https://doi.org/10.24928/2023/0179

A Mechanism for Smart Contracts to Mediate Production Bottlenecks Under Constraints

Gongfan Chen¹, Chuanni He², Simon M. Hsiang³, Min Liu⁴ & Huaming Li⁵

¹PhD Candidate, Dept. of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC, USA, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0003-1935-2949
²2 Postdoctoral Researcher, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002-0482-6243
³Professor and Department Chair, Dept. of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management, Univ. of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0003-3224-9137
⁴Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0003-3224-9137 4 Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Director, Syracuse University Infrastructure Institute, College of Engineering & Computer Science, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002-3070-7109
⁵Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0003-3224-9137 4 Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Director, Syracuse University Infrastructure Institute, College of Engineering & Computer Science, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002-3070-7109

Abstract

Central project managers devote massive efforts to monitor, track, coordinate, and take actions to diagnose and prognose governed constraints and remove them to enable a reliable workflow. The blockchain-enabled smart contract can streamline the work process by predefining “intelligent” consensus to facilitate central managers’ jobs. However, the inability of smart contracts to handle unexpected events under complicated environments posited challenges in realizing it automatically. This study aimed to develop adaptive mechanism to mediate production bottlenecks caused by constraints. First, the research identified the four main types of constraints and their levels of variability from a prefabricated project. Then, a simulation model was established to quantify the impacts of different constraints and determine the fair payment rules. Lastly, different constraint-bundled scenarios and execution policies were developed and encoded in the smart contracts for automated executions. Smart contracts can assist construction managers to motivate reliable production and minimize waste caused by bottlenecks in the system.

Keywords

Constraint, simulation, smart contracts, Shapley value, modular construction

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Reference

Chen, G. , He, C. , Hsiang, S. M. , Liu, M. & Li, H. 2023. A Mechanism for Smart Contracts to Mediate Production Bottlenecks Under Constraints, Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC31) , 1232-1244. doi.org/10.24928/2023/0179

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