Constructible design for off-site prefabricated structures in industrial environments: review of mixed reality applications

Studies have shown that early design finalization is important for projects utilizing Off-site Prefabrication and final assembly on site. Freezing engineering design at an early stage has various advantages such as streamlined manufacturing and timely transportation to site as well as timely deployment of adequate resources on site for assembly. However, it is very important to ensure correct design that can be transported, assembled and erected on site in Brownfield Industrial environments. EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) companies have traditionally adopted a "Suit-to-site" approach, where structural members are largely tailored to fit at the site in order to avoid rework. This approach requires mobilization of a large number of resources to site and consumes a lot of time for the fabrication and installation works. Mixed Reality (MR) systems can be used to ensure correct design which can then ensure accurate fabrication and quick installation of structures. This paper reviews the applicability of different MR systems to the concept of Constructible Design for early design finalization in a brown-field Industrial engineering environment. Structural design review is correlated to different tasks of construction that must be performed on the field. Applicability of different components of MR systems is then evaluated for these tasks. This paper finally concludes with selection of suitable MR systems for deign evaluation based on correlation between construction work tasks and components of MR systems.