The use of off-site construction methods is increasing within the construction industry. While this method has been captured by a variety of terms, they all refer to the process of producing project components in a manufacturing-like facility off-site and transporting completed units to site to be assembled to achieve the desired end-product. To support the quantification of safety performance in off-site construction versus conventional on-site methods, the research has developed a generalized model for capturing and evaluating construction methods. The methodology was developed in partnership with local practitioners to define, assess and compare on-site and off-site construction practices with a safety lens, and the methodology is partially validated in collaboration with various project owners to assess case study projects that employed off-site construction into their processes. The evaluation methodology takes a construction product-focused approach with emphasis on defining a complete material supply chain and capturing the data needed to support quantifiable safety evaluations of the process. As such, the approach takes a unique approach to establish an evaluation methodology for future comparisons.

The construction industry has been identified as one of the most dangerous when examining safety performance and outcomes. The concept of leveraging off-site construction as a safer alternative to execute construction works has been presented by researchers and industry, but support for this premise with quantifiable data is lacking. To investigate differences in off-site construction versus conventional on-site methods, the research has developed a safety evaluation methodology to quantify safety performance and allow for comparisons of construction methods. The methodology is developed in partnership with a jurisdictional occupational health and safety authority and leverages historical safety data to provide inputs for a risk-based process-analysis of construction methods. The methodology is partially validated in collaboration with the project team (owner, general contractor, module manufacturer) and applied to a case study of a mid-rise modular hotel construction project that employed a mix of conventional and off-site construction processes. The evaluation methodology takes a construction product-focused approach (in this a case a hotel room module) with emphasis on defining a complete material supply chain. As such, the approach takes a unique approach to industry level comparison, establishing an evaluation methodology for future comparisons.