Engineering of Project-based Production Systems for the Delivery of Engineered-to-order Products

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

Project-based production (PBP) systems are dedicated to designing and making artifacts that provide value to project stakeholders. Their delivery is a type of service when the artifacts are engineered-to-order (ETO). Delivery of custom products that enable realization of customer purposes, while being responsive to the needs of multiple users and various life-cycle requirements, pushes PBP systems and ETO products firmly into the service category. Numerous services are delivered through PBP systems and produce ETO products. Examples of services belonging to this class of problems are health care (e.g., patient diagnosis and treatment), construction services, film and theatrical productions, software engineering, oil field development, consumer product development, custom ship building, and work orders (e.g., job shops). Learning how to design, control, and systematically improve the delivery of ETO products can be understood as a topic of importance to many-if not most-service functions. The objective of this research is to determine how to reduce lead times for one type of ETO product in the engineering and detailing phases of delivery using industry-practice data, computer-based simulation, and computer-based as well as practice-based experimentation. Taking one step towards the PI's larger objective, this exploratory research focuses on one type of ETO product, in one type of service function, namely the delivery of steel reinforcing bars used in pre-cast or cast-in-place concrete. What is learned from this project will be cast in a theoretical framework and applied to delivery processes for other ETO products in various service sectors, in an effort to establish one component of a general methodology for the design, control, and continuous improvement of project-based ETO product delivery. The working hypotheses are that (1) Traditional ETO delivery is characterized by sequential processing, with each participating company or department sub-optimizing total system performance; (2) Rework in engineering and detailing exceeds 10%; (3) The ratio of idle time to total time spent by an ETO product as it moves from engineering through fabrication and delivery exceeds 20 to 1; and (4) The ration of fabrication shop cycle time to fabrication lead time exceeds 10 to 1. The research will aim to reject these. Should findings, however, reinforce these hypotheses, then opportunities for radical improvement in the ETO delivery process abound. A research agenda will then be staked out, and, time permitting under this 18 month grant, selected improvements will be implemented and tested.