A Decision Support System for the Integration of Robotics in Offsite Construction

摘要

The integration of robotic systems into the manufacturing sector has greatly helped in the improvement of manufacturing quality, safety, and productivity. This prompted construction professionals to incorporate robotics into various construction activities ranging from onsite activities to offsite construction. However, a lack of understanding of the financial and technical benefits of robotics, as well as identical features of each construction project, have been barriers to utilizing the full potential of robotics in the construction industry. This study develops a decision support system for the selection of robotics in offsite construction to address the existing technical issues and cost uncertainties. The proposed study employs simulation techniques to assess the performance of multi robots in an offsite manufacturing plant. Five robotic characteristics (i.e., reach, payload, axis speed, degrees of freedom, and position repeatability) are chosen as criteria, and a scoring system is developed to rank the best-performing robots. The results show a 52% increase in annual production rate and a 21.56% overall cost reduction when multi robots were used. The proposed decision support system is intended to support construction automation and enable construction professionals to make accurate decisions when implementing robotic systems.