Dynamics of Project-Driven Production Systems in Construction: Productivity Function

Mathematical models have historically enabled a thorough understanding of production mechanisms in manufacturing supporting actions and laws to improve fabrication and building performance. Although much work has been done to date on modeling of production processes, more studies need to be conducted to understand the dynamics of these processes and develop mathematical relationships and laws that can reliably predict and manage project-driven production systems in construction. The purpose of this research is to explore the hypothesis that production processes in construction can be represented as dynamic systems in which a productivity function describes the time dependence of the systems' output-input relation. By considering the transient state, productivity function models were more accurate in describing the process dynamics than first-degree polynomials and the arithmetic mean, confirming the hypothesis. The contribution of this research to the body of knowledge is a new model that considers different states of project-driven processes. (C) 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.