Work Improvement and Data Analytics for Industrial Steel Fabrication

Work improvement is critical for performance increase in business environments. It is used to identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in the manufacturing and other production processes, and to improve work performance by removing non-value-added activities. To conduct work improvement, the Lean Manufacturing concept is often used along with the Value Stream Mapping (VSM), a tool for visualizing the production processes and productivity metrics. In this research project, Ocean Steel & Construction Ltd., out of Saint John, New Brunswick has partnered with the research team at the University of New Brunswick’s Off-site Construction Research Centre to study their production facility and improve their productivity. In this proposed study, four sub-objectives are defined: (1) use process mapping to document the steel fabrication processes and collect productivity data at each process (e.g. workstation); (2) conduct Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) to summarize the productivity metrics for each process; (3) use regression modeling to develop predictive models for processing time, and correlation analysis to identify the impact factors of productivity; and (4) develop Value Stream Mapping (VSM) to improve the production processes and incorporate predictive models into the VSM approach. The intern will have a chance to interact with professionals and gain exposure to the construction industry.

Faculty Supervisor:

Zhen Lei

Student:

Lucas Marshall

Partner:

Ocean Steel & Construction Ltd

Discipline:

Engineering - civil

Sector:

University:

University of New Brunswick

Program: