Investigation of the designers' and general contractors' perceptions of offsite construction techniques in the United States construction industry.

摘要

This study aimed to examine the current utilization of offsite construction techniques in the building sector of the U.S. construction industry, and to investigate the architects'/engineers' (A/Es') and general contractors' (GCs') perceptions of benefits and barriers of using these techniques, and also to identify the motivations and barriers of using these techniques by A/Es' and GCs' responses.; A self-administrated survey questionnaire was developed as primary research methodology. 1200 A/Es and GCs were randomly selected as research subjects, and T-tests and regression tests were utilized in the study to achieve the research objectives.; The study found that both A/Es and GCs identified that using offsite construction techniques would increase product quality, overall labor productivity, and onsite safety performance. The use of these techniques also reduces the overall project schedule, onsite disruption of other adjunct operations and negative environmental impact of construction operations. The transportation restraints, the inability of making changes onsite, and limited design options appeared to be most significant challenges of using offsite construction techniques based on the findings. In addition, this study found that the residential, commercial and industrial respondents perceived the benefits and barriers to the use of offsite construction techniques differently regarding to the impact of product quality, design options, jobsite management efficiency, overall project cost, and local building regulations. The finding also indicated that the people who had used these techniques before had more positive attitude towards these techniques than those never utilized these techniques. Majority respondents in this study believed the use of these techniques would increase in the next 5-10 years.; Several practical recommendations were proposed in this study to overcome the barriers to the use of offsite construction techniques including eliminating transportation restraints, inability to make onsite changes and increasing the design options.