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Skeleton and Infill (SI) housing system is considered as a significant path of sustainably prolonging building life by improving structural durability and infill variability for its nature that the skeleton system is fixed, while the infill system could be rebuilt to satisfy users’ changing demands in different stage without damaging the skeleton system. The application of a SI housing system involves two new characteristics compared to traditional cast-in-place housing system: components production in factories and site construction are carried out simultaneously; the skeleton system and the infill system are constructed in parallel phases, which increase enormous parallel work. Iterations and rework would increase with the improper handling of parallel works, which lead to higher construction cost and lower participant willingness of stakeholders in SI housing construction delivery process. It is essential to establish a model to clarify the dependencies among major parallel work items and recognize parallel work sets to optimize the construction sequence for stakeholders to strengthen communication and coordination on key work items in a more efficiency way. By conducting investigations into the construction delivery process of typical SI housing projects in China, this paper developed a parallel collaborative mode based on the design structure matrix (DSM) to identify the complex dependencies among major cooperative work items. Furthermore, to provide an optimized parallel collaborative process, graph theory was introduced to find parallel work sets and eliminate repetition and iteration caused by improper work execution sequences. The results provide a guide for stakeholders to make appropriate cooperation strategies in implementing major work items and promoting cooperating efficiency by reducing iteration and rework.

Purpose This paper aims to employ social cognitive theory (SCT) as a theoretical framework to investigate the influencing factors affecting the knowledge transfer effectiveness of construction workers in China. The mediating role of their knowledge transfer willingness is also assessed. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire on knowledge transfer among Chinese construction workers is designed and subsequently analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM), with a total sample of 288 construction workers. Findings The SEM results show that the knowledge self-efficiency, blood and geographic relationships, and trust relationship promote knowledge transfer willingness and positively influence the knowledge transfer effectiveness of construction workers. However, the effect of organizational culture on knowledge transfer willingness and effectiveness is nonsignificant. Practical implications The results are conducive to managers and governments formulating strategies to optimize the learning mechanism of construction workers and facilitate their obtaining of resources from the project, thus easing skill shortages and promoting the transformation of construction workers into industrial workers. Originality/value This paper innovatively proposes blood and geographic relationships as research variables, expanding their scope. Furthermore, SCT is applied to enable future research to better understand individual knowledge transfer behavior from both personal and environmental perspectives.

Prefabricated housing and cast-in-site housing are two alternatives for selection by developers and customers. The government, as the policy maker, creates incentive policies to encourage developers and customers to choose prefabricated housing. This paper aims to analyze the subsidy mechanism to theoretically confirm the subsidies’ scopes, amounts and end times through an evolutionary game model and simulation. In the game model, government subsidies affect the interactions between developers and customers in the decision-making process. The findings are as follows: 1) The developer housing subsidy can lower the housing price, while the customer housing subsidy can increase the price; 2) The government should first offer the developers a larger subsidy amount during the early development stage and then offer the customers a smaller subsidy amount later; 3) The government should determine the end time based on the proportion of developers and customers who choose prefabricated housing; 4) A higher prefabrication ratio may not always improve the development of prefabricated housing, and there is an optimal production scale that creates the best development situation. The empirical analysis shows that this model can help the government develop reasonable and optimal subsidy policies within the limit of budget to stimulate developers and customers.

Abstract. It has become the inevitable choice through promoting the development of the prefabricated construction industry to achieve the construction industry transformation and to promote environmental protection. Moreover, the construction industry of China is going into the deductible chain and the construction will be changed with the format implementation of "replace business tax with value-added tax (VAT)". The characteristics of the factory production and the cost change induced by VAT are different from those of the cast-in-situ buildings. Based on the cost change of some real case, the paper analyzes the effect of the VAT, and finally puts forward the measures and methods to reduce the overall cost from the enterprise and the industry level.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to assess the process of prefabricated construction (PC) and analyze the impacts of rework risk to identify the core tasks for which the rework risk has severe impacts.Design/methodology/approachThe methods consist of a literature review, expert interviews, a questionnaire survey and a rework risk function. The expert interviews and questionnaire survey were administered to experts in the entire process of PC from the dimensions of rework frequency, rework cost and rework time. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyze the data. The rework risk function was based on the loss expectancy method.FindingsThere are 13 core tasks that have higher impacts than the average level. The core tasks in the design stage account for 100% of the tasks in the stage, those in the manufacturing stage account for 20% and those in the construction stage account for 23.1%. Compared with the other stages, the design stage is characterized by significantly more frequent rework, higher rework costs and longer rework time. The manufacturing stage is characterized by significantly higher rework costs than the construction stage. The manufacturing stage and construction stage are co-reliant, and both are impacted by the design stage.Practical implicationsThe findings provide stakeholders with a clear understanding of the core tasks of the PC process and represent a method for identifying core tasks. Stakeholders can learn from this to focus on the core tasks to reduce rework risk and manage the process with the priority of PC rework management based on the following order: design > manufacturing > construction. The approach is suitable for core task identification in other areas.Originality/valueThis research provides insight into rework risk management and provides a novel analysis method for rework risk and PC management from the perspective of the construction process. The findings are valuable for supporting stakeholders in making effective construction plans to reduce the impacts of rework risk in PC and provide a reference for future research on process optimization.