An evaluation of offsite construction skill profiles
Journal of Financial Management of Property and Construction
ISSN: 1366-4387
Article publication date: 22 February 2021
Issue publication date: 18 February 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to evaluate the existing and emerging Offsite Construction (OSC) skills. Construction industry is inherently labour oriented, fashioning poor labour productivity, low sustainability, slow and costly processes. These shortcomings promote OSC alongside driving forces such as industrialisation, automation and digitalisation. However, the traditional construction skills are not on par with the complexity, where robots, co-bots and digital-driven automated systems create the need for novel OSC skills.
Design/methodology/approach
Data collection is executed through a Roundtable activity hosting Construction Management academics form Australian universities specialising in construction technology. They engaged in ranking of skills along with creating a word cloud for the question, “what are the future construction skills that will be more beneficial in an OSC platform?” Word cloud is reviewed in a discussion approach while skills ranking data is analysed using descriptive statistics.
Findings
The most prominent OSC skills are logistics manager, project manager and digital producer. Attributes of skills that come under construction trades workers, design, engineering and specialist professionals will vary based on onsite-offsite percentage combination in a construction project. Study reviews the required construction skills at two ends of a continuum featuring the trade-based skills; bricklayer, concreter and carpenter at one end (traditional build) and the heavily digitalised and automated skills at the other end (OSC). The noticeable transition towards OSC urges industry practitioners, policy-makers and education providers to focus on understanding and cultivating key OSC skills.
Originality/value
This study describes the transition of skills from onsite to OSC. It is presented as one of the earliest attempts to evaluate OSC skill profiles.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Authors acknowledge the scholarship awarded by the Centre for Smart Modern Construction of the Western Sydney University to the Doctoral Researcher to conduct research in Offsite Construction Skills. Also, the assistance provided by the data providers at the Academic Roundtable event is highly appreciated.
Citation
Ginigaddara, B., Perera, S., Feng, Y. and Rahnamayiezekavat, P. (2022), "An evaluation of offsite construction skill profiles", Journal of Financial Management of Property and Construction, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 16-28. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFMPC-08-2020-0057
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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