One Design Truth

“The Myth of the Holy Grail”—American author Dan Brown wrote a bestseller about it. Depending on which myth you follow, the Holy Grail is described as a cup, a bowl, a spearhead, or a gemstone said to possess supernatural powers. Has “planning” become the Holy Grail for manufacturers of prefabricated building components?

The dream of many industrial element manufacturers is to be able to plan and produce just-in-time. It turns out to be a dream that often turns into a nightmare. The reason? Simply because, at most manufacturing companies, project production dictates the schedule, rather than the schedule driving the production of components (products). It’s undesirable to have a schedule that’s already “set in stone” six to ten weeks in advance. Another cause is “uncertainty” due to the lack of a single, authoritative plan.

Excel wizards and scheduling gurus
This latter issue is clearly evident in day-to-day practice. Different departments have separate schedules, resulting in multiple “truths.” Excel is the magic formula here; planners act as Excel knights and production managers as planning wizards. This makes (production) planning anything but flexible. Projects are constantly shifting, and if you aren’t flexible in your planning, you run the risk of always producing at the wrong time—with all the consequences that entails. The closer production is to delivery, the easier it is to adjust the schedule so that you produce exactly what you’re delivering. An added benefit: this also prevents unnecessary inventory of finished goods.

Integrated Production Planning and Control
Industrial component manufacturers benefit from up-to-date planning based on real-time data from logistics and production processes. The question “When must what be delivered, and to what quality standard?” calls for a fundamentally different approach to everything that influences production. Planning is an essential component of this. There is a growing demand for a single, integrated planning system, combined with integrated production control—from high-level to detailed.
The BIM4Production® platform integrates both the planning and control of production (via MES and including quality control) as well as logistics planning. In addition, the platform automates various tasks involved in planning and production. There is only one “single source of truth,” but it can be viewed in various forms. In the high-level phase, a project is planned in terms of lead time. In this phase, for example, the system automatically calculates which steps must be completed to have the final BIM model ready on time, so that production and delivery can take place on schedule. Once the BIM model is received, this is recorded as a step—even if it arrives too early or too late. Based on these clear milestones (the number and names of which each manufacturing company can determine and define for itself), a detailed schedule is created in which the essential steps in the workflow (the smart progression through the process) are monitored.

Producing According to the Delivery Sequence Based on the Schedule
As soon as the engineering is complete, production planning begins, and the platform facilitates element planning as well as production and logistics planning down to the finest details. The resulting production flow also incorporates quality control and assurance (for each individual element!). Through an overall schedule, you can get an overview of all the various ongoing projects in a single view. At any time of day, you have insight into the production flow, producing what you can deliver in the correct delivery sequence.
The revolutionary data models within the BIM4Production® platform handle all the data shared back and forth between the various production steps. This includes simple start/stop notifications or quality checks, as well as the data shared with other systems, such as the ERP.

Returning to the initial question: Is planning the Holy Grail?
We’d rather reserve myth-like messages for Brown’s *The Da Vinci Code*. But there’s no denying that smart, integrated planning is absolutely essential in the production environment for prefabricated building components. BIM4Production® integrates, facilitates, and coordinates based on a single source of truth, thereby contributing significantly to achieving an optimal workflow. Not a myth, but a demonstrable truth.