Supporting the Reuse of Design Assets in ETO-Based Components—A Case Study from an Industrialised Post and Beam Building System

The ability to offer customisation has been considered as a competitive advantage for industrialised house building (IHB) companies. Product platform approaches have been acknowledged as one of the prominent ways to improve both internal and external efficiency. However, the use of traditional platform-based strategies does not suffice for the design of engineer-to-order (ETO)-based components in a building system. The purpose of this research is to test and evaluate how the reuse of design assets can be achieved by using a parametric modelling approach to support the design process of ETO-based components in a post and beam building system. This is an additional study using the design platform approach (DPA) that contributes to expanding the knowledge for designing ETO-based components. This research proposes a parametric design platform method developed by following an inductive approach based on the findings from a detailed study on bracket connection with a single case study in a Swedish multi-storey house building company. The proposed method offers flexibility in modelling ETO building components, facilitates design automation, and shows a 20-times improvement in the modelling process. This approach can be used in any building system with ETO-based components by identifying, formalising, and reusing connected design assets. A key finding is that the ETO components can be shifted towards configurable solutions to achieve platform-based design.

Evaluation of Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Ability of Medical Buildings in Harbin, China

Objective: Entrusted by the Harbin Municipal Government, evaluation medical building system for prevention and control of sudden infectious diseases in the city has been established. Background: China, as a country that found the COVID-19 earlier, has taken strict control measures. However, as the medical building system is not perfect enough to prevent and control sudden infectious diseases. Method: First, expert group methodology was used and evaluation index of ability of prevention and control of sudden infectious diseases in medical building system was selected; then fuzzy comprehensive evaluation was adopted to establish index set and to set weight and medical building system evaluation model for prevention and control of sudden infectious diseases was constructed; finally, it’s to modify the indicators and weights in the evaluation set and to make an evaluation of the ability of Harbin medical building system to prevent and control sudden infectious diseases in accordance with the current management mode of system. Results: The medical building system in Harbin is significantly unbalanced in its ability to prevent sudden infections where there are low indicators for response monitoring and forecasting terminals, there are high indicators for the construction of emergency center. Conclusions: The evaluation model of the ability of medical building system to prevent and control sudden infectious diseases was constructed. The model is adopted to make practical evaluation of infectious disease prevention and control ability in Harbin and to form the evaluation method of the direct connection between the theoretical research of medical architecture and medical building design.

Appraisal on Workforce Performance towards Industrialised Building System in Perak, Malaysia

The workforce has always been the backbone of the construction industry in the Industrialised Building System (IBS). Previous researchers often obtain data and opinions from the perspective of construction professionals and often neglect the labour workforce opinion. This study aims to investigate various factors that affect the workforce's productivity in IBS performance. The data collection amounts 60 targeted respondents. This study found a strong correlation between motivation, education, and workforce skill level that affects productivity in implementing IBS. The resolution is to propose an improvement of monetary incentive and academic level of the workforce. Keywords: Workforce; Industrialised Building System (IBS); Construction Industry; Malaysia eISSN: 2398-4287© 2021. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v6i18.3066

Advantages of Using Hybrid System Method in Industrialised Building System (IBS)

Hybrid System method is one of the technology implements in Industrialised Building System (IBS). Methods has been acquaint in many ways in order to improve Industrialised Building System (IBS) in Malaysia. Other country such as United Kingdom also have used the term Hybrid for their concrete process known as Hybrid Concrete Construction (HCC). While in Malaysia, Hybrid System comes with a method that combines one component with two different method which are the precast component and cast-in situ method. This two combination method has called a Hybrid System method and started implements by Jabatan Kerja Raya (JKR) for mostly a government projects in Kedah state in Malaysia on 2017. Industrialised Building System has been well known as a fast completion, saving cost, and less labour needed in construction. However, the issues by using Hybrid System method has double up the time completion, splurging the cost, and enlarge the labour since it needs to cast-in situ the components, let the concrete cured and more material usage. The significance of study for this research is the new method of IBS Hybrid System is a pilot project in Kedah by JKR. Thus, this research is to control the delay involves in projects that apply IBS Hybrid System. Hence, this paper is to identify the advantages of using Hybrid System method in Industrialised Building System (IBS).