Critical Factors Affecting the Quality of Industrialized Building System Projects in China

Abstract

Whilst the benefits of applying an industrialized building system (IBS) have been well recognized globally in the construction industry, the application of IBS is particularly limited in developing countries such as China, and quality is considered one of the key issues affecting its application. This paper identifies a number of the key quality factors which present barriers to the promotion of IBS within the context of the Chinese construction industry. These include key factors such as "Inaccurate design of the connecting points between core components", "Lack of design norms and standards for IBS components", "Lack of quality criteria for IBS components", "Lack of production norms and standards for IBS components", "Lack of quality management system in production process", and "Lack of technical guidelines for the construction of IBS projects". The data used for analysis are derived from a comprehensive practical survey. The validity of the data is examined by using a statistical method. The findings from the study provide valuable references for formulating effective measures to mitigate the negative effects of these quality factors on IBS application in China, thereby ensuring that practice of the IBS system can be further developed within the country.

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

“…The coefficient of Cronbach's α is an important index to judge the reliability of the data from the questionnaire. The following outcomes are commonly accepted for the value of Cronbach's α > 0.9, Excellent; α > 0.8, Good; α > 0.7, Acceptable; α > 0.6, Questionable; α > 0.5, Poor; and α < 0.5, Unacceptable [8]. In this survey, α was 0.941, which suggested the data were reliable and valid.…”

“…The independent sample t-test has been commonly used to examine whether the mean values of a specific variable from two independent groups are significantly consistent, or whether they are significantly different [16,52]. The one-way ANOVA (analysis of variance) is usually used to check whether the mean values of a specific variable from more than two independent groups are significantly different [8]. For the independent sample t-test, two steps were performed in our study: (1) descriptive statistics; and (2) independent sample t-test: (1) Levene's test for equality of variance; and (2) t-test for equality of means.…”

“…One-way ANOVA has been widely used to check whether the mean values of a specific variable from more than two independent groups are significantly different [8].…”

“…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.…”

Capital Cost Optimization for Prefabrication: A Factor Analysis Evaluation Model

“…However, the definition of capital cost for prefabrication was vague. The process of prefabrication was usually divided into three parts: design, PC production, including off-site production and transportation, on-site installation [43]. To perform a more accurate and reasonable analysis of the capital cost increment, this study ignored the items that are not different between traditional on-site construction and prefabrication, such as inflation, land acquisition cost, commission and hand-over cost, capital management cost and capital overheads [29].…”