Cost analysis for sustainable off-site construction based on a multiple-case study in China

Factors Affecting the Capital Cost of Prefabrication—A Case Study of China

“…The 10 most important factors were "Specification and standards for prefabricated building design", "Related experience of manager", "Rationality of PC split", "Capacity of production line in PC", "Operant level on installation personnel", "Order quantity of PC", "Coordination between designer and PC manufacturer", "Collaborative capacity among professional designers", "Coordination of connection nodes of PC components", and "Related experience of designer". "Specification and standards for prefabricated building design" were the most important factors among the 49 factors, which was consistent with the actuality in China [7]. "Design standardization" was the primary task for promoting the prefabrication.…”

“…Each interview lasted between 30 min and 1.5 h. All interviews were conducted between October 2016 and November 2016. The results showed that PC, as the basic element of prefabrication, played an important role in cost management [7]. Moreover, coordination among the stakeholders also had a significant effect on cost management in the whole construction process [54].…”

“…Hence, the capital cost management process is based on three parts: the design stage, the production and transportation stage, and the on-site installation stage. The study attempts to explore the factors affecting the incremental capital cost of prefabrication compared with the traditional on-site construction, but excludes the cost factors impacting both prefabrication and traditional on-site construction methods, such as expenses of labor and materials, inflation, land acquisition fee, taxes [7,20], etc.…”

“…Prefabrication has various terms such as industrialized construction, prefabricated construction, assembly, modular construction, mass production, modern method of construction, and off-site construction. The main contexts of these terms refer to three common activities, i.e., production precast components at a factory, delivering precast components to on-sites, and assembling precast components to form buildings [7,8]. Prefabrication as a sustainable method that offers great benefits, such as reduction in waste [9], time, labor [10], cost, health and safety risks [11], and environmental pollution; and improvement in profits, predictability, and life performance [12], has become popular in many nations.…”

“…Prefabrication as a sustainable method that offers great benefits, such as reduction in waste [9], time, labor [10], cost, health and safety risks [11], and environmental pollution; and improvement in profits, predictability, and life performance [12], has become popular in many nations. Meanwhile, governments in some countries are confronted with problems, such as demographic dividend disappearing, frequent security incidents [7], and serious waste of resources and environmental pollution [13]. In China, the government is promoting the prefabrication in engineering construction through a series of incentive measures, such as floor area allowance, cash…”