Modeling construction manufacturing processes using foresight

An essential part of the planning and control of any manufacturing system is the development of a model of the key processes. The Critical Path Method (CPM) is the most widely used modeling method in construction due to its simplicity. Discrete-event simulation is more versatile than CPM and is well suited to modeling manufacturing processes since these tend to be repetitive, but it lacks the simplicity in use of CPM and thus has not been widely adopted in construction. This paper demonstrates an alternative modelling approach, Foresight, developed to provide the modeling versatility of simulation, and yet be relatively simple to use and visually insightful. Previous work demonstrated the application of Foresight to in-place construction work and compared its performance to conventional simulation. This paper extends this work, demonstrating the application of Foresight to manufactured construction processes whereby streams of jobs, with design variances, are executed within a factory.