Cause Analysis of Hindering On-Site Lean Construction for Prefabricated Buildings and Corresponding Organizational Capability Evaluation

Abstract

As prefabricated buildings play a significant role in the global fight against the new coronavirus “COVID-19,” they attract more global attention than other types of buildings. Lean construction helps to improve the benefits of enterprises and the working environment of workers. However, prefabricated buildings are encountering various challenges in implementing on-site lean construction. According to a cause-and-effect relationship, it will be more meaningful to explore the critical causes hindering on-site lean construction, namely, the critical barriers. Hence, this paper establishes a research methodology framework based on multimethod collaboration, including the exploratory factor analysis model regarding critical barriers, the exploratory factor evaluation model regarding organizational capabilities, and the important findings and suggestions. Thirty-one critical barriers of on-site lean construction for prefabricated buildings are identified via literature analysis, field survey, and semistructured interview. After pre-exploratory factor analysis, thirty critical barriers are finally retained and prioritized, and six common components are extracted and nominated. A large-scale project using the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) mode is selected as a case study to evaluate its construction organizational capability to deal with the six common components. The important findings indicate that the inadequate professional management capability of managers is the most critical barrier, and the construction organization from the project case is fully capable of dealing with the common components during on-site lean construction. Six corresponding substantive suggestions are also proposed according to domain experts, and the most prioritized one of them is that an internal training or external recruitment is suggested to solve the inadequate professional management capability of managers. The internal training should take the form of seminars and training courses that invite senior prefabricated project management experts to participate. The external recruitment needs to focus on the management experience, lean skills, and leadership of managers in prefabricated projects. The established methodology framework proposes a new idea for the barrier analysis and corresponding organizational capability evaluation of on-site lean construction from the perspective of the specific prefabricated construction industry rather than the entire construction industry. Due to the special construction mode of prefabricated buildings, it further expands the current boundary of lean construction methodology. The findings and suggestions will provide a valuable reference and guidance for the prefabricated construction industry to solve the barriers regarding on-site lean construction.