique
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 135, Issue 10
Abstract
Pipe spool fabrication is an important stage in industrial construction project delivery. It is a complex production system characterized by product uniqueness and high product mix, which pose challenges to the analysis and improvement of this system. This research applies lean production principles and flow production to shop fabrication, and uses a simulation-based approach as a tool to facilitate its implementation. The work described in the paper is based on a real case study undertaken with an Edmonton-based industrial construction contractor. The traditional batch-and-queue fabrication system and the new cell-based work flow fabrication systems were compared and analyzed. Simulation models were built to experiment with the old and new production systems and quantitatively test the effects of lean principles on the performance of the systems. The developed simulation-based approach proves a practical and more powerful tool than the value stream map for modeling and for quantitatively evaluating the performance of a complex and dynamic spool fabrication shop.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Barrie, D. S., and Paulson, B. C. (1992). Professional construction management, including C. M., design-construct, and general contracting, McGraw-Hill, N.Y.
Hajjar, D., and AbouRizk, S. (2002). “Unified modeling methodology for construction simulation.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 128(2), 174–185.
Halpin, D. W. and Kueckmann, M., and (2002). “Lean construction and simulation.” Proc., Winter Simulation Conf., Vol. 2, eds., Enver Yücesan, Chun-Hung Chen, Jane L. Snowdon, and John M. Charnes, San Diego, 1697–1703.
Hirano, H. (1996). 5S for operators: 5 pillars of the visual workplace, Productivity, Portland, Ore.
Lian, Y. -H., and Van, L. H. (2002). “An application of simulation and value stream mapping in lean manufacturing.” Proc., 14th European Simulation Symp., Dresden, Germany.
Tommelein, I. D. (1998). “Pull-driven Scheduling for pipe-spool installation: Simulation of lean construction technique.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 124(4), 279–288.
Womack, J. P., and Jones, D. T. (1996). Lean thinking: Banish waste and create wealth in your corporation, Simon & Schuster, N.Y.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 135 • Issue 10 • October 2009
Pages: 1027 - 1038
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Aug 25, 2008
Accepted: Mar 18, 2009
Published online: Apr 30, 2009
Published in print: Oct 2009
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.