Principal investigators: Pingbo Tang, Yorie Nakahira

University: Carnegie Mellon University

Industry partners: DMI Companies, Module Design Inc.

The proposed project aims to enable effective human-machine teaming that can proactively identify and resolve time and resource waste within customized building manufacturing systems. Two PA industry partners need help handling small orders of customized building products (e.g., room modules and ductworks) without triggering delays and waste. The proposed tasks include:

  1. waste-generation process modeling through surveys, field studies, and modeling of inspection and maintenance cycles within customized module production cycles
  2. simulator experiments and user studies for waste explanation
  3. causal analysis for supporting human-machine teaming in identifying waste-reduction strategies

The proposed approach includes collecting waste-generation scenarios from four building module production lines operated by industry partners, simulator experiments for characterizing waste generations, and developing process data analytics that can assist humans in waste reduction. The expected outcomes include:

  1. automated waste explanation methods of customized building manufacturing systems
  2. knowledge for preventing waste in customized building productions