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Construction is an important industry sector of the economy. In the UK, construction accounts for 6% of the total economic output and provides jobs for 6.6% of the whole working population (Rhodes, 2019). With regards to productivity, however, construction lags behind many other industry sectors, especially manufacturing (ONS, 2018). According to WPI Economics (2017), the productivity in UK manufacturing has grown by more than 60% over the last two decades, compared to which the productivity in UK construction has only increased by around 10%. In addition to low productivity, it is not uncommon that construction projects suffer from schedule delays, cost overruns, quality defects, and health and safety (H&S) problems (Motaleb & Kishk, 2003; Meng, 2012; Ramabodu & Verster, 2013). For these reasons, construction is usually recognized as a traditional industry sector. It also explains why the UK government has published many reports over the years to call for change in construction, transforming construction through learning from manufacturing.
OSC refers to a production system in which standardized building components and modules are prefabricated off site in a factory, transported to site, and assembled and installed on site into a building (Lawson et al., 2014). It has origin in manufacturing (Starr, 2010). It is often recognized as a modern method of construction (RICS, 2018; HOC, 2019). It brings many benefits, such as quicker delivery, earlier return on investment, better quality, lower labor demand, increased productivity, improved H&S, and reduced waste (HOL, 2018; HOC, 2019). It provides construction with an innovative and effective way of addressing challenges. Initially, OSC was mainly used for residential buildings because their products and processes were relatively easy to be standardized. Nowadays, OSC can be seen from many other types of buildings, such as educational, healthcare, commercial and industrial buildings (Navaratnam et al., 2019; Razkenari et al., 2020). In addition to building construction projects, OSC has also been applied in civil engineering projects, such as bridges and roads.
BIM can be defined as a digital representation of the physical and functional characteristics of a building (NIBS, 2015). It has four key features, including central platform for building information, information sharing between project parties, collaborative working between project parties, and 3D visualization (Eastman et al., 2011; Borrmann et al., 2015). Since its emergence, it has been growing in popularity in the UK construction industry (Wang & Meng, 2018). According to the National Building Specification (NBS) (2020), in 2011 BIM was only used by 13% of the people in UK construction. In contrast, 73% of the people in UK construction used BIM in 2020. BIM is revolutionizing the construction industry. On the other hand, the application of BIM to OSC has been receiving increasing attention. For example, the government report Construction 2025 has highlighted the importance of BIM-OSC integration (HMG, 2013). The government report Offsite Manufacture for Construction has even recommended a mandate for BIM in government OSC contracts (HOL, 2018).