A Vision of the Future Construction Industry of Hong Kong

Abstract

The Hong Kong construction industry has been a powerful engine behind the city's rapid urban development. It serves to improve the living environment and standards, create a connected society, promote Hong Kong's sustainable development, and enhance Hong Kong's long-term competitiveness. To tackle manpower shortfall and to enhance its efficiency, the industry also strives to become a leading techno-construction industry in the region. Being the coordinating body of the industry, the Construction Industry Council (CIC) is taking the lead in pushing the boundaries and bringing the industry's competitiveness to the next level. We ride the waves of change to anticipate and meet evolving challenges by promoting new initiatives such as modular design and fabrication, Building Information Modelling (BIM), renewable energy technologies, construction automation and robotisation. More initiatives like the above are needed to spur the industry to re-invent our construction processes and ensure that stakeholders in the value chain work in an integrated manner. This paper presents state-of-the-art R&D and technologies adopted in the Hong Kong construction industry, and highlights the challenges ahead of driving innovations in the industry. More importantly, an overarching vision of the construction industry is set to better serve the changing needs of the community. Innovative technologies and ideas are explored and exhibited to achieve the vision.

Influencing factors of the future utilisation of construction robots for buildings: A Hong Kong perspective

“…Finally, 25 factors from three levels are summarised in the economic, environmental, industry, political, socio-cultural and technological areas (Table 1). [4]; Bogue [3]; Pan et al [5]; Wong et al [6]; Bock and Linner [9]; Quezada et al [10]; Warszawski and Navon [11]; Mahbub [12]; Kangari and Halpin [20]; Lim et al [21];…”

“…Evidence has been witnessed in Japan that construction activities have plunged after the burst of the bubble economy in the late 1990s, limiting the development of construction automation and robotics [12]. Considering the regime requirements, the need to improve construction productivity is a significant driver for adopting robotics [1,6,[20][21][22], but the tight project timeframes could also inhibit the implementation of new technologies like robots, which require change arrangement and more rigorous planning [12]. Another relevant factor is the construction cost [1, 10,21].…”

“…Another relevant factor is the construction cost [1, 10,21]. Hong Kong's construction industry is suffering from high labour costs, and industry players are generally interested in any machinery or technology that could save labour [6]. Construction materials in Hong Kong are primarily imported with escalation trends which may facilitate the adoption of robots to save on material and reduce waste [23].…”

“…Hong Kong, as a compact city, is also facing significant challenges in managing the impact of building construction works on the environment and public. Hong Kong has for a long time been plagued by land shortages [6], which could require the use of robots to construct more high-rise buildings and minimise the land requirement for C&D (construction and demolition) waste disposal [5]. Despite regulatory control, construction noise remains a tricky problem in Hong Kong [25].…”

“…However, few practical attempts in this area have been made thus far [6,7]. Hong Kong could enable a comprehensive exploration of plausible factors, direct or indirect, that may influence the use of construction robots where the industry is experiencing the most fundamental problems that robots aim to solve.…”