Exploring Key Factors for Contractors in Opening Prefabrication Factories: A Chinese Case Study

Abstract

Adoption of prefabrication is essential for improving the urban built environment. However, the existing prefabrication market in China is far from mature. As the stakeholder who conducts construction activities, the contractor is facing a dilemma of lacking steady prefabricated components supply. In this circumstance, a potential solution is that contractors open their own prefabrication factories to guarantee stable component supply. The aim of this research is exploring the key factors for contractors to open prefabrication factories. Firstly, a total of 28 influencing factors were identified from literature. Then, the identified factors were divided into four categories: policy environment, market environment, technological environment, and enterprise internal environment. Through interviews with experienced professionals, a total of 19 factors were selected for future analysis. Based on the 19 factors, a questionnaire was designed and distributed to the experts to rate the degree of mutual influences. The collected data were analyzed using Ucinet6.0 software, and the adjacency matrix and the visual models were established. Finally, through the analysis of node centrality, betweenness centrality, and closeness centrality, the four key influencing factors were determined including mandatory implementation policy, precast concrete component's price, market demand, and contractor's strategic objectives. The results of this study could assist contractors in making decisions of opening their own prefabrication factories toward more sustainable environment.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.837350
Divisions: College of Engineering & Physical Sciences > School of Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering > Civil Engineering
Funding Information: This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2021CDJSKCG31).
Additional Information: This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Funding Information: This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2021CDJSKCG31).
Uncontrolled Keywords: China,contractor,key factors,prefabrication,social network analysis,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Publication ISSN: 2296-2565
Last Modified: 03 Dec 2024 17:22
Date Deposited: 02 Mar 2022 14:59
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: https://www.fro ... 022.837350/full (Publisher URL)
http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2022-02-03
Accepted Date: 2022-01-04
Authors: Zhang, Jiasheng
Xiang, Pengcheng
Zhong, Jia
Zhang, Jian
Wu, Zezhou
Antwi-Afari, Maxwell Fordjour (ORCID Profile 0000-0002-6812-7839)

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