Prangige Achini Peiris

PhD Candidate

The University of Melbourne

I am Achini Peiris, currently a final year PhD candidate at the Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne. I am one of the co-founders of Faramoon, a technology start-up, and also identifies as a person with true leadership skills from the numerous voluntary leadership roles I have taken over the years. My passion is to become a role model for women in STEM and motivate women to take up leadership roles.  

Quick response model for optimized dynamic scheduling for prefabricated construction facilities

Significance: Construction industry contributes to 8% of the GDP of Australia and growing at a steady rate. Prefabricated construction contributes to a growth of 5%, which highlights the importance of research in the space of prefabricated construction industry. Initiatives towards mass-manufacturing for construction such as prefabricated/modular construction often differs from manufacturing due to high customization of components due to varying requirements from various clients. Flow shop scheduling is one of the most important exercises in any modular construction project that determines the construction progression throughout the factory floor. Any delay from the factory can result in a hold up on-site and therefore, time and resources will be wasted due to the unavailability of the modular components. Therefore, to get the most out modular construction, it is essential to plan the work items on factory floor in a way that they get completed and transported to site to fit the contractor’s schedule. Therefore, proper scheduling of modular construction is of paramount importance. Research gap and innovation: There are several studies that aim to solve this issue of scheduling in offsite construction, however there is an apparent lack of studies on modular construction. This study will look into efficient ways of producing project schedules for modular construction by using innovative algorithms taking in to consideration the uncertainties that may arise during the project. Moreover, it investigates the application of advanced planning using bathroom pods as a detailed case investigation study