Many countries and regions consider off-site construction a modern construction method that facilitates sustainability in the construction industry. Sustainability research in off-site construction (SROSC) is crucial for its development and is a nonnegligible part of its management. However, an in-depth understanding and critical analysis of SROSC to summarize recent research and inform future research directions are lacking. In this study, we address this issue by offering a mixed-review method integrating scientometric analysis and systematic review to explore state-of-the-art SROSC. We aim to uncover sustainability themes and topics, distinguish research trends, and identify gaps in knowledge that can be addressed in future research. Scientometric analysis was used to perform statistical analysis and visual map research on the knowledge landscape formed by 272 related studies of SROSC. The systematic review was used to identify and analyze six major knowledge themes (e.g., environmental, economic, social, decision-making, optimization, and industry management) and 21 knowledge topics for SROSC. We proposed possible future research directions based on the resulting structured body of knowledge. This research contributes to the body of knowledge by visualizing and analyzing the state-of-the-art of SROSC, as well as identifying the future research directions in this area to improve architectural, engineering, and construction practices.

Recently, interface management has been regarded as the key to the success of prefabricated building projects (PBPs) due to its capabilities to manage numerous interfaces caused by PBPs’ inherent geographical and organizational fragmentation. However, the factors influencing the interface management of PBPs are largely unknown and poorly studied. To compensate for this gap, this study aimed to investigate the critical factors influencing interface management in PBPs with quantitative and qualitative methods. Twenty-seven critical factors influencing the interface management of PBPs were identified through a literature review, questionnaire survey, and face-to-face interviews with professionals in the construction industry. A questionnaire survey was sent out to developers, designers, manufacturers, contractors, and consultants in China, and 66 completed questionnaires were received. Results showed the top five critical factors influencing the interface management of PBPs were (1) accuracy of design, (2) timeliness of information communication, (3) timeliness of component production and supply, (4) standardization of design, and (5) definition of work content and scope. The 27 influencing factors of PBPs were further categorized into seven groups via exploratory factor analysis, namely: (1) information communication, (2) trust and cooperation, (3) technical and management capability, (4) organizational integration, (5) standardization, (6) technical environment, and (7) contractual management. Improving these issues will contribute to the successful implementation of PBPs. Finally, combined with relevant literature and expert interviews, the impact of these seven clusters on the interface management of PBPs was discussed. The findings may contribute to deepening the understanding of interface management, reducing unnecessary conflicts and difficulties, and promoting the sustainable development of prefabricated building (PB).

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide comprehensive analysis and understanding of lean construction (LC) and to help researchers to find new gaps and research opportunities and develop potential collaboration chances. Design/methodology/approach: The bibliographic data were obtained in peer-reviewed journals. The science mapping analysis and social network analysis (SNA) were used to conduct the analysis and visualization. Science mapping was performed to identify the research topics, evolution and the relationships between these topics. Also, the most influential LC-related articles in each topic were identified based on the concept of H-classics. SNA was also used to explore the collaboration status of authors and to identify the core authors in the LC field. Findings: The results showed that topics in the LC field are consistently and continuously changing, which also reveals the fact that the lean concept system has evolved over time to a certain extent. The topics that could form the knowledge base of the LC research field in the future are related to two thematic areas: supply chain management (SCM) and planning and scheduling. SCM focuses on developing a system where supplier and client work together in coordination to deliver materials, works, equipment and labor and other resources. Moreover, prefabrication is a new hot topic, while BIM is a well-developed and isolated topic in the last five years. This result indicates that more studies need to be conducted in the future, to promote the integration of BIM and lean practices in the construction phase, as well as to explore the value of BIM in the reduction or elimination of waste and lean project delivery. As for global collaborations, LC research has been widely pursued throughout the world. The USA and the UK play the most dominant role in the international collaboration network. Research limitations/implications: Since the analysis of data takes some time, the specific results of this paper are limited to articles published in peer-reviewed journals, which leads to a certain degree of research lag. Practical implications: This paper provides insights (such as major journals, institutions, key scholars, the evolution of topics, highly indexed articles and the new LC trends in the last five years) for researchers in the LC field. Originality/value: This paper gives a general review of the above-mentioned literature, including the number of LC-related articles published in each year, as well as the major journals and main contributors to the field of LC.

Purpose: The coordinated development of the urbanization and construction industry is crucial for the sustainable development of cities. However, the coupling relationship and coordination mechanism between them remain unclear. To bridge this gap, this study attempts to explore the level of coupling coordination between new urbanization and construction industry development and investigate the critical driving factors influencing their coupling coordination degree.Design/methodology/approach: By referring to the existing literature, two index systems were established to evaluate the development level of the new urbanization and construction industry. The spatiotemporal characteristics of the coupled coordinated development of the new urbanization and construction industry in China from 2014 to 2020 were investigated using the coupling coordination model. The Markov chain and geographic detector were adopted to understand the transition probability and driving factors of the coupling coordination degree.Findings: The results indicate that the coupling degree of China's new urbanization and construction industry is high, and the two systems exhibit obvious interaction phenomena. However, the construction industry in most provinces lags behind the new urbanization. A positive interactive relationship and coordination mechanism has not been established between the two systems. Furthermore, the coupling contribution degree of the driving factors from high to low is as follows: market size > labor resource concentration > government investment ability > economic development level > industrial structure > production efficiency > technology level. Accordingly, a driving mechanism including market, policy, economic, and production technology drivers was developed.Originality/value: This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by providing a set of scientific analysis methods to address the deficiency of coordination mechanism research on new urbanization and the construction industry. The results also provide a theoretical basis for decision makers to develop differentiated sustainable development policies.

Application of emerging digital technology (DT) is an attractive subject of research and is indispensable to the current goal of intelligent construction in many countries. Relevant studies have either focused on the status of a specific DT or proposed preliminary/qualitative comparisons among DTs. This paper provides a systematic understanding of research on applying DTs to the architecture, engineering, construction, and operation (AECO) industry using a mixed-review method. Ten emerging DTs are determined, and publications related to them in 2011–2020 are collected from the Scopus database. The overall status and comparisons of research on 10 emerging DTs by region, journal, and popularity are then presented. The content of research on them is examined through in-depth literature analysis (including research scenario, project stage, and literature evolution in a discipline) and theme classification. Future research directions including technology knowledge, development, application and management, and some practical implications for the country, industry, project, and enterprise, are finally proposed. This research will be informative for academics with regard to the emerging DT’s opportunities in this discipline and provide support for work on the digitization of the AECO industry. Some practical implications are proposed from the perspectives of the country, industry, project, and enterprise. For the government, the holistic planning and scientific coordination of emerging DTs need to be highlighted, such as vigorously promoting Building Information Modelling (BIM) and artificial intelligence (AI) and utilizing them to further support the progress of blockchain and digital twin. Establishing demonstration projects to play their radiating roles and accelerate the inter-regional promotion of emerging DTs is also effective. For the industry, it is suggested to build technology alliances to jointly develop integrated platforms covering multiple emerging DTs through in-depth synergy; industry associations are advised to strengthen knowledge diffusion and accumulation for emerging DTs through sharing and training. For projects, applying emerging DTs to the entire life of projects and making them be deeply integrated with off-site, lean, and green construction are advisable. For enterprises, improving the workflow and management model adapted to the application of emerging DTs is necessary. Through adjusting organizational structure and transforming corporate culture, the competitiveness of enterprises could be continuously improved.

Off-site construction (OSC) is generally propagated as a sustainable and green construction method in the global construction industry. Over the past few decades, OSC has become famous worldwide for its numerous benefits. Technological innovation can speed up the development of OSC and has attracted a lot of attention from stakeholders who are promoting technological innovation by seeking collaborations. OSC is different from traditional manufacturing, and little effort has been spent on how the stakeholder relationship quality affects technological innovation. This study therefore makes efforts to explore the mechanism of how stakeholder relationship quality influences the OSC technological innovation and to explain the stakeholder relationship quality in terms of communication, trust, and commitment. This paper constructs a multidimensional hypothesis model consisting of five concepts: communication, trust, commitment, knowledge sharing, and technological innovation. A valid sample of 125 was collected through a questionnaire survey in mainland China. The sample data were dealt with and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLSSEM) to validate the proposed hypothesis model. The results reveal that trust and knowledge sharing affect technological innovation directly. Communication and commitment are not identified to have statistically significant influences on technological innovation in OSC. Communication, trust, and commitment positively contribute to knowledge sharing. Last, knowledge sharing completely and partially mediates between relationship quality and technological innovation. This study explores the impact of stakeholder relationship quality on OSC technological innovation and verifies the mediating role of knowledge sharing. These findings provide valuable theoretical guidance for OSC technological innovation and practical insights for stakeholders to promote technological innovation by enhancing relationship quality and knowledge sharing.