Abstract
Off-site construction (OSC) is known as an efficient construction method that could save time and cost, reduce waste of resources, and improve the overall productivity of projects. Coupled with digital technologies associated with the Industry 4.0 concept, OSC can offer a higher rate of productivity and safety. While there is a rich literature focusing on both OSC and Industry 4.0, the implementation of associated digital technologies in the OSC context has not been fully evaluated. This paper intends to evaluate the current literature of digital technology applications in OSC. Scientometric analyses and a systematic review were carried out evaluating fifteen typical digital technologies adopted by OSC projects, including building information modelling (BIM), radio frequency identification devices (RFID), global positioning systems (GPS), the Internet of Things (IoT), geographic information systems (GIS), sensors, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), photogrammetry, laser scanning, artificial intelligence (AI), 3D printing, robotics, big data, and blockchain. This review formulates a clear picture of the current practice of these digital technologies and summarizes the main area of application and limitations of each technology when utilized in OSC. The review also points out their potential and how they can be better adopted to improve OSC practice in the future.
Highlights
Off-site construction is a modern method where construction elements are produced in a controlled factory, instead of at a construction site [1,2]
The scientometric analysis is conducted by VOSViewer, which can visualize the influence of key journals, publications, and countries, and analyze the co-occurrence of research keywords, which were journals, publications, and countries, and analyze the co-occurrence of research keywords, which commonly adopted key contents in the literature-review-based studies [9,51,54,55]
As pointed out by the authors of [146], the growth of the construction industry is a subset of the universal set of gross domestic product value, and off-site construction (OSC) is an important area to be developed to drive the revolution in the construction industry
Summary
Off-site construction is a modern method where construction elements are produced in a controlled factory, instead of at a construction site [1,2]. In the past 20 years, off-site construction has become more and more popular. According to a survey in 2017, 90% of interviewees from a wide range of backgrounds including construction contractors, designers, manufacturers, and academic researchers, believe that the number of off-site construction projects will increase in the future [3]. Some scholars define modular construction as a well-developed off-site manufacturing approach, where prefabricated modules are 85–90% completed with finishes in a factory. Off-site manufacturing refers to prefabricated, prefinished volumetric construction (PPVC) [11,12,13,14]. In this research, these various definitions are all included and are referred to as off-site construction (OSC)
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