Special Issue on Off-Site Construction

This issue on off-site construction is an output produced by Task Group 74 of CIB. CIB is the acronym of the abbreviated French (former) name: Conseil International du Bâtiment (in English this translates to International Council for Building). In the course of 1998, the abbreviation has been kept but the full name changed into International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction.

CIB was established in 1953 as an association whose objectives were to stimulate and facilitate international cooperation and information exchange between governmental research institutes in the building and construction sector, with an emphasis on those institutes engaged in technical fields of research. CIB has since developed into a worldwide network of over 5,000 experts from about 500 member organizations with a research, university, industry or, government background, who collectively are active in all aspects of research and innovation for building and construction.

CIB members are institutes, companies, and other types of organizations involved in research or in the transfer or application of research results. Member organizations appoint experts to participate in CIB commissions. An individual also can be a member and participate in a commission. CIB commissions initiate projects for research and development and information exchange, organize meetings, and produce publications. These meetings can be commission meetings for members only or international symposia and congresses open to all. Publications can be proceedings, scientific or technical analyses, and international state-of-the-art reports.

Task Group 74 was established to develop research in the area of new production and business models in construction, with a special emphasis on off-site construction. In 2008, CIB realized that if off-site production and manufacture is to make a positive contribution to society, research is needed to identify the issues associated with related cultural, societal, economic, and business models. Against this background, Task Group 74 was formed. The focus of the task group was on addressing the necessity for a strong, coherent international research strategy to address theories as related to production and business models within the built environment disciplines and develop a comprehensive built environment innovative off-site research roadmap. One of the deliverables for this task group was compilation of research in the area of off-site construction from all around the world, and this special issue is that deliverable.

This is truly an international issue with contributions from around the globe. This issue includes technical papers, case studies, forum articles, and a book review.

The forum “Industrialized Building Systems: Strategic Outlook Manufactured Construction in Malaysia” by Lou and Kamar presents the issues faced by the Malaysian construction industry in the implementation of off-site construction. The forum “Promoting Off-Site Construction: Future Challenges and Opportunities” by Arif et al. presents a research roadmap for off-site construction in the areas of design, manufacturing, and construction. The paper “Supporting Site-Based Processes Using Context-Aware Virtual Prototyping” by Aziz presents the application of building information modeling to facilitate off-site construction. The paper “House-Building Business Models and Off-Site Construction Take-Up” by Pan and Goodier presents the multifaceted relationship between business models and off-site construction. This provides a good starting point for future researchers studying business models in off-site construction. The paper “Evaluation of Application of Lean Principles to Precast Concrete Bridge Beam Production Process” by Senaratne and Ekanayake presents the results of research in the application of lean principles in precast bridge beam construction process. The paper clearly highlights the benefits of lean to the precast construction process in Sri Lanka. The paper “BIM Standard in Off-Site Construction” by Nawari investigates the application of BIM standards to off-site construction and proposes an information delivery model that can be applied to off-site construction. The paper “Off-Site Construction Planning Using Discrete Event Simulation” by Alvanchi et al. presents the results of the application of discrete event simulation for effective project planning in a steel structure fabrication project. The paper “Robustness-Oriented Design of a Panel-Based Shelter System in Critical Sites” by Cennamo et al. presents design and off-site construction of buildings for critical and emergency situations such as natural disasters. This paper presents an application of off-site for disaster management purposes. The paper “Adaptable Industrial Building System: Construction Industry Perspective” by Sadafi et al. presents the results of a survey on construction professionals in Malaysia highlighting the issues associated with the implementation of off-site construction in Malaysia. The paper “Application of Modular Construction in High-Rise Buildings” by Lawson et al. presents case studies highlighting issues with the use of modular construction in high-rise buildings in Europe. The paper “Effects of Lean on Sustainability of Modular Homebuilding” by Nahmens and Ikuma presents the results of a case study on the effects of lean on the sustainability of a modular homebuilder in the United States. The paper presents some interesting issues dealing with the social sustainability in the modular housebuilding sector. The paper “Business Design Modeling for Industrialization in Construction: Cooperative Approach” by Girmscheid and Rinas presents a cooperative business model for grasping the opportunity that is offered by industrialization in construction for Switzerland. The results of this study can easily be replicated in other countries. The paper “Lean Management and Low Carbon Emissions in Precast Concrete Factories in Singapore” is a case study by Wu and Low presenting a checklist that can be used by precasters to reduce nonvalue-adding activities in their processes leading to reductions in carbon emission. The paper “Comparative Analysis of Lean Construction with Design-Build Using a Framework of Contractual Forms of Agreement” by Becker et al. is an attempt to promote the concept of lean construction in the design and construction community and also presents a framework that compares design-build contracts with lean construction. The paper “Maintenance Integrated Design and Manufacture of Buildings: Toward a Sustainable Model” by Wood is a technical note that develops a professional overview of anticipated maintenance over the life of a building and at the design stage itself by using mind maps. The paper presents an interesting visualisation technique that can be used to explore issues at the design stage in off-site construction. The book review by McCoy summarizes the contents of the new book “Factory Design for Modular Homebuilding: Equipping the Modular Factory for Success” by Michael Mullens.

Overall, this is a very balanced issue with technical papers, case studies, forum articles, and a book review, and presents an interesting opportunity for researchers of the future. The truly global nature of this issue also provides a wonderful opportunity for everyone to understand the issues faced in different parts of the world with the implementation of off-site construction.