IMPROVING PRODUCTIVITY, WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT, AND RESOURCE UTILIZATION IN PRECAST CONSTRUCTION

摘要

Construction industry has long dealt with problems such as low productivity, unstable workflow in projects and low utilization rate of resources. Off-site construction, which is a hybrid of mass manufacturing and construction, has significant potential to address aforementioned problems. In order to realize this potential, off-site construction needs to avoid replicating the traditional subcontracting approach and therefore fragmented practice in the construction industry. The current research focuses on restructuring the interaction of resources by using cross-training. Findings show that cross-training resources results in transferring excess capacity from underutilized to over utilized resources in direct or indirect pathways. Such initiatives can significantly improve productivity, workflow management and resource utilization in precast construction that highly specialized resources are not required. The study contributes to the construction management literature by providing insight into dynamics of using multi-skilled resources in off-site construction.