PurposeMuch has been written on offsite manufacture (OSM) in construction, particularly regarding the perceived benefits and barriers to implementation. However, very little understanding of the state of OSM in the Australian construction industry exists. A “scoping study” was recently conducted to determine the “state‐of‐the‐art” of OSM in Australia. The purpose of this paper is to report on the overall findings of the study.Design/methodology/approachThe study took a broad qualitative survey‐based approach. This involved three industry workshops, several interviews and seven case studies across four major states of Australia. The study surveyed a range of suppliers across the construction supply‐chain, incorporating the civil, commercial and housing segments of the market.FindingsThe study revealed that skills shortages and lack of adequate OSM knowledge are generally the greatest issues facing OSM in Australia. OSM uptake into the future is dependent on many factors, not least of which is a better understanding of the construction process and its associated costs. Unlike the USA and UK, the Australian construction industry faces unique challenges in how it transforms construction into a modern and efficient industry.Originality/valueThis is the first work undertaken to determine the benefits and barriers to OSM in the Australian construction industry.
Evaluating to what extent a component or building system should be produced offsite is inadequate within the industry. The potential benefits of off-site production (OSP) are commonly cited when justifying an OSP approach, yet holistic and methodical assessments of the applicability and overall benefit of these solutions, to a particular project, have been found to be deficient. Common methods of evaluation simply take material, labour and transportation costs into account when comparing various options, often disregarding other cost-related items such as site facilities, crane use and rectification of works. These cost factors are usually buried within the nebulous preliminaries figure, with little reference to the building approach taken.Further, softer issues such as health and safety, effects on management and process benefits are either implicit or disregarded within these comparison exercises. Yet it is demonstrated that these issues are some of the most significant benefits of OSP. A series of case studies demonstrated that evaluation focus is almost solely on direct material and labour costs of components, without explicit regard for the wider cost or soft issue implications of OSP on a project. The paper argues that until evaluation is more holistic and value-based rather than cost-based, OSP uptake in construction will be slow. (204 words)
Offsite production (OSP) has been promoted as one of the solutions to the industry's performance problems. Numerous works have demonstrated the possible benefits from adopting such approaches to construction projects, yet uptake has been slow. Addressing these concerns a series of factors were identified that affect the use of OSP within construction projects. From these factors a pattern emerged in which some factors drove OSP adoption, whilst others constrained its implementation. These constraints were investigated further using a questionnaire survey that was sent to all major stakeholders, ranging from clients through to end manufacturers. The extent to which the constraints inhibit the use of OSP were ascertained, scored and ranked. Four broad constraint themes emerged from the findings, namely process, value, supply-chain and knowledge constraints. A model illustrating the relationship between the four themes provides further insight into the constraints to OSP uptake. The authors further suggest that a broader understanding of the constraints is required, arguing that while OSP can contribute to change in the industry, it itself depends on change in order to be widely adopted.
A multi‐level safety climate model was tested in the Australian construction industry. Subcontracted workers’ perceptions of the organizational safety response (OSR) and supervisor safety response (SSR) in their own organization and that of the principal contractor were measured using a safety climate survey administered at a large hospital construction project in Melbourne. One hundred and fourteen construction workers completed the survey, representing nine subcontractors engaged at the project. Two requisite conditions for the existence of group‐level safety climates, i.e. (1) within‐group homogeneity; and (2) between‐group variation were satisfied for perceptions of subcontractors’ OSR and SSR. This supports the contention that subcontractors working in a single construction project exhibit a unique group‐level safety climate. Subcontracted workers also discriminated between group‐level safety climates (i.e. the SSR) in their own and in the principal contractor’s organizations. The results suggest some cross‐level influence. Perceptions of the SSR were positively predicted by perceptions of the OSR in both the principal and subcontractor organizations. Perceptions of the OSR of the principal contractor were also a significant predictor of the perceived OSR and SSR in the subcontractor organizations. Perceptions of the subcontractors’ SSR were a significant predictor of the rate of lost‐time and medical treatment incidents reported by the subcontractor. Although perceptions of the principal contractor’s SSR were not directly related to subcontractors’ injury rates, they were a significant predictor of subcontractors’ SSR, revealing an indirect link. The results suggest that supervisory personnel (e.g. foremen and leading hands) play an important role in shaping safety performance in subcontracted workgroups.Occupational health and safety, organizational safety response, supervisor safety response, lost‐time injuries, medical treatment injuries,
Do perceptions of supervisors' safety responses mediate the relationship between perceptions of the organizational safety climate and incident rates in the construction supply chain?
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