Off-site construction (OSC) methods have been widely adopted in the construction industry around the world. However, in a lot of developing countries, the application of OSC still lags behind. Although a number of research efforts have focused on identifying the OSC barriers, they are limited to qualitative descriptions, which lacks the understanding of the interrelationships among the barriers. To address this gap, this paper proposed a methodology for identifying the OSC barriers and their cause-effect relationships. The proposed methodology is composed of three phases: (1) a comprehensive literature review and in-depth interview with the OSC industry experts, (2) questionnaire survey and focus group discussion, and (3) grey DEMATEL analysis. The proposed methodology was applied in the context of China’s construction industry. The results of the grey DEMATEL analysis provided the cause-effect relationships of the 35 identified OSC barriers, which indicated six important aspects be taken into deeper consideration, such as governmental regulations and incentives, OSC practices and experiences, as well as traditional construction method transformation. The outcomes of this study will support policymakers and OSC participants to identify the influencing OSC barriers and their interrelationships, as well as propose appropriate strategies for overcoming the barriers and broadening the OSC application.

Prefabricated construction is a sustainable alternative to traditional on-site construction methods. However, many challenges still exist in the prefabricated construction process. For example, self-manufacturing or outsourcing decisions are vital to the industrial structure and organization of the prefabricated construction industry, and the company's production and operation decision-making. This paper considers a prefabricated construction supply chain, which is composed of one upstream component manufacturing company and two downstream contractors. The large contractor can get the precast component through self-manufacturing or outsourcing, while the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) contractor can only buy components from the component manufacturer. A comprehensive game model (Cournot-Stackelberg model) under different decisions, that is, component self-manufacturing or outsourcing, was established. By solving the profit functions of different companies in the prefabricated construction supply chain, the equilibrium solutions of output, price and profit can be achieved. These solutions of equilibrium indicate the optimal decision on the production and operation, and the profit's boundary conditions. After assuming relevant parameters, the profit levels of the companies in the supply chain are analyzed via a dynamic simulation in the changing process of prefabricated construction market size under different behavioral decisions. The conclusions are as follows: (1) the profit levels of all supply chain enterprises and the whole supply chain are increasing with an increase of market size; (2) the downstream contractors and the whole supply chain have a higher profit level under the component self-manufacturing decision, however, on the contrary, the upstream component suppliers get a higher profit level under the component outsourcing decision; (3) the equilibrium output of the SME contractor is reduced under the outsourcing decision of the large contractor, and the SME contractor is at a disadvantage in market competition, which is particularlyfull of risk when the market size is not big enough, but higher profit level can be expected as the market size increases. According to the results of the game-theoreticanalysis and the numerical simulation, managerial implications are put forward from the angles of extensive publicity, mandatory implementation, strengthening industrial chain integration, and intensifying component factory guidance to promote the development of prefabricated construction. Finally, the main problems which need to be studied further in the future are presented.

Customers’ preferences for prefabricated building or conventional cast-in-situ building directly affect the decision-making process for strategic selection of building developers. This study utilizes a Hotelling model integrating game theory, including the market share function, product price function, and profit function of duopoly building developers to contribute a new approach to assist decision makers in their selection of developers for their projects. By analyzing different strategy combinations and the income matrix, we obtained the strategy combinations of duopoly building developers and the income matrix strategies, market share, optimal price and maximum profit. Managerial implications were discussed for government and building developers. Finally, we presented the research contribution as well as future research direction.

PurposeAs a strand in industrialization movement in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry, prefabricated construction (PC) has gained widespread popularity due to high efficiency, energy saving, low environmental impacts, safety and other advantages of PC. Well-managed supply chain can further leverage the advantages of PC. However, there is a lack of more systematically overview of the prefabricated construction supply chain (PCSC). This paper aims to comb the current status and look into the future direction of PCSC by reviewing the existing research.Design/methodology/approachIn total, 131 articles related to prefabricated construction supply chain management (PCSCM) from 2000 to 2022 have been collated to (1) conduct a bibliometric analysis by using VOSviewer, including the literature sources, keywords co-occurrence, co-authorships, authorship citation and country active in the field of PCSCM; (2) classify and summarize the status of research in PCSCM through qualitative discussion and (3) point out the future research directions.FindingsIn total, 131 articles are carried out for bibliometric analysis and in-depth qualitative discussion, the visualization maps and the main research themes in the field of PCSCM are obtained. The results show that supply chain intelligentization and informatization are hot topics. Finally, future research directions that should be paid attention to in the field of PCSCM are pointed out.Practical implicationsThis study can help project managers understand the current status and problems of PCSC operations and provide a basis for future management decisions.Originality/valueCompared with previous studies, this study adds the dimension of “article authorship” to the quantitative analysis and discusses the research themes in the field of PCSCM in a comprehensive manner. In addition, this paper deeply discusses the main research topics from both the specific contents and research methods adopted.

The low-energy consumption and large-capacity of railway transportation play vital catalytic roles in economy and trade. Scientific research investigating the relationship between railway transportation and trade is important in promoting their coordinated development, exerting their synergistic effects, and realizing sustainable trade. Given the serious imbalance between the development of railway transportation and trade of countries along the “the Belt and Road” (The “Silk Road Economic Belt” and the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road”), we used the entropy weight method to calculate the level of railway transportation and trade development, and then calculated the coordination degrees of the countries along the Belt and Road between them using the coupling-coordination model. The results showed that the average coupling degree between railway transportation and trade development was 0.728, which means that there is a strong interaction between railway transportation and trade. Only 25% of these countries achieved highly coordinated development, and these countries could achieve sustainable trade by fully utilizing the synergetic effect of railway transportation and trade. The coordination degrees of countries along the Belt and Road have strong spatial agglomeration, and the performance of Middle and Eastern European countries is better. Finally, we put forward some suggestions, such as strengthening the construction of railway infrastructure, improving the railway operation level, developing multimodal transport, and enlarging the role of the railway transportation network in the trade of the Belt and Road to achieve sustainable trade.