Search results

This study explores the relationships among sustainability implementation barriers (resource, managerial and regulatory barriers), sustainability practices (sustainable construction materials, sustainable construction design, modern construction methods and environmental provisions and reporting) and sustainability performance (environmental, economic and social) in hill road construction (HRC).

Primary data were collected from the 313 HRC practitioners with the help of a questionnaire, and research hypotheses were tested employing structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal a mixed effect of sustainability implementation barriers. Resource (managerial) barriers are negatively related to all practices except environmental provisions and reporting (sustainable construction materials), while regulatory barriers only negatively impact modern construction methods. On the other hand, all sustainability practices positively impact environmental performance, whereas economic (social) performance is positively influenced by all practices, except environmental provisions and reporting (modern construction methods), and positively affects economic performance.

In order to transform HRC toward sustainability, the barriers to sustainability implementation, sustainability practices and performance need to be understood by practitioners; however, the relationships have not previously been empirically assessed in extant literature. Besides, past research appears to be predominantly focused on the environmental aspect, thereby neglecting economic and social aspects. This study is a modest attempt to bridge these research gaps.

The recent failures and insolvencies of organisations related to the modern methods of construction (MMC) have gained increased attention and controversy across the UK construction sector. Such failures are linked to their inability to achieve an economy of scale and drive key clients to accept the MMC as an alternative to traditional methods. This paper aims to unravel whether a phenomenon of “innovation negativism” has manifested and is contributing to public clients' indecision towards broader MMC, whether this is only linked to past negative experiences formed after the Second World War or whether additional contributing reasons exist to influence adoption.

This study focusses on exploring the decision-making of the UK public construction sector; therefore, this paper adopts a qualitative approach, utilising interviews with 14 carefully selected MMC experts, government advisors and public clients. The phenomenological stance adopted herewith enables the authors to make better sense of the perceptions of the interviewees, leading to the conceptualisation of the innovation negativism phenomenon.

The paper identifies nine themes that may be argued to promote a profound understanding of the MMC negativism influencing public clients' decision-making. The study has found that more than just the previous negative perceptions formulated post Second World War are driving innovation negativism in the UK public sector. Notably, the emerging themes are incomprehension, lacking evidence, communication, relationship history, bad experiences, uncertainty, inadequate experimentation, the business case and localism.

This study is the first construction management research that acts as a fair departure point to conceptualise the reasoning behind innovation negativism in the construction setting. Through mirroring demand's unipolarity for traditional methods, policy and decision-makers can now rely on the conceptualised reasoning to determine practical solutions to overcome clients' indecisions towards MMC.

The purpose of this paper is to explore academic papers and reports and present a chronology of the evolution of British low-rise prefabricated housing. The paper provides chronological information for construction and surveying researchers undertaking research in associated areas.

This is a qualitative literature review, providing an exploration and analysis of academic papers and reports on low-rise prefabricated housing.

A substantial literature was discovered. However, there are gaps in the available literature. The history of British construction technology is a rich research area but is under-researched. Prefabricated housing has a long history dating back to the eleventh century. Stigmatised from the failures of housing in the twentieth century, it is being increasingly used again in the twenty-first century when considering mass housing supply.

This paper provides researchers with an overview of the history of low-rise prefabricated housing in Britain. It is not a comprehensive in-depth study; such would require numerous larger individual studies.

From reviewing literature it was evident that there was a broad literature, but there was no single journal publication exploring the evolution of British low-rise prefabricated housing. The research provides an overview, exploration and analysis of the literature while providing a chronology. The evolution of prefabricated housing is chronologically presented. Areas for further research are also recommended.

The use of modern methods of construction (MMC) has been advocated as a way of addressing some of the criticisms of the construction industry made in the Latham and Egan reports. This paper seeks to examine the current position of accommodation that has been built using modern methods of construction (MMC) particularly, volumetric/modular construction.

A literature review is followed by a survey of student occupants of such accommodation in Nottingham.

The main finding was that students chose their accommodation because of its locality to the university and factors that relate to the construction type are not high priorities. The main concern of the residents in the student accommodation is intrusive noise, which may come from external unspecified sources that are not related to the residents in neighbouring rooms. A low level of dissatisfaction indicates that the majority of residents were satisfied living in MMC/Modular build accommodation.

Modular build accommodation, if built within the requirements of its residents, is a satisfactory form of construction for multi‐space accommodation that could be used for future multi‐occupational premises. Modern methods of construction could benefit the UK's construction industry.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the current state of popular modern methods of construction (MMC) and pre-manufactured construction in the construction industry and propose a framework for future implications for practice and future research.

This technical paper is based on a narrative review of the extant literature on the subject. First, the Scopus search engine was used to retrieve relevant papers on MMC, offsite and pre-manufactured construction. Second, institutional literature such as reports by industry professional and trade bodies, literature from leading technology firms and contractors with experience of MMC were extracted. These two strands of literature were synthesised and a comprehensive discussion on the topic was provided.

Results show that journal publications on MMC and pre-manufactured construction have increased in the past decade. The paper found significant advances in the development of premanufactured and offsite construction approaches with many benefits. Offsite and pre-manufactured construction are viable and sustainable systems currently suitable for wider adoption as the mainstream construction method.

This technical paper based on an integrative review of relevant literature could have benefitted from interviews of professionals with experience of offsite and pre-manufacture techniques and from wider availability of current academic publications on the subject. Validation of the framework has not been undertaken.

Not much-published work has been undertaken on the current state of development globally and the viability of these construction approaches. This paper evaluates evidence from academic and industry sources to address this gap. A framework has been developed which can help the industry’s industrialisation drive.

As the population grows, one of the major global crises is the management of human settlement. A proper solution to deal with this issue is mass housing. Given the variable needs in these projects, two constraints of height and volume of construction play an essential role in fulfilling success criteria. Hence, this paper aims to choose the most appropriate building method to satisfy time, cost, quality and safety factors considering the volume and height of construction.

In this research, the proper construction methods in mass housing projects in two volumes of up to 1000 (small) and 1000-3000 (medium) residential units in three ranges of the height of 5, 5-10, and higher than ten floors were determined with a focus on the success criteria based on real experiences through questionnaires and interviews.

The results show that steel bolt and nut and tunnel framework systems in higher than five-floor building projects act better than other methods, while in up to five-floor building projects, LSF saves time and cost and steel bolt and nut provides higher quality and safety.

Given the extent of work, the results of this research can be considered as a benchmark in the mass housing industry.

In the UK healthcare sector, funding and provision of public care facilities has been primarily the responsibility of government through the National Health Service (NHS). After decades of under-investment and consequent effects on the quality of care, new procurement routes are currently being used to improve the standards of facilities to meet the requirements of modern care services. This paper critically reviews these new procurement routes in terms of concepts and suitable areas of application, and examines how the principal procurement methods have evolved into the forms used for UK healthcare facilities. The paper outlines recommendations for further research in assessing the suitability or otherwise of these new procurement methods, both for construction projects generally and specifically for healthcare facilities.

This paper presents a bespoke model for understanding off-site construction (OSC) readiness among Indian construction organisations. This model presents 17 variables for discussion, the results from which help support OSC strategic decision-making.

Factor analysis was used to investigate the relationship between variables to group them into factors. After identifying 26 different variables, these were reduced to 17 using factor analysis and categorised into four groups. Descriptive statistical analysis and factor analysis using SPSS was used to develop a hierarchy of factors that affect OSC readiness in India. These findings were reinforced by five domain experts to support the results.

Minimising on-site duration, ensuring cost and time certainty and transportation issues were identified as the three most important factors, whereas lack of guidance and scepticism were among the lowest factors affecting the Indian OSC sector.

This research is specifically focused on OSC within the Indian construction sector. As such, data collection, propagation and analysis should be constrained to the population context regarding inference, generalisability and repeatability.

The proffered OSC readiness model offers OSC practitioners an ability to assess the OSC readiness of construction organisations in India. This includes the evaluation and benchmarking of processes in both strategic and operational phases, including highlighting areas of concern and scope for further development (to achieve optimal advantage of OSC methods).

Originality rests with the use of factor analysis and descriptive statistical analysis to study the influence of different construction-related factors and variables on the OSC sector in India. This impact readiness model is context-specific to the Indian OSC sector – providing a unique insight into the causal factors and dependencies that can affect the adoption and uptake of modern methods of construction in India.

Off-site manufacturing (OSM) is a modern method of construction that brings various environmental sustainability benefits for stakeholders. The increasing take-up of OSM in practice has attracted much research interest in its environmental sustainability. However, a holistic understanding of these previous research studies is still lacking. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to critically review the existing body of knowledge regarding the environmental sustainability of OSM.

A qualitative content analysis was adopted to systematically and objectively review 55 related historical studies.

Three research themes were identified, including environmental sustainability assessment and performance, environmental sustainability strategies and critical environmental sustainability factors. A detailed discussion of the three themes was conducted to depict a whole picture of the current explorations in the research field. Additionally, a research framework was developed to articulate the interrelationship between the research themes and their specific research topics. Scientific research gaps were identified together with the future research directions in terms of sustainability strategies, performance impacting factors, sustainability indicators and drawbacks resulted from OSM application.

The literature review promotes construction stakeholders’ in-depth understanding about the environmental sustainability of OSM, which offers valuable implications for green industry practice. Additionally, it highlights the future research trends, which facilitates further explorations in the research area.

This study aims to develop a more inclusive working definition and a formalised classification system for offsite construction to enable common basis of evaluation and communication. Offsite manufacturing (OSM) is continuously getting recognised as a way to increase efficiency and boost productivity of the construction industry in many countries. However, the knowledge of OSM varies across different countries, construction practices and individual experts thus resulting into major misconceptions. The lack of consensus of what OSM is and what constitutes its methods creates a lot of misunderstanding across Architecture Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry professionals, therefore, inhibiting a global view and understanding for multicultural collaboration. Therefore, there is a need to revisit these issues with the aim to develop a deep understanding of the concepts and ascertain what is deemed inclusive or exclusive.

A state-of-the-art review and analysis of literature on OSM was conducted to observe trends in OSM definitions and classifications. The paper identifies gaps in existing methods and proposes a future direction.

Findings suggest that classifications are mostly aimed towards a particular purpose and existing classification system are not robust enough to cover all aspects. Therefore, there is need to extend these classification systems to be fit for various purposes.

This paper contributes to the body of literature on offsite concepts, definition and classification, and provides knowledge on the broader context on the fundamentals of OSM.