Industrialized Construction: Emerging Methods and Technologies

Abstract

In the recent years, industrialized construction (IC) is moving the construction industry toward integrating emerging manufacturing technologies into offsite construction and factory component assembly practices to improve productivity and efficiency. The key to success in the IC business is providing mass customization and mass production simultaneously, which is only possible in a highly flexible manufacturing system. The manufacturing industry is experiencing the fourth industrial revolution which is blurring the separation of the physical, cyber, and biological worlds. The primary objective of this study is to identify the new methods and techniques emerging in manufacturing industry and evaluate their possible application in IC. A questionnaire was designed to collect data from industry experts. Preliminary data shows a significant lag in the transition of the new trends in cyber physical systems and data analytics into the IC production process. The findings of this survey are precisely analyzed and discussed in this paper.