Optimal process integration architectures in off-site construction: Theorizing the use of multi-skilled resources

The architecture, engineering and construction industry has long dealt with problems such as schedule and budget overruns, quality and safety issues, and low productivity. Off-site construction, which is a hybrid of manufacturing and construction, has significant potential to address industry’s endemic problems. However, off-site construction has been criticized for replicating the traditional subcontracting approach and therefore fragmented practice in the construction industry. The current research focuses on process integration and cross-training of multi-skilled resources as a solution to the aforementioned problem. To identify optimal process integration architectures for off-site construction, production data of three off-site manufacturers were analyzed by using a hybrid of fuzzy theory and the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution. Findings reveal that process integration architectures transferring excess capacity from under-utilized to over-utilized resources in direct or indirect pathways are preferable in terms of satisfying decision criteria such as time and cost of cross-training, skill transferability, compliance with network logic, and safety considerations. The study contributes to the off-site construction literature by providing insight into dynamics of using multi-skilled resources. It also contributes to practice by developing a customizable and user-friendly framework for off-site production managers in order to identify the optimal process integration architecture in their own production scenarios.