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THE ROLE OF PRODUCTION SYSTEM DESIGN IN THE MANAGEMENT OF

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THE ROLE OF PRODUCTION SYSTEM DESIGN IN
THE MANAGEMENT OF COMPLEX PROJECTS
Fábio K. Schramm1, Alana A. Rodrigues2 and Carlos T. Formoso3

ABSTRACT
Production system design is one of the core activities of production management. It
translates the intended production strategy into a set of decisions. It establishes the
structure that will manage different activities, and creates appropriate conditions for
control and improvement. The design of production systems must begin at early product
design stages, when the way the product is manufactured and the production system is
organized should be established. The design of a production system must focus not only
on site production itself but also on suppliers and consumers. In operational terms, the
concern is to devise the layout and the material and information flows in order to create
favourable conditions for a high performance production system. Despite its importance,
very little attention is usually given to production system design in the construction
industry.
This paper discusses the implementation of production system design in complex
construction projects, such as hospitals, industrial and commercial buildings. This study
was based on multiple case studies, using a model for production system design devised
for low cost house-building as a starting point. Differently from low cost house-building,
in those complex projects the client requirements are not well defined at the beginning of
the project. This requires the production system design to be carried out in several stages.
The main contributions of the paper are the scope of decisions involved, the role played
by production system design in production management, and the requirements that are
necessary for performing this task effectively in this type of project. The results indicated
that production system design can potentially improve the performance of production
systems, and improve the understanding of the impacts of costumer requirements and
design changes. Some tools, such as prototyping, were used for reducing uncertainty, and
making some decisions more transparent.

KEY WORDS
Production system design, complex projects, production management.

1
M.Sc., Assistant Professor at Federal University of Pelotas – UFPel, Ph.D. Candidate at
NORIE/UFRGS, fabioks@ufpel.edu.br
2
Civil Engineer, M.Sc. Candidate at NORIE/UFRGS, alana@ppgec.ufrgs.br
3
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Building Innovation
Research Unit (NORIE), formoso@ufrgs.br, Av. Osvaldo Aranha, 99 – 3º andar, CEP 90035-190,
Porto Alegre – RS, Phone: +55 51 3316 3959

1
INTRODUCTION
Designing is usually associated to the product design. However, designing should be also
concerned with the production system that will produce the product. According to Gaither
and Frazier (2001), when a product is designed its features are established as well as the
manner as it will be produced. Therefore, whenever a new production system is
developed, the design (including product and production system), the planning and
control, and the improvement activities should take place (Slack et al. 1997).
According to Skinner (1985), the production system design (PSD) aims to establish a
set of manufacturing politics. These politics are grouped into two parts. The first is related
to facilities and equipments, resource capacity, and technologies to be used. The second is
related to infrastructure, i.e. decisions related to vertical integration level, production
planning and control, workforce management, quality control and so forth. Askin and
Goldberg (2002) state that production system design involves managing production
resources in order to meet customer demands.
Despite its importance, very little attention is usually given to production system
design in the construction industry. Only recently some papers have explicitly discussed
the production system design in construction projects, although using different
denominations. For instance, Howell and Ballard (1999) suggested the expression “work
structuring” to refer to some production system design activities, extending from global
organization to operations design, aiming to create conditions for production control and
improvement.
Some authors (Slack et al. 1997; Gaither and Frazier 2001; Askin and Goldberg 2002)
state that production system design should begin early, at the product design stage, when
the way the product is manufactured and the production system is organized should be
established. This makes it possible to make product design decisions taking into account
the production process, in order to increase the performance of the production system.
Production system design should be carried out before the beginning of the production
stage. This seems to be possible when there is a well defined demand, in terms of
costumer requirements, product specifications, project duration and price.
However, in complex projects in general costumer requirements change frequently,
and the design is developed simultaneously to the construction stage. In such a context,
the production system cannot be designed completely before production starts. In this
case, production and production system design should overlap.
The aim of this paper is to discuss the scope of production system design in complex
projects, and suggest a set of guidelines and tools for effectively performing that task.
This study was based on two case studies were carried out, in which the production
system design was produced, using as a starting point a model devised for low-income
housing projects, which was previously presented at the IGLC12 Conference (Schramm
et al. 2004).

COMPLEX PROJECTS
The general view of the projects as an ordered and linear phenomenon has been discussed
by many authors (Baccarini 1996, Williams 1999, Beckerman, 2000, Bertelsen 2003,
Bertelsen 2003a, Calvano and John, 2004). Projects in general – and construction projects
in particular – are indeed complex, dynamic and nonlinear systems, in which the
traditional management techniques have had only limited success (Bertelsen 2003).

2
 Baccarini (1996) points out the importance considering complexity in project
management, in order to identify the requirements of planning, coordination and control.
This influences the selection of project inputs, affects its objectives in terms of time, cost
and quality, and influences the selection of the project procurement arrangement.
According Williams (1999), the project complexity can be described in terms of
structural complexity and of uncertainty (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Dimensions of complexity (Williams 1999)

Structural complexity is concerned with the underlying structure of the project, i.e. the
organizational complexity – characterised by the number of hierarchical levels, number of
formal organizational units, division of tasks – and the technological complexity –
characterised by the number of inputs, outputs tasks or specialities (Williams 1999).
Uncertainty includes both stochastic elements and those resulting from a lack of
knowledge (epistemic uncertainty). Besides uncertainty in the methods, another
dimension of added complexity comes about when there is uncertainty in goals, i.e.
projects whose methods are known but whose goals are uncertain, or are often changed
(Williams, 2002).
Bertelsen (2003a) states that “the understanding of construction as a complex
phenomenon opens up for the introduction of new management techniques”. Thus,
management-as-planning can be supplemented with management-as-organising,
management-as-teambuilding, management-as-service.
According to the same author, management-as-organising should organize the
execution as a self managing system to the greatest extent possible, increasing the
reliability of the individual agents making it possible to distribute responsibility as much
as possible (Bertelsen 2003a).
Management as teambuilding becomes of great importance, promoting the creation of
work crews and the division of responsibilities between the crew members. In the case of
management as service providing view, the management activity must be understood as a
provider of service for the value generation activities, by providing the right materials,
equipments and information (Bertelsen 2003a).

RESEARCH METHOD
Two construction projects with complex features were investigated in this study. The first
project studied consisted of a hospital extension, while the second project was the
construction of an industrial building located in a steel mill site. Both projects were built
by a company involved with construction of complex, fast and uncertain projects, in

3
which the execution is generally carried out associated with other regular site activities,
the clients demand changes during the execution process and there is pressure to reduce
costs and to anticipate the project deadline. Both projects were located in the State of Rio
Grande do Sul, South of Brazil.
The production system design in those two projects was carried out by a project
management team in several weekly meetings, supported by researchers4. This team was
typically formed by the production manager, the foreman, key sub-contractors and
suppliers. An agenda for discussion was prepared, and the participants were encouraged
to discuss different alternatives for the production system design. The aim was to
accomplish an agreement on the way the production system should be organized,
including the definition of the main resources (equipment and workers), and the
production flows. The decisions made in each meeting were documented by the research
team and then sent back to the production manager team members.
The model proposed by Schramm et al. (2004) for the production system design of
low-income housing projects was used as a starting point for the first case study. Figure 1
presents the main steps involved in the design of production systems in that model.

Figure 1: The Model of Production System Design for Low-income Hosing Projects (Schramm et al. 2004)
The model establishes six main steps for the production system design: (a) definition
of the base-unit installation sequence and capacity pre-planning; (b) study of base-unit
workflows; (c) definition of the execution strategy; (d) study of project workflows; (e)
definition of production resources capacity; and (f) identification and design of critical
processes.
In spite of the sequential representation of these steps, those decisions are usually
interdependent. For this reason, several iterations are usually necessary (represented by
decision and revision flows), as indicated in Figure 1.
Based on the first case study, changes were proposed in the model, in order to adapt it
to the context of complex projects. Such propositions were further tested in the second

4
The research team was formed four postgraduate students: Fábio Schramm, Alana Rodrigues, Marcel
Trescastro and Fernanda Saffaro. All of them were carrying out a research study in the same project.

4
case study. After that, a proposal for adapting the PSD to complex construction projects
was devised.

CASE STUDIES

CASE STUDY 1 – HOSPITAL COMPLEX EXTENSION

The project phase studied consisted of the construction of fifty-six hospital apartments
located in three different floors. At the beginning of the study, the reinforced concrete
structure and the external walls of the building had already been finished, thus, the
production system design was limited to the internal drywall partitions, building services,
and door installation. However, other construction processes (outside walls finishing,
windows installation, for example), which were not included in the design, had to be
considered in the study, since were bound to cause interference in the hospital apartment
construction sequence.
The PSD started four weeks before the room construction phase beginning. When the
elaboration started the overall project planning had already been executed. Thus its
contribution was only limited to improve that and also the next phases. Two-hour
meetings a week were carried out during six weeks.
Although the major part of the project execution had already been finished several
client’s requirements were not completely defined and changed during the study. These
changes were a hindrance to the PSD process since some definitions on cycle times, work
sequence and process beginning time, for example, had to be reviewed when the
requirements were defined. Defining and contracting suppliers was another hindrance.
This process, under the client’s responsibility, took a long time and, sometimes, the
suppliers were effectively contracted just some days before the beginning of the process.
In general terms, the production system design followed the sequence proposed in the
previous study (Schramm et al. 2004). Thus, the first step was the definition of the base-
unit installation sequence and capacity pre-planning. In this project, the base-unit was
defined as a module of two hospital apartments.
There was no data related to productivity and activity duration available for this
project type. For that reason, most data used were obtained trough a prototype carried out
for the hospital apartment installation. Such data helped reducing the uncertainty in the
initial steps of the production system design: the installation sequence, the most adequate
crew size, productivity rates, and equipment capacity.
In the second PSD step, the study of base-unit workflows, the workflows of several
production crews along consecutive base-units were established in term of both space and
time. As the base-unit was relatively small, this step was restricted to analyse the work
sequence defined in the prototype execution.
The definition of the project execution strategy, the third step, included the
segmentation of the project into work zones, in order to create “small projects”,
containing a limited number of base-units, within the whole project. Work can be carried
out independently in such zones, either in a parallel or sequential manner. The transfer
and production batches were defined as equal to a base-unit (two apartments), making it
easier to establish a synchronised workflow.
Each one of the floors was further divided into two sections, related to the front and
the back building façades. The work crew’s paths were defined in accordance with the
sequence of the external windows installation, since the drywall erection depended on

5
that process due to the necessary protection from inclement weather. The work flows
were defined starting from the back side section of the lower story as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: the work crew’s path in the building

In the study of project workflows, the forth step, the impact of the execution strategy on
the relationships between base-unit workflows were analysed. The complexity of the
processes and the possibility of interferences between work crews were also addressed in
this step.
The Line of Balance (LOB) technique was used to plan the workflows providing a
visual device for supporting the discussion among production management team members
on several aspects: (a) the work pace; (b) the work crews daily location; (c) the
interferences between work crews; (d) the time buffers needed between processes; (e) the
timing for the beginning and conclusion of each construction process; and (f) the total
duration for the project.
Other important information made possible by the LOB was the timing for the
conclusion of the external windows installation in each story, since that data established
the earliest time for the drywall erection beginning. The LOB produced is presented in
Figure 4.

Figure 4: project’s line of balance

Some visual tools were devised for represent the LOB data in a different way, in order to
increase transparency. These tools aimed to facilitate the communication between the
production manager, sub-contractors and the work crews, and the control of the work
crew path and sequence in accordance with the LOB decisions. The first tool was a
workstation map of each work crew (Figure 5). In that map, the path to be followed by

6
each crew was represented for each floor of the building. Each one of those maps was
given to the work crew before starting of the execution process.

Figure 5: Workstation map for the drywall erection process

The second tool used was the work crew location map, which indicated the daily location
of each work crew, the start and end timing of each process. A general location map with
all of the processes was given to each sub-contractor enabling them to have a broad view
of the interdependences between different crews.
The third tool, the work path control sheet, was proposed to improve the control of
the work crews’ path fulfilment. It was placed at the front side of each base-unit,
informing directly the work crew about the processes sequence, the start and finish
production due dates and the next base-unit to be carried out. Besides informing the due
dates there were blank place to be filled out with the real start and finish dates by the
work crew leader. At the end of the working day, the production manager collected the
sheets and updated the short term planning.
In the definition of the capacity of production resources, the fifth step, data from
project execution strategy and pre-planned capacity were used to define the capacity of
the main production resources. The number of work crews was then established by the
production management team, with the participation of each sub-contractor.
The last step, the identification and design of critical processes, was not formally
undertaken because most of the necessary information about these processes has already
been collected from the prototyping exercise.
Conclusions of the Case Study 1
Based in this case study, some conclusions on the adaptation of PSD model for the
features of this kind of project could be identified in contrast with those of low-income
housing projects, for which the model was previously developed.
Firstly, there was a great amount of uncertainty about goals and methods in the
project studied, some of them related to the client’s requirement changes. Besides there
was pressure to reduce execution costs and time. Although the prototyping study had
initially contributed to decrease the level of uncertainty about the execution processes, the

7
changes had impact on these processes and some alteration was needed during the
execution phase.
Thus, the changes required that the production system design dealt with these
uncertainties, being progressively defined according to the evolution of the design and
suppliers definitions. During the PSD phase, client’s representatives were invited to
participate in meetings to discuss their requirements and impacts on the production
system decisions.
Secondly, during the execution phase the suppliers had difficulty in fulfilling the
agreements made in the process definition, such as crew sizes, work paces and work paths
to be followed, for example. To deal with this difficulty, the visual tools devised in the
PSD phase were applied to help the control of adherence of the process execution to the
PSD decisions.
The prototype carried out before the PSD beginning was useful to reduce some
uncertainties in goals and methods, making the discussion process easier. However, some
changes in the client’s requirements outdated the decisions and new discussions were
needed.
In general terms, the main conclusions of this exploratory study were: (a) the
necessity of including the client’s requirements captured in the PSD scope decision to
reduce the uncertainty level at the PSD phase; (b) the PSD should be elaborated in a
progressive form, i.e. from a broader to a narrower detailing level, in accordance with the
execution phase proximity; and (c) in the execution phase the PSD meetings should be
held to make agreements among suppliers and between suppliers and the production
manager to assure their commitment to the plans.

CASE STUDY 2 – INDUSTRIAL BUILDING CONSTRUCTION

The second project consisted of the construction of an industrial building of nearly three
thousand square meters for a steel mill company. The building had a modular pre-cast
concrete structure (columns, beams and slabs), brick walls, steel roof structure and
aluminium tiles. The building design was developed by a client’s designer simultaneously
to its execution, i.e., the design was supplied in small batches while the building was
being built.
The study started four weeks before the production beginning and carried on for
farther four weeks. During that period, eleven two-hour meetings were held. The project
base-unit was defined as one of the twelve modules that formed the building. The transfer
and production batches were based on that base-unit.
The base-unit installation sequence and the capacity preplanning were devised based
on discussions between the production engineer and the general once the constructive
techniques were already known. Whenever the production engineer needed to obtain
more specific information about the assembly and fabrication of the pre-cast concrete
structure and the metallic roof structure, for example, specific meetings were carried out
with the suppliers’ representatives to obtain the necessary information. A resources
capacity spreadsheet and a precedence diagram were prepared with the data from these
discussions.
The study of base-unit workflows was not carried out since the selected base-unit was
small and the workflows were easily manageable.
The definition of project execution strategy was based on site workflow constraints.
Thus, considering that there would be a small working area to execute the steel roof

8
structure, the assembly of the pre-cast concrete structure was determined to be from right
to left of the building side to allow trucks and cranes movement.
The study of project workflows was based on the execution strategy and the
installation sequence. The LOB technique (Figure 6) was also used in this study to
improve the decision-making process.

Figure 6: project’s line of balance

From the LOB it was possible to check if the completion of the purposed date would
match the due date defined by the client. The due dates for the structure design batches,
steel bars supply, concrete structure fabrication and assembly (Figure 7) were also
provided by this tool. These dates were defined based on the design, fabrication and
assembly lead times and informed to the designers and suppliers.

Figure 7: design batches due dates

Comparing the long term plan devised prior to the PSD elaboration and that one devised
from the PSD study, the latter presented a more realistic plan since the start time and
sequence of the processes were in accordance with the execution sequence and with the

9
resources capabilities discussed during the PSD meetings. In the original long-term plan
some processes had been unconsidered or only considered in an earlier or later execution
moment.
Discussions about the definition of production resources capacities were carried out.
However, as most of the processes were going to be carried out by sub-contractors, this
decision was delegated to them. The sub-contractors should also provide the amount of
resources necessary to reach the production schedules.
The concrete pre-cast structure assembly was identified as the critical process.
Besides the need of specialised crews, this process established the beginning moment of
the following processes, i.e. if the end of the concrete pre-cast structure assembly were
anticipated, the beginning of the following processes would be also anticipated, reducing
the conclusion time of the overall project.
During the PSD meetings, special attention was given to the production-assembly
synchronisation. Based on the execution strategy, a list of necessary structure parts was
prepared and sent to the supplier. Thus, the fabrication sequence was established in
accordance with the assembly process.
Two weeks before the beginning of the assembly more detailed discussions on the
process were carried out through a first run study (FRS). The FRS checklist proposed by
Ballard and Howell (1999) addressing questions about activities duration, needed
material, interferences in the assembly places, access to the site, work safety, assembly
sequence, and buffers was applied to guide these discussions.
During the first assembly cycle the assembly cycle time, sequence, and work paths
were registered to be discussed in a meeting after the first cycle conclusion.
Although opportunities for assembly lead time reduction had been identified during
the analysis of the process, there was no reduction since the supplier cycle time matched
the one stated in the PSD initial meeting.
Conclusions of the Case Study 2
Similar to the first case study, the main difficulties found in this study were related to the
client’s requirement changes. Moreover, the client was responsible for elaborating the
project design and for supplying the steel for the concrete structure and roof structure
fabrication. Thus, in the course of the construction phase the client delayed either the
design or the material supply leading to stop production. The impact resulting from that
was presented to the client’s representatives using the LOB devised in the PSD phase.
Other difficulties were related to the suppliers’ commitment to the PSD decisions. Even
though the suppliers had participated in all meetings and agreed to fulfil the stated
execution decisions, the changes concerning to dates, for example, discredited the PSD
decisions.
In this study the PSD was elaborated in a progressive manner. The decisions, less detailed
at the beginning, became gradually more specific. For example, the design of critical
processes was produced only two weeks before the start of the execution. At that stage the
necessary information for designing process was sound enough, avoiding further reviews.
The FRS, applied to improve the design of the critical process, was a useful tool to
analyse and discuss improvements on that process. However, in this study, some potential
benefits of that tool were not obtained since the supplier was not committed to the
improvement of the execution process.

10
PRODUCTION SYSTEM DESIGN IN COMPLEX PROJECTS
The findings of the case studies indicated that the PSD model previously proposed for
repetitive projects can also be used to guide the PSD in complex projects. However, some
adaptations are needed and those are divided into two types: (a) changes in the PSD
elaboration process; and (b) the use of tools that supports the reduction of the uncertainty
level.
The case studies indicated that one of the major difficulties in managing complex
projects are related to the client’s requirements changes, i.e. uncertainty in goals,
according to Williams (2002). In both projects the client demanded changes which
postponed the decision-making, causing disruptions in the production processes. When
that occurred, some PSD decisions had to be reviewed, requiring some additional
meetings for making new arrangements. Thus, capturing the client’s requirement should
be part of the PSD elaboration. There are two main mechanisms for capturing such
requirements: (a) overlapping product design and production system design, and
improving the client’s requirement capture in terms of both product and production
processes; and (b) during the PSD phase, inviting the client to participate in the meetings
and also demonstrating how those changes can cause impact on the production processes.
An additional difficulty was related to the high number of suppliers in the projects,
structural complexity (Williams 2002), which demanded considerable efforts to manage
them during the PSD elaboration as well as during the production stage. The PSD
promoted the opportunity for the suppliers and production manager to discuss about the
project features and goals. During the PSD meetings the suppliers could identify
interfaces and interdependences between their processes and reach agreements about
adequacy of production procedures.
To deal with the uncertainty, which is inherent in complex projects, PSD should be
firstly produced for the whole project – at a low lever of detail – being progressively
detailed in further stages, carried out some weeks before each important or critical
construction phase beginning. These studies should be carried out taking the overall PSD
into account, in an iterative process. This progressive study can be useful when the
project is composed by several complex phases such as in case study one, in which the
execution of the rooms was one of the several phases that formed the extension project.
In both studies the PSD decisions were used as an input for the planning and control
process. According to the projects’ production managers, the long term plans devised
from the PSD were more realistic, in contrast with the plans devised before the PSD
implementation, since the resources capacities employed and the interdependences
between processes were being effectively considered in the plans. Several tools to control
the adherence of processes execution to the plans were devised from the PSD study.
Besides control and visualisation tools, two techniques were employed to improve the
PSD elaboration: prototyping and first run study (FRS).
Prototyping was used in the first case study to improve the understanding about the
production processes procedures and their execution sequence reducing the uncertainty
level, both in methods and goals. However, as the client changed his requirements after
the production beginning, some information from the prototyping study became outdated.
This indicates that this tool can be useful for the PSD elaboration when the prototype is
used to improve and to validate the production process instead of the product design,
when a great amount of the client’s needs had already been defined.

11
 A first run study (FRS) was carried out in the second case study to improve the pre-
cast concrete structure assembly, the project’s critical process, before the process
execution beginning. This tool was useful to reduce the uncertainty level, detailing the
execution procedures and making clearer some process improvements especially because
the uncertainties related to client’s requirements had already been captured at that
moment. However, FRS is useful to study and to improve each process separately instead
of the set of processes which form the production system. In that case, a prototyping
study could be a more adequate choice.

CONCLUSIONS
This paper discussed the contribution of the production system design in the
management of complex projects. Based in two case studies, it was possible to assess the
impact of production system design in the management of complex projects. PSD can
contribute to deal with complexity helping production managers, suppliers and client to
discuss and to evaluate the production system features, making clear how the impact of
changes in the production processes as well as the client’s requirements can affect the
production system performance.
In this kind of project, however, PSD decisions should be taken in a progressive
manner as long as uncertainties are removed. Consequently, PSD should not be an
isolated activity but an ongoing one, from the product design stage until the execution
stage, in a progressive form.
The findings indicated that PSD helps to organise and to structure the production
system dealing with the structural complexity, thus making less uncertain the production
methods and the project goals.
Further studies are needed to evaluate the adaptation proposed for the PSD model in
complex projects, especially in projects with different features, for example, those
projects in which a base-unit is not clearly identified.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank CAPES (PQI Programme) and CNPq for the research
grants that supported the development of this research study, and also the construction
companies that were partners in this study.

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