%0 Journal Article
%T Current State of Off-Site Manufacturing in Australian and Chinese Residential Construction
%A Malik M. A. Khalfan
%A Tayyab Maqsood
%J Journal of Construction Engineering
%D 2014
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2014/164863
%X Many techniques have been implemented to make construction industry more productive. The key focus is on reduction of total duration, reduction in construction cost, improvements in the quality, achieving more sustainable development, and safer construction sites. One of the techniques, which is emerging in the last two decades, is the use of off-site manufacturing (OSM) within the construction industry. Several research projects and industry initiatives have reported the benefits and challenges of implementation of OSM. The focus of this paper is Australian and Chinese residential construction industry and the uptake of the OSM concepts. The paper presents a brief review of the current state of OSM in the last five to seven years with the context of the above-mentioned two countries. The paper concludes that the construction industry, both in Australia and China, needs to start walking the talk with regard to OSM adoption. The paper also highlights some of the research gaps in the OSM area, especially within the housing and residential sector. 1. Introduction This paper provides a review of academic work done in the area of off-site manufacturing (OSM) in the last 5¨C7 years in Australia and China. The reasons to focus on Australia and China are ongoing economic activities between these countries; current initiatives to import construction materials from China to Australia; increasing interest of Australian researchers in understating the uptake of OSM in China so that lessons could be learnt; and knowledge transfer between two countries within the area of new methods of construction including OSM. A brief update has been provided on the activities in different parts of the world in this paper, followed by academic work done in Australia and China. Research gaps are also highlighted. The second half of this section focuses on the industry uptake of OSM with examples from Australian residential housing construction sector. The paper also presents the envisaged benefits as well as encountered challenges faced by different researchers when studying the implementation of OSM in different parts of the world. 2. OSM: An Overview The purpose of modern methods of construction including prefabrication, off-site construction, or manufacturing is to move some of the activities from on-site construction to off-site into a controlled manufacturing environment. Gibb [1] traces back the history of manufactured construction as far back as 1851, but Arif [2] actually goes one step further and argues that the use of big boulders instead of smaller bricks in pyramids is
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jcen/2014/164863/