A critical analysis of benefits and challenges of implementing modular integrated construction

Abstract

Modular integrated construction (MiC) has recently been promoted by the advanced countries as an effective solution to 1) enable fast construction, 2) enhance the diminishing construction productivity, and 3) support sustainable development. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the completion of a MiC-based 1000-bed hospital in Wuhan, China, in less than a month, has made the world, especially sophisticated economies, 'talking' about this new technology. However, MiC is an ultra-modern technology that has both its merits and demerits; balancing out between them to maximize the opportunities that MiC has to offer needs insightful decision-making from higher authorities. Therefore, there is a vital need to understand and analyze the two contrasting but related matters, 'benefits and challenges of MiC' to help decision-makers in formulating better strategies based on informed choices. Past studies on MiC reported benefits in terms of time, cost, quality, safety, and environmental and social impacts, however, lack a holistic synthesis of MiC benefits by considering data from both the literature and real case studies. Whereas, the assessment methodologies used to prioritize MiC challenges did not consider the hierarchical nature of these challenges and their relative importance, which in turn impact the prioritization accuracy. This study contributed to bridging these gaps. Firstly, MiC benefits have been extensively explored by adopting a mixed research approach integrating literature synthesis, structured discussions, and real case studies. Then, a list of challenges was explored through literature synthesis and further validated and shortlisted through the first set of interviews from MiC experts. The second set of interviews was aimed mainly at evaluating the performance of MiC and providing recommendations for improvement from the international perspective. The interviews revealed that MiC should be treated as a long-term strategy and would not necessarily be a cheaper option in the short run, however, it would be a revolution in terms of time, quality, sustainability, safety, and life-cycle costs. Following the interviews, a questionnaire survey was conducted to prioritize the challenges using the multi-attribute group decisionmaking (MAGDM) approach, namely, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), considering the hierarchical nature of challenges and their relative importance. The 'road network capacity' was found to be the most critical challenge. Finally, case studies were further carried out to reveal the measures that were adopted to mitigate the challenges in three international MiC projects. This research provides an interesting insight into the positive and negative aspects of using MiC for interested governments and construction stakeholders. It is anticipated that the benefits shall outweigh the drawbacks in the long run. KEYWORDS MiC; benefits; challenges; modular integrated construction; sustainability; case studies; analytical hierarchical process level where 80-90% of the construction work is implemen...

Understanding adoption of high off-site construction level technologies in construction based on the TAM and TTF

“…Some of these influencing factors are also applicable to LOSCLTs, like high initial cost. While others are specific to HOSCLTs adoption, such as performance skepticism, lacking accurate module manufacturing, poor flexibility for design changes later, mismatch with traditional project process (Peltokorpi et al, 2018;Zhang et al, 2021;Chan et al, 2021;Wuni and Shen, 2022). Nevertheless, existing studies have mostly focused on identifying and ranking these factors, while the adoption mechanism of HOSCLTs has been neglected.…”

“…In practice, using LOSCLTs presents many problems, such as cost overruns, order changes, poor workability and difficult quality control, due to poor connections between cast-in-place and prefabrication (Han and Wang, 2018;Li et al, 2020;Masood et al, 2021). Adopting HOSCLTs has been regarded as a good solution to decrease these problems (Chan et al, 2021), and sustainability goals will come true with improvement of technology and management. Therefore, the following hypotheses are developed:…”

“…Previous studies have focused on many factors influencing adoption of HOSCLTs, where some factors are similar to those affecting LOSCLTs, but have greater effects, such as more complex process and more difficult interface coordination (Pan and Hon, 2020;Wuni et al, 2022aWuni et al, 2022bNavaratnam et al, 2022). While others are specific to HOSCLTs, like poor flexibility for design changes later, and mismatch with traditional project management (Gao et al, 2018;Hwang et al, 2018;Chan et al, 2021). Since LOSCLTs have been applied in many projects under existing policy support (Wu et al, 2021), the factors and mechanisms involved are not entirely applicable to explaining HOSCLTs adoption.…”

Conceptual range estimation for total cost of ownership of modular process‐intensified chemical plants

“…Cost savings are often expected during the design and construction of modular projects, and can be attributed to higher labor productivity and a reduced amount of required fieldwork at the jobsite, among other reasons. [16,30] Modularization also provides schedule benefits due to concurrent and/or pre-permit fabrication progress, enhanced safety, and improved quality. [31][32][33] MCPI combines the strengths of PI and modularization, and can be defined as the economical modular construction of intensified chemical plants enabled by a reduction in the footprint of the process technology.…”

“…Cost savings are often expected during the design and construction of modular projects, and can be attributed to higher labor productivity and a reduced amount of required fieldwork at the jobsite, among other reasons. [ 16,30 ] Modularization also provides schedule benefits due to concurrent and/or pre‐permit fabrication progress, enhanced safety, and improved quality. [ 31–33 ]…”