Off-Site Construction in Saudi Arabia: The Way Forward

Abstract

Off-site construction, which gained prominence in the last quarter of the previous century, is the form of construction in which the intent is to move some of the effort that goes into construction from the construction site into the controlled environment of a manufacturing facility (Arif and Egbu 2010). Gibb (2001) traced the history of off-site construction as far back as 1851; however, Arif (2009) actually goes one step further and argues that the use of big boulders instead of smaller bricks in pyramids is no different from using prefabricated wall panels. Humanity has always looked for better ways of building faster, and the use of precut rocks and boulders leveraged the opportunity to fill large volumes of pyramid structures more quickly (Arif and Egbu 2010). The benefits of off-site construction have been well-documented in the literature. Gibb and Isack (2003) classified the benefits into five major categories: time, quality, cost, productivity, and people. Arif and Egbu (2010) identified off-site as a construction paradigm that can address the housing shortage in the future. However, there are some major challenges associated with the implementation of off-site construction. Pan et al. (2007) documented the barriers to the implementation of off-site construction. The most important five barriers identified by Pan et al. (2007) are higher capital cost, difficulties in achieving economies of scale, complexity of interfacing between systems, inability to freeze the design early on, and the nature of the planning system. Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer, has seen an economic boom in the previous five years, owing to high oil prices. Oil and gas exports have increased from 70.7 billion USD in 2001 to 205 billion USD in 2007 (Tabata 2009). This economic growth has resulted in significant economic activities being undertaken in the kingdom. However, the construction projects being performed are fraught with delays and inefficiencies (Alkharashi and Skitmore 2009). One documented benefit of off-site construction is productivity, leading to a higher speed of construction. To assess the issues with the implementation of off-site construction in Saudi Arabia, a workshop was organized in Jeddah in November 2010. There were 20 attendees in the workshop; all were project managers, either in government organizations or private construction companies. The objectives of the workshop were 1. To introduce the benefits and challenges associated with offsite construction to the audience. 2. To document the perceptions associated with off-site construction in the construction industry in Saudi Arabia. 3. To identify the major barriers to the implementation of off-site construction in Saudi Arabia. 4. To propose a way forward in implementing off-site construction in Saudi Arabia. Workshop Execution