31st Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC 31) - Lille, France - 2023

https://doi.org/10.24928/2023/0132

Exploring Offsite Construction for the Construction Sector: A Literature Review

James P. Broadhead1, Emmanuel I. Daniel2, Olalekan Oshodi3 & Sa’id Ahmed4

1Managing Director, Offsite Focus Consulting, Canada. Orcid.org/0000-0002-3528-4176 [email protected]
2Senior Lecturer in Construction Management, School of Architecture and Built Environment, Faculty of Science and Engineering., University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, UK, [email protected], orcid.org/0000- 0002-5675-1845
3Senior Lecturer in Construction Project Management, School of Engineering and Built Environment, Anglia Ruskin, University, United Kingdom. [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0001-6106-7717
4Lecturer, School of Engineering and the Environment, Department of Civil Engineering, Surveying and Construction Management, Kingston University: London, Greater London, GB. [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002-3815-0683

Abstract

The construction sector is one of the largest producers of Gross Domestic Product globally and yet has shown little innovation in the last 20 years. Offsite has been touted as cheaper, faster, higher in quality and more environmentally friendly than onsite construction. The purpose of this paper is to review the current research into offsite construction and determine the barriers to adoption and benefits facing offsite construction. A systematic literature review was undertaken to gather relevant knowledge surrounding the subject matter using a database search of Scopus. It was found that knowledge was the largest barrier to adoption and that transcended multiple stakeholders, from the selection of the appropriate delivery methodology, how to design for optimized fabrication and finally how to interface with the onsite requirements. The benefits are a higher build quality, shorter project duration as both site work and fabrication occur at the same time, improved safety, and less material wastage. The Barriers come from design freezes earlier in the process and inflexible design for customization later in the build.

Keywords

Off-site construction, modular construction, prefabrication, advantages, disadvantages

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Reference

Broadhead, J. P. , Daniel, E. I. , Oshodi, O. & Ahmed, S. 2023. Exploring Offsite Construction for the Construction Sector: A Literature Review, Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC31) , 735-745. doi.org/10.24928/2023/0132

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Founded in 1993, the IGLC is an international network of researchers from practice and academia in architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) who feel that the practice, education, and research of the AEC industry have to be radically renewed in order to respond to the global challenges ahead.

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