Resource-Based Scheduling Simulation -Semiconductor Fab Substructure Construction Case

The characteristics of a high-tech fabrication plant (Fab) construction include large construction quantity, plenty of required resources, limited construction space, complicated interfaces between subcontractors, involuted and compact project duration, and frequent order-changes. Therefore, management of construction details to meet project deadline is an important issue of high-tech Fab construction projects. However, up to date, the high-tech Fab construction schedule and planning still mainly depend on engineers’ experience. Engineers usually allocate the resources of workers, equipment, space for materials and construction route, and generate the project schedule after analyzing the contents of the project. This method is lack of theoretical rationale and may obtain improper outputs, which lead to inefficient use of limited space and construction route. Furthermore, existing tools for lanning and scheduling such as Microsoft Project and Primavera Project Planner (P3) also have limitations when utilized in high-tech Fab construction, because they can only provide conceptual schedule but not daily resource information. Therefore, the overall objective of this research is to establish a resource-based scheduling simulation model to provide an alternative planning and scheduling approach to help construction managers control day-to-day activities more efficiently. The resource-based scheduling simulation model was built up according to the logistics design and the database established based on the on-site observations and the interviews with the experienced engineers. It could be used to provide the instructions for construction operations and the required resources per unit time. It was found that the results obtained by this simulation were consistent with those of the actual case in our example (company T project). In addition, based on the on-site construction logistic and resource utilization status, the information of construction route and temporary storage space were quantified, and the feasibility of different construction situations could be predicted. Because the simulations can be easily performed by inputting new data to demonstrate future progress, the simulated results can serve as the decision-making basis for different construction planning options and the instant communication platform for project managers and individual contractors. Since resource-based scheduling can meet the needs of detail construction planning and management, it has potential to be used in high-tech Fab substructure construction and mega-project construction in practice.