6,293 research outputs found
Opportunities and challenges to mass customise low-income housing in Brazil
Mass Customization (MC) stands for the ability to develop high value-added products within short time frames and at relatively low costs. Although this strategy has been successfully applied in several industries, in construction it has been mostly limited to a few companies that produce factory-built and manufactured homes. In Brazil, where traditional construction techniques are majorly adopted in low-income housing programs, there have been many critics regarding the excessive standardization and thus, non-consideration of the increasing diversity of households and their specific needs. Such standardization is mainly due to the use of mass production core ideas as a way to achieve low costs. The aim of this paper was then to explore the possibilities of adopting mass customization in this context. Two existing low-income housing programs in Brazil were investigated. The discussion on the opportunities and challenges to introduce mass customization ideas in these programs are based on the analysis of the product development process, as well as an analysis of household profiles and needs. The results indicated that the household profile is very diverse in low-income housing. Thus, demand for customization is high, as well as attributed to different productsâ characteristics. However, the product development process in this context was found to be very different from a process of mass customized products. Despite the need to modify such process, it was identified that mass customization can be achieved in a variety of ways, and does not necessarily imply on the modernization of construction techniques. However, a major challenge for achieving higher customization in this context seems to be related to the programsâ rules and how it restraints innovation and diversity.
Keywords: product development process, low-income housing, mass customization, value managemen
Lean manual assembly 4.0: A systematic review
In a demand context of mass customization, shifting towards the mass personalization of products, assembly operations face the trade-off between highly productive automated systems and flexible manual operators. Novel digital technologiesâconceptualized as Industry 4.0âsuggest the possibility of simultaneously achieving superior productivity and flexibility. This article aims to address how Industry 4.0 technologies could improve the productivity, flexibility and quality of assembly operations. A systematic literature review was carried out, including 234 peer-reviewed articles from 2010â2020. As a result, the analysis was structured addressing four sets of research questions regarding (1) assembly for mass customization; (2) Industry 4.0 and performance evaluation; (3) Lean production as a starting point for smart factories, and (4) the implications of Industry 4.0 for people in assembly operations. It was found that mass customization brings great complexity that needs to be addressed at different levels from a holistic point of view; that Industry 4.0 offers powerful tools to achieve superior productivity and flexibility in assembly; that Lean is a great starting point for implementing such changes; and that people need to be considered central to Assembly 4.0. Developing methodologies for implementing Industry 4.0 to achieve specific business goals remains an open research topic
The relevance of outsourcing and leagile strategies in performance optimization of an integrated process planning and scheduling
Over the past few years growing global competition has forced the manufacturing industries to upgrade their old production strategies with the modern day approaches. As a result, recent interest has been developed towards finding an appropriate policy that could enable them to compete with others, and facilitate them to emerge as a market winner. Keeping in mind the abovementioned facts, in this paper the authors have proposed an integrated process planning and scheduling model inheriting the salient features of outsourcing, and leagile principles to compete in the existing market scenario. The paper also proposes a model based on leagile principles, where the integrated planning management has been practiced. In the present work a scheduling problem has been considered and overall minimization of makespan has been aimed. The paper shows the relevance of both the strategies in performance enhancement of the industries, in terms of their reduced makespan. The authors have also proposed a new hybrid Enhanced Swift Converging Simulated Annealing (ESCSA) algorithm, to solve the complex real-time scheduling problems. The proposed algorithm inherits the prominent features of the Genetic Algorithm (GA), Simulated Annealing (SA), and the Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC). The ESCSA algorithm reduces the makespan significantly in less computational time and number of iterations. The efficacy of the proposed algorithm has been shown by comparing the results with GA, SA, Tabu, and hybrid Tabu-SA optimization methods
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Sustainable development strategies for product provision and manufacturing approaches
Manufacturing firms are under many pressures both financially and competitive which focus attention on the performance of their manufacturing processes. In this paper the opportunities for improving the environmental impact of products within the constraints of existing manufacturing infrastructure are examined. Approaches which support sustainability in two aspects are proposed, firstly, the provision of products to the users in ways which extend the product life and secondly, manufacturing approaches which reduce resource usage. The provision and manufacture of products in ways that are truly sustainable are inhibited by three issues: firstly, decisions are predominantly made solely from the perspective of the âvendorâ (and do not consider the wider perspective); secondly, that generally the scope of business planning is still rooted in production/manufacturing costs (and not consumption costs) and thirdly, the current performance measures (e.g. KPIs) mainly focus on profitability. The rationale for this conference paper is the argument that there is a need to raise the awareness during the earliest stages of business planning that there may be alternative approaches which are more sustainable. The concepts presented here will underpin further research into performance measures which encompass sustainability and resulting business planning implications
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The 8th flow - common understanding
Projects are a form of engineered-to-order (ETO) production which require that the definition of Value becomes part of the production process. Project production requires the inclusion of the product design, the design process, and the production process to be integrated in order to fully benefit from waste reduction and process improvement. In construction, project production is more challenging because of the temporal, transient, and fragmented nature of the project team and the supporting supply chain. This requires a form of âinteroperabilityâ between the supply chain organisations, the particular teams involved, the commissioning clients and other stakeholders. It is proposed that this âinteroperabilityâ is a form of common understanding and that this understanding needs to be defined, developed, and nurtured across the project execution as a flow in the same way that other flows are managed. Building on the seven flow model proposal reported by Koskela and Howell (1999), this paper proposes a common understanding as an eighth flow and suggests how it might be managed. The paper classifies the concept of common understanding as a soft flow and shows that although it is a fresh insight it actually has roots in lean production. The identity of common understanding as the eighth flow arises from a number of funded research projects in which the difficulties of lean construction implementation were investigated
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Modular assembly with postponement to improve health, safety & productivity in construction
This paper presents the outcome of an engineering study as part of the design and development of a lean and agile construction system and in particular its supply chain component. This combines modular assembly with a postponement function to be tested on a case study project (not reported here), the objective of which is to improve health, safety and productivity for the company sponsoring the research.
The contribution to research is the combination of countermeasures described in this paper that have been developed and incorporated into a wider construction system, in the same way that manufacturing has used this strategy with great success. Also, a further output is the development and use of an innovative method for assembling, transporting and installing mechanical and electrical modules, whereby modularization can be achieved with or without offsite manufacturing capability. The research forecasts a reduction of onsite labor of 35% compared to using traditional methods of construction, with less onsite operatives at risk of injury carrying out simpler assembly tasks within ergonomic mobile work cells. Further research is proposed to measure the benefits of the construction system following its implementation on a case study project
Mass Customization Strategies And Their Relationship To Lean Production In The Homebuilding Industry
Current housing trends point to an increasing interest from homebuyers to demand houses that reflect their personal and unique styles, and which are individually configured according to these needs (NAHB, 2004). These homebuyers in turn are unwilling to settle for standard models that sacrifice what they really want in a home. At the same time this creates pressure on builders who are reluctant to sacrifice production efficiencies by deviating from standard models. Such customization desired by demanding customers can disrupt the entire estimating, production, delivery and management process, making it even more difficult to manage homebuilding efficiently and effectively. The question faced by homebuilders in this conditions is, how to manage this trade-off and deliver exactly what homebuyers want, at reasonable prices and lead times with minimal disruptions in efficiencies. Mass Customization (MC) is an emerging production paradigm that seeks to manage the trade-offs between product variety and mass efficiency, while fulfilling individual customer requirements. The general purpose of this research is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of housing production through the implementation of mass customization strategies. More specifically, this research focuses on the study of the production system through the application of lean production principles, as an approach to enable mass customization. This study first characterizes how much product choice is currently being offered by U.S. homebuilders and what is the impact of customization on production efficiency; and then focuses on the evaluation of the relationships between mass customization and lean production principles. Results revealed that homebuilders offering increased product choice are likely to suffer poorer labor productivity, greater inventory, higher production costs, more quality issues, less satisfied homebuyers, and lower space efficiency. In general, operational performance deteriorated with an increase in product choice. Therefore, industrialized housing manufacturers have not reached the ideal of mass customization and are paying a price for offering more choices to their customers. Homebuilders could mitigate these challenges by using lean concepts. In general, case studies showed that product choice does not necessarily make the implementation of lean concepts more difficult. Some lean concepts, like workload balancing and standardizing tasks, clearly facilitated the handling of product choice. Other lean concepts, like creating a continuous process flow, can be made to work well, even with increased choice. Case study results suggested that good concepts for lean (e.g., efficient continuous flow, effective pull system, workload leveling, defect-free processes, standard tasks, good visual controls, and reliable technology) were also good concepts for (or easily accommodated) handling a range of product choice
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