Sprayed Concrete Process Improvement Through Digitalization
Moisa, Topias (2023)
2023
Tuotantotalouden DI-ohjelma - Master's Programme in Industrial Engineering and Management
Johtamisen ja talouden tiedekunta - Faculty of Management and Business
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2023-09-26
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202309218366
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202309218366
Tiivistelmä
Current trends in sustainability and digitalization drive change in the mining and tunneling industries. While often viewed lagging other industries, adoption of new digital technology such as Industry 4.0 already disrupts operational processes, which are characterized by heavy involvement of technological solutions and heavy machinery. Managing these processes and seamless integration between technology and people has been recognized critical for achieving high performance, challenging companies in the industries but also their solution providers. Limited but promising academic research regarding impact of digitalization in these industries has revealed wide range of case specific benefits such as productivity and safety improvement, resource optimization and reduction of human error. Still, clear need for research addressing the improvement of processes through digitalization exists in the industry.
This thesis adopted a case study approach from mining and tunneling industry technology company’s perspective to investigate improvement of end-to-end sprayed concrete process through digitalization, an untapped topic in academic literature. The first objective for this thesis was to comprehensively analyze and model the end-to-end sprayed concrete process to first identify the current state of process. Secondly, the thesis investigated how the case company could help in improving the performance of the process through digitalization. Through these objectives the thesis aimed to provide avenues for performance improvement of the sprayed concrete process but also contribute to the case company’s business by revealing opportunities for increasing their offering’s customer value.
Main data collection methods were qualitative including expert interviews, on-site observations, and a research diary. Collected data was analyzed through process and information flow descriptions, challenge analysis, and cause-effect analysis.
Results revealed that current state of the sprayed concrete process is characterized by uncertainty and variation regarding two important performance measures concrete consumption and end-structure quality. Main challenges include significant impact of the nozzle-operator’s competence, stemming from difficulty of the process execution and challenges in information and data flow and their availability resulting in lack of capability for monitoring and controlling the process.
The results showed that the case company can significantly impact the performance through three objectives. First, ensuring the critical nozzle operator performance through performance measurement, feedback and support is important. Second, enabling holistic performance measuring of the end-to-end sprayed concrete process to allow customers to identify the most important challenges in their own process is needed. Finally, the previous two objectives require elevating extent of information and data collection, data quality and analytical capabilities to achieve capability for holistic performance measurement and feedback through relevant performance indicators.
In general, results of this thesis offer implications for managers and foremen in mining and tunneling industries to reflect on their individual sprayed concrete process to identify challenges and potential improvements through digital technology. In broader scope, the results offer a case example for analyzing and improving similar processes in other industries. The results also express how solution providers can contribute to performance of their customers’ processes while at the same time improving delivered customer value.
This thesis adopted a case study approach from mining and tunneling industry technology company’s perspective to investigate improvement of end-to-end sprayed concrete process through digitalization, an untapped topic in academic literature. The first objective for this thesis was to comprehensively analyze and model the end-to-end sprayed concrete process to first identify the current state of process. Secondly, the thesis investigated how the case company could help in improving the performance of the process through digitalization. Through these objectives the thesis aimed to provide avenues for performance improvement of the sprayed concrete process but also contribute to the case company’s business by revealing opportunities for increasing their offering’s customer value.
Main data collection methods were qualitative including expert interviews, on-site observations, and a research diary. Collected data was analyzed through process and information flow descriptions, challenge analysis, and cause-effect analysis.
Results revealed that current state of the sprayed concrete process is characterized by uncertainty and variation regarding two important performance measures concrete consumption and end-structure quality. Main challenges include significant impact of the nozzle-operator’s competence, stemming from difficulty of the process execution and challenges in information and data flow and their availability resulting in lack of capability for monitoring and controlling the process.
The results showed that the case company can significantly impact the performance through three objectives. First, ensuring the critical nozzle operator performance through performance measurement, feedback and support is important. Second, enabling holistic performance measuring of the end-to-end sprayed concrete process to allow customers to identify the most important challenges in their own process is needed. Finally, the previous two objectives require elevating extent of information and data collection, data quality and analytical capabilities to achieve capability for holistic performance measurement and feedback through relevant performance indicators.
In general, results of this thesis offer implications for managers and foremen in mining and tunneling industries to reflect on their individual sprayed concrete process to identify challenges and potential improvements through digital technology. In broader scope, the results offer a case example for analyzing and improving similar processes in other industries. The results also express how solution providers can contribute to performance of their customers’ processes while at the same time improving delivered customer value.