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

Jiasheng Zhang; Pengcheng Xiang; Jia Zhong; Jian Zhang; Zezhou Wu; Maxwell Fordjour Antwi-Afari

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2022.837350

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

Jiasheng Zhang, Pengcheng Xiang^*, Jia Zhong, Jian Zhang, Zezhou Wu, Maxwell Fordjour Antwi-Afari

^*Corresponding author for this work

Civil Engineering

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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.

Original language	English
Article number	837350
Number of pages	14
Journal	Frontiers in Public Health
Volume	10
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.837350
Publication status	Published - 3 Feb 2022

Bibliographical note

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).

Keywords

China
contractor
key factors
prefabrication
social network analysis

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10.3389/fpubh.2022.837350

fpubh-10-837350
(c) 2022, Zhang, Xiang, Zhong, Zhang, Wu and Antwi-Afari. 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.
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title = "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.",

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author = "Jiasheng Zhang and Pengcheng Xiang and Jia Zhong and Jian Zhang and Zezhou Wu and Antwi-Afari, {Maxwell Fordjour}",

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

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