Engineering and construction companies are striving for the type of productivity gains realized in recent decades by their counterparts in manufacturing. And they are fast realizing that the most significant gains come from moving activity that had been completed on site into a shop environment— becoming more like manufacturers themselves.

This is not an entirely new phenomenon. Companies in precast construction, modular home builders and many mechanical contractors already perform work in a shop environment and then transport assemblies or subassemblies to the job site to be placed in situ, erected, assembled. But as more construction organizations in more disciplines move their operations in this direction, they will need to learn and implement new concepts and methods. Richard Feynman taught us that there is a difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something but knowing that name is a start.

So, to that end, IFS offers this quick glossary of important terms for those embarking on or advancing on a journey towards offsite, modular construction.

Multiple Terms For The Same Thing

异地建设。模块化结构。建筑综合制造。预制。镶板结构。专为制造和组装（DFMA）而设计。

All these terms refer to essentially the same thing, although some may be used more in certain sub-industries or countries than others. Regardless of which specific term we use, the definition is the same. It is a technique, whereby standardized modules or components are manufactured, fabricated or assembled in a factory or offsite location, transported to, and assembled or installed on the construction site.

制造条款要知道

Simply moving some work offsite can bring measurable benefits as you can be more efficient in how you use labor and prevent weather-related delays and inconveniences. But manufacturers have also adopted lean principles that, compounded over time, has for instance let US manufacturers increase output by 80 percent over 30 years while employing fewer workers.

A contractor simply moving some activities to a shop environment will not automatically see that type of productivity gain. The exponential gains in productivity will come by adopting some of the best practices taken for granted in the manufacturing space over the last few decades.

Part Number/Catalog Number

This is a very simple term for a simple idea, but it will be revolutionary to many engineering and construction firms. Project designers and construction companies often start any project from a blank slate with no common elements from one project to the next. While each owner and set of project requirements is unique, contractors adopting standardization, including standard parts, will see significant cost savings and productivity improvements over those who do not.

零件号或目录号是一种唯一标识符，用于定义每个标准零件及其形式和功能。这是假设建筑或工程操作采用了一致使用的设计元素。目前，通常不是这种情况，因为任何制造或捏造的零件都被视为正在进行的工作（WIP）。但是，一旦工程或建筑组织迈向了标准零件，他们会提供一些好处：

• The design process can be compressed by re-using common elements in the form of standard parts or assemblies
• You can take advantage of inventory control efficiencies by tracking standard part availability, location balancing that against demand in the project plan
• 您也可以在项目之间移动库存新利18备用网址
• While the benefit of implementing part numbers is the ability to re-use them across multiple projects, you can also still have parts unique to a project, so you are not giving up any flexibility

The other concepts and definitions we review here are also vital, but none overall can impact the construction industry to the degree of standardization. The repeatability that comes from standardization is why manufacturing is more productive than construction—repeatability. After all, you cannot produce 1,000 cars a day, with an assortment of option packages and features, if you must design every single one from the ground up. Even with configured options, you are still working from a standard design. And even across different models, there are often shared inventory parts or even shared platforms.

We have some standard products in construction already, but we need exponentially more. Think of the steel beams for a structure and how the consistent structural qualities and dimensions influence and improve construction. Precast concrete panels are another example—manufactured to tight tolerances and easy to design projects around. Driving more of this type of consistency and high quality into the construction discipline will make all projects more predictable, efficient and profitable. Designs may also be proprietary, which means your company’s approach and technology may become sought after, allowing you even higher margin by de-commoditizing and increasing demand.

Subassemblies

While some parts are simply cast, die cut, rolled, welded, stamped or molded items, multiple parts can be assembled into a more complex part and kept in inventory. This intermediate stage in a build process is called a subassembly. These subassemblies are parts could also be configured and assembled into modules. A construction or engineering company could have standard subassemblies as well, each of which are assembled as needed into a module for deployment on the job site.

基于预期的需求和当前的项目计划，制造和保持库存可能是有意义的，是三种类型和两种尺寸。或在结构的较低水平上进行标准化。可以建造库存以缩短交货时间。

Bill of Materials/Product Structure

材料清单（BOM） - 零件清单或组件/安装套件 - 是您发送到工作现场的最终核算。它列举了物品和数量，在建筑环境中，不仅附上了在制造工厂使用的商店订单，还附加到项目。然后，所有原材料，人工和其他资源都可以分解并分析成本，以及以后用于串行可追溯性的数据。一词的面对计划已开始在行业的某些部门中使用，以描述一种结构化的工作包管理方法。这些工作包在施工现场使用，以执行基于站点的工作，并且与制造工厂中的商店订单相同。

Each work package will describe the materials, labor and equipment required to do the work. In a construction and engineering environment, a lot of work must go into planning this BOM because of the advanced logistical challenges. This is also true in many industrial equipment settings, and construction companies can probably learn a lot from how machinery manufacturers plan a BOM given the large dimensions of the equipment, its weight, dimensions and oftentimes the capacities of public rights of way.

Material Requirements Planning (MRP) and Capacity Requirements Planning (CRP)

Win a manufacturing environment, MRP is an approach to using the sales forecast to pull through raw materials and schedule labor. In a construction and engineering environment, this can be driven not only by the project plan but by projects in the pipeline. In engineering and construction companies traditional MRP and CRP are not appropriate, but some modern project centric ERP solutions can drive procurement and resource plans from the project plan, so the principals are broadly similar. In addition, in an offsite model project MRP and project inventory are also critical processes.

The ability to include potential projects that you are bidding for in the plan is also a very useful simulation option which is available is a small number ofERP解决方案.

This means you will have a head start on completing the work even before you win the business. And it means you can purchase materials and hire workers and plan for the equipment needs based on your anticipated needs, reducing cost and lead times even further.

Routings

路由是必须在商店环境中执行的特定步骤，才能创建零件，组装或子组件。它包括一系列生产操作，并确定工作中心完成每个操作以及执行该操作的预期时间。在ERP software, it is important for a company in the construction and engineering industry to have very agile routing processes, as new routing will be required regularly depending on individual project requirements. Some manufacturing software products require extensive systems integration work to create a new routing—an important thing to keep in mind.

Product Cost Rollup

This is an account and management procedure that will help you get a handle on the cost the assemblies you deliver and put in place on the job site. Think of a BOM as a nested table of all the constituent parts, subassemblies and the final assembly. Inconstruction ERP with manufacturing capabilities, it will be simple enough to roll up cost of all the component parts of a BOM, including the labor, machine and overhead costs so you can get actual costing on the assembly.

Manufacturing Modes

Modes of manufacturing are terms used byAPICSand other operations educational organizations to refer to specific manufacturing business models. An optimal offsite construction operation will want to use multiple of these modes at different times and for different reasons. AndERP for offsite constructionshould have capabilities in all these areas.

Job Shop Manufacturing

在this style of manufacturing, a shop simply takes an order to fabricate specific items of a design supplied by the customer. This is a rudimentary approach with no standard parts. A mechanical contractor taking an order for duct work for a fast food chain according to supplied plans is operating in a job shop environment. Inventory management for raw materials and capacity planning for labor are still important in job shop manufacturing though.

Engineer-To-Order or Project-Driven Manufacturing

This model is perhaps most easily compared to design-build construction, where you receive functional requirements from a customer and collaborate with them to create a finished unique design. Oftentimes there is overlap between the engineering/design processes and subsequent processes like purchasing of long lead time items and in many cases, actual work on site.

Again, there are many lessons an offsite construction organization can learn from manufacturers of complex industrial equipment, including how to use technology to create a shared platform to communicate as engineering, purchasing and site professionals collaborate in real time. Industrial manufacturers will also repurpose perhaps 90 percent of their project content, using existing standard designs and standard subassemblies to meet their customers’ requirements.

可追溯性

钢结构和一些材料提供者concrete manufacturers already rely on lot and batch traceability to identify and mitigate against quality issues. A concrete sample may be collected and submitted to a structural engineering firm or project owner according toAmerican Concrete Institute (ACI)或者American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM)international standards.

合同可能需要可追溯性，这意味着材料测试报告（MTR）对应于分配给该材料的质量控制指数号码。在某些情况下，该材料样本的监护链是通过诸如合规性和可追溯性证书之类的过程所需的。

When it comes to discrete items fabricated in a shop, you may be required to provide serial traceability. Particularly with a more complex electrical or mechanical assembly, or those consisting of other serialized parts provided by your vendors, you could need to issue each piece a serial number, oftentimes with a nested table of serialized component parts. This might come in handy either in the event of a recall or quality issue but in documenting a warranty or aftermarket service contract that covers serialized components.

Shipping Plan

This is how you synchronize delivery of materials, assemblies and subassemblies to a construction site so you are not sending materials before you have a safe place to put them or you may not have enough space to store them. You want to ensure that the site labor resource plan is in synch with the shipping plan so that maximum efficiency is achieved and project plan dates are met.

Just-in-Time (JIT) Delivery Schedule

这是由丰田生产系统起源的另一个概念。这个想法是将材料的交付时间表直接与生产时间表或工程和施工环境的情况进行，并在工作现场进行了预定的活动。在您的异地施工之旅中，您当然可以探索是否要在商店地板上使用此方法，因为它可以降低库存中捆绑的美元。显而易见的是，使用JIT将组件和子组件的交付安排到网站上，因此运输时间表与何时可以架设或安装船员和设备相对应。这种JIT方法可以保护集会免受元素的侵害和盗窃的侵害，有效地使用现场的机组人员和设备，并在现场保留宝贵的空间 - 当空间受到限制时，或者您有多次交易时，这是至关重要的因素。

精益结构

This is a term coined by the International Group for Lean Construction¹在1993年。这很难定义，因为像精益制造一样，它是在不同点上应用于施工过程的学科和概念的集合。

While the methods and approaches to bring lean improvements are many, the consistently exciting thing is to see a disciplined and measurable approach to reducing waste and increasing efficiency in the construction industry. One well-documented case study²of a加热、通风和空调(HVAC) contractorfound that offsite construction results in a 44 percent cost savings.

Supply Hub

While you may have warehousing space or a marshalling yard at your shop location, sometimes it makes sense to locate assemblies, subassemblies and other material at a different site, perhaps one closer to one or more project sites. You or your suppliers can deliver material into these hubs and material moved to the job site as needed. This is common in sites in densely developed urban areas. But a single supply hub can also support multiple project sites, making you more competitive on projects further away from a central shop environment.

Supply Chain Management

为了管理供应链，如果我们首先定义供应链的组成，这会有所帮助。在施工中，它是管理交付项目所需的所有内部和外部资源。其中包括材料，人工，分包商和设备。涉及材料流入异地制造设施或供应链中心，然后将材料和模块的随后运送到建筑工地，然后将它们安装到资产中。在异地模型中，建筑工地变成更像是最终的组装操作。

As is the case with lean, supply chain management is a deep discipline and there is no shortage of resources to help you turn it into a competitive advantage. Perhaps the most reputable are the certification programs offered by APICS³.

A Whole New World

Moving some construction offsite, into a shop environment, can lead to some very attractive efficiencies. But even bigger gains can be made by engineering and construction companies by adopting standardization of parts and design content, along with the other business efficiency disciplines manufacturers have come to take for granted.

这是一个真正的变化,工程and construction companies need to understand how a product- centric business works. But more than this, they need to figure out how a product-centric business fits into their project-centric business. When you are ready to make this transition, IFS is your trusted and proven partner to allow you to transition to a hybrid business model where you can evolve to become a work class manufacturer and construction business. We look forward to defining the future of your engineering or construction business together.

^1.在ternational Group for Lean Construction:www.iglc.net
²Proceedings IGLC-10, Christina L. Pasquire, Gary E. Connolly, Aug 2002
³APICS：www.apics.org