Synchronization in construction supply chain management

Abstract

The construction industry contributes to the development of society and economy. Due to increasing awareness of environmental problems under the growing pressure, cast-in situ construction has been replaced by prefabrication construction. Prefabrication construction is cost-effective and eco-friendly, and shortens construction time, but isolates prefabrication manufacturing from prefabrication assembly, which could result in the disruption of construction sites. Construction supply chain management plays a critical role in the usage of prefabrication construction which usually involves a large number of stakeholders, such as prefab manufacturers, third-party logistics companies, regulatory authorities, and general contractors. Synchronization is the essence of coordinating various stakeholders to complete construction projects. Therefore, synchronization is investigated to facilitate construction supply chain management from three different perspectives. First, information synchronization is designed to enable stakeholders to share and access information timely. Second, decision synchronization is developed to make globally optimal solutions for all stakeholders. Third, operation synchronization is proposed to control the real-time execution process. Fourth, a case study is conducted to verify and examine the proposed synchronization framework.