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An industrialized building system (IBS) is regarded as an effective residential building system that provides several benefits, including high quality, low cost, short time, good flexibility, reduced waste, and strong environmental performance. This system is considered to be valuable in promoting sustainable practices in China, where plans for urbanization have been established. However, the adoption of IBS in China is extremely limited. Potential risks exist and affect the attitudes of practitioners toward the use of this system. The purpose of this paper is to prioritize and analyze these risks and to develop corresponding strategies for mitigating these risks in China.

In total, 24 risks that inhibit the implementation of IBS in China are identified through literature review and examined through interviews for consistency. A questionnaire survey is conducted to quantify the significance of these risks. Cronbach’s coefficient α is employed to measure the internal consistency among the risk factors. The survey results are further analyzed using three case studies.

The top five risks identified are “poor cooperation between multi-interface,” “inappropriate design codes and standards for industrialized buildings,” “lack of management practices and experiences,” “enormous difficulty in achieving return on high initial investment,” and “lack of a quality monitoring mechanism for the production process.” The findings emphasize the government’s leading role in promoting the new building system in its introduction and enforcement of adequate policies and regulations. Practitioners are also instrumental in establishing proper understanding and knowledge of IBS and its application.

This study bridges the knowledge gaps on risk identification for implementing IBS in China. The findings provide practitioners and decision makers with valuable references for adopting adequate risk management methods and policies to promote IBS in China.

Malaysia’s industrialised building system (IBS) has been increasingly adopted for sustainable development by the country’s construction industry. However, although it has been used for commercial building projects, its application to sustainable infrastructure development has been limited to date. This study aims to examine the drivers and challenges involved.

A preliminary conceptual framework was initially developed based on a systematic literature review. Semi-structured interviews involving 20 participants were undertaken to gain insightful thoughts from the construction practitioners to discover the perception towards IBS application in the construction industry, the applicability of IBS, particularly in infrastructure projects, the strategies of IBS delivery and the sustainable potential of its application. A two-round Delphi study was conducted with 15 experienced and knowledgeable panellists to further identify, verify and prioritise factors developed from the literature review and interview findings. Then, the results were synthesised and triangulated to demonstrate a holistic insight.

The results show the main drivers to be better productivity, quality, environmental, safety and health, constructability design and cost, policy and requirements, with the main challenges being project planning and cost-related issues, inexperience and industry capacity.

The study’s main contribution is in systematically determining the practical implications involved in applying the IBS to sustainable infrastructure developments in Malaysia and other similar developing countries.

Labour usage represents one of the critical elements in the Malaysia construction industry due to severe shortage of local workers. This paper aims to present a construction performance comparison between conventional building systems and industrialised building systems (IBS).

Data were obtained from 100 residential projects through a questionnaire survey in 2005. A total of 100 respondents participated in this study.

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results indicated that the actual labour productivity comparison between conventional building system and IBS was significantly different. Further, the comparison of crew size indicated that the conventional building system of 22 workers was significantly different from the IBS of 18 workers. Similarly, the cycle time of 17 days per house for conventional building system was found to be significantly different from the IBS of four days. However, the conventional building system was found to be insignificantly different from the IBS in term of structural construction cost.

The results acquired from this study could be used by project planners for estimating labour input, control costs and project scheduling. Additionally, they could be used to determine the most appropriate structural building system for executing a construction project at the conceptual stage.

The contemporary practice of conventional maintenance for industrialised building system (IBS) constructions suffers from poor service delivery and defect repetition. A key problem impeding the widespread adoption of emerging technologies is the lack of competent contractors to support the effectiveness of the technology implemented in conventional methods and to ensure returns on investment. The shortcomings of conventional methods are assessed from the perspective of IBS buildings. This paper aims to identify the different system approach using Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology that is equipped with decision making processes.

This paper describes the establishment of key problem areas, the elements involved in implementing good practice and the requirements for integrating maintenance management processes and information databases in the maintenance management system.

Conventional methods have little emphasis on defect diagnosis tools. They also enhance inadequate strategic decision-making in the analysis of information when attempting to improve the maintenance project outcomes for IBS construction. The characteristics identified in a case study of IBS buildings are presented and analysed.

The conclusions and recommendations drawn from the analysis of the IBS case study are discussed, synthesised and deliberated upon. The approach presented in this paper integrates various aspects of building information modelling technology to facilitate improved execution of IBS maintenance activities.

The purpose of this paper is to identify critical sustainability factors for improved implementation of industrialised building systems (IBS). It also aims to highlight the importance of decision support, through the establishment of decision‐making guidelines, for sustainability deliverables in IBS development.

A broad range of sustainability factors, as perceived by researchers and practitioners, is identified through a comprehensive literature study. A study of the survey and statistical data analysis is conducted to examine the criticality of these sustainability factors in IBS implementation.

In total, 18 sustainability factors are identified as critical to IBS implementation. Their interrelationships and driving forces are explored, which leads to the development of a conceptual model to map these factors for actions or potential solutions. The work provides a sound basis towards a set of decision‐making guidelines for sustainable IBS implementation.

Compared with previous research that focuses on technical or economical aspects, this research extends existing knowledge on construction prefabrication by linking all aspects of sustainability issues with the design process. It also covers industry characteristics of developing countries, as represented by Malaysia's scenarios.

The purpose of this study is to develop a new information and communication technology (ICT)-based approach for optimising safety transportation according to the needs of the current industrialised building system (IBS) building construction schemes. The improper handling and information management of road transport workers appears to be a major problem in the safety of the IBS building construction industry. Transportation activity is particularly problematic for IBS building construction projects in which traffic incident and safety management level are not in good condition to match with construction specification.

A new ICT-based approach is suggested for optimising safety transportation in accordance with the needs of the current IBS building construction schemes. As a precursor to this work, the concept of road transport workers practices is reviewed and the main features of ICT tools and techniques currently being used on such projects are presented.

The sophisticated road transport workers system solutions is described as an essential component of this optimisation to promote long-term safety and quality improvements of IBS building construction projects.

Finally, the potential for a research framework for developing such a system in the future is presented.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the system approaches and their application for managing IBS building in the context of Malaysian maintenance practice. Currently, the maintenance management method has affected the efficiency of the complex and high-rise industrialised building system (IBS) building maintenance management in Malaysia. Many issues such as poor service delivery, limited budgets, less competent staff and defect repetition emerged because of the usage of conventional method applications (paper-based form). The data revealed that the practice of maintenance management for complex and high-rise IBS buildings needs to be digitalised.

This qualitative research was carried out by conducting literature review and semi-structured interviews. Eight major maintenance organisations were selected based on a conventional method of practice in managing maintenance for complex and high-rise IBS buildings. The computerised system was developed using a data flow diagram and coding. Subsequently, the prototype system was tested.

By having this prototype system, the defect diagnosis and decision-making process become easier, faster and cost-effective in facilitating the maintenance assessment, defect diagnosis and control in relation to IBS building structure components.

In conclusion, the prototype system may improve the effectiveness of maintenance management practices for IBS building structure components in reducing defect design risks such as design calculation error to provide high-quality IBS building structure components for a safe and healthy environment.

The current maintenance management method affects the efficiency of the complex, high-rise industrialised building system (IBS) building maintenance management projects in Malaysia. The usage of a conventional system (paper-based reports/unsystematic database) has various drawbacks, such as IBS component aesthetic and structural defects which occur repeatedly in the building and maintenance of conventional building, lack of integration between maintenance systems and lack of the intelligent capabilities of linking defect diagnosis operations in maintenance affecting various building elements with IBS component defect knowledge. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to focus on the development of a mechanism to improve IBS component defect knowledge transfer in IBS building maintenance projects through the integration of building information modelling (BIM).

Eight clients/maintenance contractors were selected based on the major problems of using a conventional system to investigate the maintenance management practices in each complex and high-rise IBS building.

The findings indicated that several computerised systems such as Building Automation System and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System are used by a client/maintenance contractor. Moreover, BIM technology awareness was found to be limited, with no implementation in IBS building maintenance till now. The results of this case study were used as a foundation for the development of a prototype system using Computerised Maintenance Management System, Expert System and BIM.

The development of this new system improves IBS component diagnosis knowledge integration with the BIM technology.

This paper aims to develop a set of affordable space and dimensional standards for market-driven low-income housing in Indian context for the purpose of mass production using industrialised building system.

For this, the paper first explains the significance of standardisation from the literature and revisits the codes and contemporary practices in industrialised building system (IBS) in India. Next, it undertakes a market survey of ongoing/completed housing projects to study the space/dimensions reflected in the market demand by the people. After considering conditions like modular grid suitability and provisions of code, it identifies a set of dimensional standards of activity spaces, emerging from the market study. It also suggests a framework of modular units showing the incremental attachment possibility for component-based construction using IBS. These standards and design frameworks will make the path for developing various products and components towards an open system in India.

The paper gives an insight of the market trends of low-income housing, focusing on unit designs and spatial elements.

Local contextualisation during the unit designs will be required and that is not addressed in this paper.

This will benefit developers, manufacturers, designers as well as policymakers towards a market-driven housing delivery using IBS.

As a result of this standardisation, housing delivery will be faster and there will be more numbers of market-driven affordable housing in masses for low-income people, thus solving housing shortage.

A developing country like India is a diversified country having many geographical and social variations. Such standardisation for a space and design framework has never been attempted before and will make a contribution for the public housing sector.

Humans tend to rely on beliefs, assumptions and cognitive rules‐of‐thumb for making judgments and are biased against taking more uncertain alternatives. Such inertia has implications for client organizations' decision making about innovations, which are inherently more uncertain than conventional alternatives. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to furthering the understanding of barriers to overcoming inertia in client decision making in new‐build.

A descriptive behavioural decision‐making perspective is combined with an organizational information‐processing perspective. To identify and discuss individual and organizational barriers that potentially distort clients' decision making on innovation, the analysis addresses aggregated data from four studies. The analysis focuses on inferences and interpretations made by decision makers in Swedish client organizations, their information‐processing practices and the subsequent impacts on perceived meanings and judgments about industrialized multi‐storey, timber‐framed building innovations, which are perceived by Swedish clients as new and different building alternatives.

Cognitive and organizational barriers maintain status‐quo decisions. Clients are inclined to make biased judgments about industrialized‐building alternatives because non‐applicable cognitive rules‐of‐thumb, based on their experiences of conventional‐building alternatives, are used. Furthermore, client organizations' information‐processing practices do not allow different meanings to surface, interact and potentially suggest different conclusions, at odds with established beliefs.

The paper's conclusions highlight how inertia is sustained in client decision making in new‐build. They illustrate the limitations of a common engineering approach, i.e. supporting decision making about innovations by focusing on providing more information to the decision maker in order to reduce uncertainty, as well as managing multiple meanings by reductionism.