Multivariate Analysis on Time-Cost Trade-Off for Production and Installation in Industrialized Construction

A common practice in many production processes of the industrialized and manufactured construction (IMC) is to generate estimates using unit costs. However, customized design, low quantity orders, and packaging prototypes could create unpredictable costs with these processes and jeopardize the profit margins. This research focuses on the IMC project development with the question of how the different payment options could affect the time-cost trade-off formula for the prediction on the cash flow efficiency and liquidity. The proposed system uses multivariate simulations on the information collected from previous jobs with the implementation of second order polynomial trend lines to help predicting future projects. There are many different factors (including transportation distance, inventory capacity, and lifts) that must be considered when utilizing the prefabrication bays for the IMC. These factors affect the time and cost differently under different payment terms. The proposed system implements the system dynamics model to develop a programmable algorithm on the estimated time. The research addresses the following findings: the level of complexity, location of manufacturing plant, and cash flow performance are related to each other. Using observations and refining the margin of error, the results show that this proposed system has the capability of predicting production time based on job specification, which is essential for cost estimating, scheduling, and resource allocation. The proposed system provides an innovative method for the evaluation of cash flow performance in IMC projects.