A BIM-based automation of design and drafting for manufacturing of wood panels for modular residential buildings

Design and drafting requirements associated with modular construction exceed those of the traditional stick-built method. Man-made errors, design assumptions and onsite interpretations of the shop drawings cannot be tolerated. Therefore, building information modelling (BIM) is needed to facilitate the automation of design and drafting for manufacturing. However, high initial cost, required expertise and limitations of currently available software prevent BIM from realizing its full potentials. This research introduces a systematic methodology for automating the drafting and design for manufacturing of wood-framed panels for modular residential buildings. It utilizes 2D computer-aided design (CAD) drawings to automatically generate BIM and construction manufacturing BIM; subsequently, shop drawings for the wood-framed panels are developed according to the platform framing method. The proposed framework is incorporated into a computer application called MCMPro, which is developed using visual basic application within CAD environment. Reduced design cost, improved layout accuracy and enhanced productivity are expected advances of MCMPro.