Parametric and generative design for process efficiency in building industry: the case study of glued-laminated-timber industry

According to Wortmann classification, the Building Industry (BI) can be defined as engineer-to-order (ETO) industry: the engineering-process starts only when an order is acquired. This definition implies that every final product (building) is almost unique, and processes cannot be easily standardized or automated. For this reason the BI is one of the less efficient industries today, and the productivity gap with other industries is growing faster. In the last years, several improvements in process efficiency have been introduced focusing on production and installation processes only. In order to improve the efficiency of design and engineering processes as well, the scientific community agrees that the most fruitful strategy should be Front-End Design (FED). Nevertheless, effective approaches and tools are missing. May Parametric and Generative Design techniques facilitate FED? May these techniques increase the efficiency of design and engineering processes with effective results on the entire supply-chain system? This research investigates benefits and criticisms of Parametric and Generative Design techniques analyzing a case study in glued-laminated-timber (GLT) industry through three main phases. First, the state-of-the-art of engineering and production processes is analyzed. Second, the research focuses on programming free-form parametric algorithms to reduce the usage of unneeded high-quality raw material and to improve the efficiency of production processes. Third, impacts on ordinary production system of GLT are measured through value-stream mapping technique in order to highlight benefits and criticisms on production-process efficiency. Results of this research aim at measuring benefits and criticisms of Parametric and Generative Design techniques in the BI as new standard tool to apply FED strategy, and they aim at showing both process efficiency improvements and performance improvements of products designed and engineered using parametric and generative algorithms.