A Building Project-Based Industrialized Construction Maturity Model Involving Organizational Enablers: A Multi-Case Study in China

Abstract

Industrialized construction (IC) as a promising construction mode has been increasingly adopted in China due to its advantages of enhancing productivity and reducing the labor intensiveness in the construction industry. An objective and systematic evaluation of the IC mode is essential by clarifying the current weak areas in application and improving project performance. The meager existing studies have considered evaluating the IC maturity of prefabricated construction projects from the perspective of project governance. This study proposed an industrialized construction maturity model (ICMM) involving organizational enablers by employing the framework of the well-established European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model. The evaluation indicator system consisting of two parts (i.e., “enablers” and “results”) were abstracted by a literature review and expert interviews. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach was used to weight the indicators. The maturity of IC projects was rated as four levels (i.e., initial, upgraded, integrated, and optimal levels). The proposed ICMM was validated by conducting a multi-case study, four typical building projects that adopted prefabricated construction techniques in Shanghai were selected and evaluated by the proposed ICMM. Results showed that the ICMM can objectively and comprehensively realize the status quo of IC projects and help managers to identify weak areas of the current IC projects and performance improvement paths from the perspective of project governance. The ICMM was also evaluated to demonstrate its applicability and reliability through expert interviews.