Online interactive game to simulate Target Value Design for Digital Fabrication

Digital fabrication is emerging for implementation in the construction industry, while its adoption is not yet to the scale of industrialized construction. One of the reasons for such a slow adoption is the sceptical attitude from project stakeholders including project owners, architects and contractors, in particular during the early design planning phase. They find it hard to manage the design process and the adoption of digital fabrication technologies, while ensuring the project’s target values.

To understand how to design for digital fabrication to meet the project's constraints, requirements and target values such as cost, schedule, design intents and constructability, the chair of IC has developed an online interactive game to simulate design for digital fabrication via online platforms by adopting state-of-the-art lean design approach - Target Value Design. This game has two rounds, namely Round 1 - Conventional Design and Round 2 - Target Value Design. In this game, participants form into groups of four, in which each participant has a defined role with dedicated responsibilities and deliverables. The game uses Google Slide and Google Spreadsheet platforms.

The chair of IC launched and published this online game in November 2020 at the APLSO: Administering and Playing Lean Simulation Group and ETH Zürich. Since then, more than 70 industry practitioners, professors, researchers and postgraduate students have been participated in this game. The simulation results, as well as the feedback from the participants have significantly demonstrated that Target Value Design helps to assist project stakeholders (each group of four in the game) to design for digital technologies and automation while ensuring the project’s target values including costs and the design intents.

View the materials for the presenters and the players of this online game.