Systems and methods for manufacturing customized prefabricated buildings including arbitrarily modularizing a building specification without using any pre-defined modules
First Claim
1. A system for manufacturing a customized prefabricated building comprising:
- a computer-usable medium having a sequence of instructions which, when executed by a processor, causes said processor to execute a process including receiving a specification for a customized building that identifies components for the building and the dimensions of the components, modularizing the specification for prefabrication into modules meeting overall length, width, and height limitations, and optimizing the modularization;
a programmable manufacturing system controller coupled to the computer-usable medium and configured to generate instructions for manufacturing the said optimized modules having the plurality of components identified in the specification received by the computer-usable medium; and
a set of assembly line machine tools coupled to the programmable manufacturing controller configured to execute the instructions generated by the programmable manufacturing controller for building the said optimized modules having the specified plurality of components;
wherein modularizing the specification comprises arbitrarily modularizing to meet the length, width and height limitations, without using any pre-defined modules.
5 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Systems and methods for designing and manufacturing customized prefabricated buildings in optimized modules. In one embodiment, a system for manufacturing a customized prefabricated building includes a computer-usable medium having a sequence of instructions which, when executed by a processor, causes said processor to execute a process including receiving a specification for a customized prefabricated building that identifies components for the prefabricated building and the dimensions of the components, modularizing the specification into modules meeting overall length, width, and height limitations, and optimizing the modularization; a programmable manufacturing system controller coupled to the computer-usable medium and configured to generate instructions for manufacturing the said optimized modules having the plurality of components identified in the specification received by the computer-usable medium; and a manufacturing system coupled to the programmable manufacturing controller configured to execute the instructions generated by the programmable manufacturing controller for building the said optimized modules having the specified plurality of components.
-
Citations
41 Claims
-
1. A system for manufacturing a customized prefabricated building comprising:
-
a computer-usable medium having a sequence of instructions which, when executed by a processor, causes said processor to execute a process including receiving a specification for a customized building that identifies components for the building and the dimensions of the components, modularizing the specification for prefabrication into modules meeting overall length, width, and height limitations, and optimizing the modularization; a programmable manufacturing system controller coupled to the computer-usable medium and configured to generate instructions for manufacturing the said optimized modules having the plurality of components identified in the specification received by the computer-usable medium; and a set of assembly line machine tools coupled to the programmable manufacturing controller configured to execute the instructions generated by the programmable manufacturing controller for building the said optimized modules having the specified plurality of components; wherein modularizing the specification comprises arbitrarily modularizing to meet the length, width and height limitations, without using any pre-defined modules. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
-
-
21. A method for manufacturing a plurality of custom prefabricated buildings comprising the steps of:
-
providing a graphical user interface that allows a plurality of users to each create a custom design for a prefabricated building, wherein one design created by one user is different from another design created by another user; generating a specification for each custom design created by the plurality of users that identifies components for the prefabricated building in the custom design and the dimensions of the components; modularizing each specification into modules meeting overall length, width, and height limitations; optimizing the modularization; generating a set of instructions for each module of each specification, wherein each set of instructions includes instructions specific for each of a plurality of machine tools required for manufacturing the modules; inputting the generated instructions into a controller that controls the plurality of machine tools and distributes the instructions to the corresponding machine tool; manufacturing each module utilizing the plurality of machine tools; and packaging each module for shipment to a site upon which a custom prefabricated building is to be built; wherein modularizing the specification comprises arbitrarily modularizing to meet the length, width and height limitations, without using any pre-defined modules. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31)
-
-
32. A system for manufacturing a customized prefabricated building comprising:
-
a computer-usable medium having a sequence of instructions which, when executed by a processor, causes said processor to execute a process including receiving a specification for a customized building that identifies components for the building and the dimensions of the components, modularizing the specification for prefabrication into modules meeting overall length, width, and height limitations, and optimizing the modularization; a programmable manufacturing system controller coupled to the computer-usable medium and configured to generate instructions for manufacturing the said optimized modules having the plurality of components identified in the specification received by the computer-usable medium; and a set of assembly line machine tools coupled to the programmable manufacturing controller configured to execute the instructions generated by the programmable manufacturing controller for building the said optimized modules having the specified plurality of components; wherein optimizing the modularization comprises; determining a specification envelope of the specification, the specification envelope having a plurality of edges; selecting an edge of the plurality of edges; selecting a direction based on the edge; selecting a break point to define a module envelope, wherein the break point meets the overall length, width and height limitations; subtracting the module envelope from the specification envelope to create a remaining specification envelope, and repeating the optimization on the remaining specification envelope. - View Dependent Claims (33, 34, 35, 36)
-
-
37. A method for manufacturing a plurality of custom prefabricated buildings comprising the steps of:
-
providing a graphical user interface that allows a plurality of users to each create a custom design for a prefabricated building, wherein one design created by one user is different from another design created by another user; generating a specification for each custom design created by the plurality of users that identifies components for the prefabricated building in the custom design and the dimensions of the components; modularizing each specification into modules meeting overall length, width, and height limitations; optimizing the modularization; generating a set of instructions for each module of each specification, wherein each set of instructions includes instructions specific for each of a plurality of machine tools required for manufacturing the modules; inputting the generated instructions into a controller that controls the plurality of machine tools and distributes the instructions to the corresponding machine tool; manufacturing each module utilizing the plurality of machine tools; and packaging each module for shipment to a site upon which a custom prefabricated building is to be built; wherein optimizing the modularization comprises; determining a specification envelope of the specification, the specification envelope having a plurality of edges; selecting an edge of the plurality of edges; selecting a direction based on the edge; selecting a break point to define a module envelope, wherein the break point meets the overall length, width and height limitations subtracting the module envelope from the specification envelope to create a remaining specification envelope, and repeating the optimization on the remaining specification envelope. - View Dependent Claims (38, 39, 40, 41)
-
Specification