• The Journal of Economics, Marketing and Management
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.13-25
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• 2024

Purpose: Korea's construction industry has faced declining productivity and quality issues due to labor-intensive onsite construction and variables like weather, material price fluctuations, and labor shortages. The modular housing industry, introduced in Korea in 2003, offered benefits like reduced construction time and enhanced productivity through offsite manufacturing. However, its adoption remains limited due to high costs, quality concerns, and low consumer acceptance. Research Design, Data, and Methodology: This study explores the feasibility and impact of implementing smart factory technologies in the modular housing industry to overcome these barriers. Using survey data from 179 construction industry experts, the study employs frequency and regression analysis to identify key factors influencing the adoption of modular housing and the effectiveness of smart factories. Findings suggest that government-led educational programs and strong policy support are essential for successful implementation, enhancing productivity, reducing costs, and improving quality. Conclusions: The study emphasizes the need for standardization of modular housing, deregulation of relevant laws, and increased public awareness to stimulate market growth and innovation. Policy recommendations include financial support for modular manufacturers transitioning to smart factories, ensuring stable supply volumes, and promoting the benefits of modular housing to consumers. Integrating smart factory technologies can lead to significant advancements in the modular housing industry, contributing to the sustainable development and modernization of Korea's construction sector.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2013.05a
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• pp.180-181
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• 2013

In order to draw indirect cost rates, theories of indirect cost were investigated, and recent field data were collected from steel factories. As a result, it was found that the ratio of indirect labor productivity compared to the direct labor ratio was approximately 17% and the ratio of indirect cost compared to direct cost was approximately 93%. Furthermore, 'The economy of construction industry' and 'size of steel factory' were found to be influence factors of the indirect cost ratio.

• Journal of architectural history
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.19-39
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• 2006

This study deals with construction contract bid-rigging by Japanese contractors who monopolized the construction market of the Korean Peninsula during the Japanese colonial rule, and investigates the abuses of the contract bid-rigging. First of all, construction contract bid-rigging in Korea was triggered by Japanese construction contractors and contract brokers, who had savored the benefits of bidrigging in Japan and had repeated the bid-rigging in Korea since 1903. Second, the agency played a significant role to mediate construction contractors, and existed throughout the Japanese colonial rule on the Korean Peninsula with changing their names. Most of them were engaged in major contract bid-rigging scandals. Among them was Construction Association of Korea, which existed for over 13 years. The agencies had took part in governmental services since the mid-1930s when Japan exploited Korean people during wartime, and focused on sweating human resources for the constructions. Third, one of the biggest construction bid-rigging scandals during the Japanese colonial rule was "the 1st and 2nd scandal on Daegu construction contract bid-rigging." Indeed, the second scandal paved the way for the serial scandals: "Kyeongseong construction contract bid-rigging scandal", "Busan construction contract bid-rigging scandal", and other cases throughout the nation. Fourth, along with the contract bid-rigging cases related to the Japanese Government-General of Korea and local authorities, bid-riggings firmly took rooted in local governments' farmland reclamation projects in the 1920s and the poor relief services in the 1930s. The "bid-rigging charges" forced contractors to compensate their losses with exploiting material costs and labor costs, generating serious problems. The construction contract bid-rigging enabled Japan to monopolize the construction industry and to sweat farmers on the Korean Peninsula. Against this backdrop, contract bid-rigging by Japanese construction contractors during the its colonization made Korean contractors ruled out, and helped Japanese monopolize the industry. A large amount of bid-rigging charges drove Japanese contractors to do fraudulent work with cheap materials and to exploit Korean labor force.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.640-648
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• 2022

In the United States, the Safety Rest Areas (SRAs) were introduced as highway roadside infrastructures in the early 1900s. The State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) operate/maintain their SRAs using different methods. The Washington DOT used the in-house workforce method for over 20 years, whereas some states moved to Performance-Based Contracting (PBC) from the in-house workforce to save cost primarily. Several existing studies claimed that using the PBC approach saved costs on several highway assets. Thus, the principal objective of this study is to compute and compare the unit operating/maintenance cost of SRAs using the in-house workforce method (in Washington state) with the PBC approach (in other states). The findings of this study show that the average annual cost using the PBC approach was much more than the average annual cost using the in-house workforce approach. The findings also show that in Washington state, the 'Labor Cost' category was a key expenditure, which is statistically higher than other categories. The 'Labor Cost' was followed by the 'Other Services', and then 'Materials and Supplies' and 'Equipment.' The study's findings indicated that outsourcing does not always save costs for agencies. The study findings may help transportation construction/maintenance professionals select a cost-effective approach for their future planning.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2013.01a
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• pp.47-51
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• 2013

Existing buildings now represent the greatest opportunity to improve building energy efficiency. Building performance analysis is becoming increasingly important because decision makers can have a better visualization of their building's performance and quickly make the solution for improving building energy efficiency and reducing environmental impacts. Nowadays, building information models (BIMs) have been widely created during the design phase of new buildings, and it can be easily imported to third party software to conduct various analyses. However, a BIM is not always available for all existing buildings. Even if a BIM is available during the design and construction phases, it is very challenging to keep updating it while a building is aged. A manual process to create or update a BIM is very time consuming and labor intensive. A laser scanning technology has been a popular tool to create as-is BIM. However it still needs labor-intensive manual processes to create a BIM out of point clouds. This paper introduces automatic as-is simplified BIM creation from point clouds for energy simulations. A framework of decision support system that can assist decision makers on retrofits for existing buildings is introduced as well. A case study on a residential house was tested in this study to validate the proposed framework, and the technical feasibility of the developed system was positively demonstrated.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.633-637
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• 2005

The paper presents a multifactor modelling of construction processes. There are three phases of the proposed extended procedure. Tools for these phases from chronometric test to verifying of the assumed model are indicated. Apart from the classic verification activities the method of artificial neural networks has been successfully applied. The paper presents the usage of these tools to model the process of assembly of structural corrugated steel plate structures.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.97-104
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• 2019

The construction industry is heavily dependent on labor force as automation to building constructions is difficult due to its characteristics such on-site production, custom manufacturing production. Thus, while securing and fostering high-quality functional manpower for stable construction work are significant, the construction workforce has been persistently lacking compared to demand. Young workers are reluctant to enter the construction industry due to high labor intensity, unstable employment structure, and uncertainty for the future. The employment rate for new jobs in the construction industry is half as high as in others. Currently, the departments related to construction are organized in specialized high school to conduct training for young workers. The graduates have a low ratio of employment rate to the construction industry and functional capacities fallen short of expectations. In this study, the education and training conditions of specialized high schools were analyzed to derive problems and key improvements of the education system were drawn. As an improvement for the analysis results, it provides solutions such as giving advantages of previous education experience, expand industry-academic cooperation with businesses, and expand links with external educational institutions.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.139-145
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• 2008

The objective of this paper is to analyze the construction management capacity of Choseon Dynasty and suggest a new interpretation on the construction capacity of the time management by reviewing the time management case during a representative construction project, HwaSungk construction project implemented in the latter period of Choseon Dynasty around 200 years ago. which was described in HwaSungSungYoukEuGye. The analysis results of the time management capacity during the latter period of Choseon Dynasty depicted in the HwaSungSungYoukEuGye is summarized as follows: (1) It took 2 years and 6 months to complete the Hwasung construction project. However, all of the single buildings were constructed within 6 months, a relatively short period of time. Judging from the fact, it can be assumed that the construction techniques using wood of the time were very sophisticated. (2) When the HwaSung was constructed, it took a relatively short period of time to complete works from placing the foundation to erecting columns and to placing a crossbeam on the columns. Based on the fact, it can be also inferred that assembly processing techniques of the time were also sophisticated and the level of member processing and assembling techniques of the time was considerably good as well. (3) The HwaSung construction was continued throughout the year without any influence by weather conditions, which tells us that division of labor by work was performed, and it was possible to mobilize labor force for the construction project even during the busy farming seasons.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.11-21
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• 2001

Domestic construction industry has considerable level of construction performance and technology thanks to the economic development and as the result of performing diverse oversea construction project. However, construction disasters have been steadily increasing, and do severe disasters at faster pace. Most of such disasters happen at small and small medium-sized construction fields, which contract size is less than 10 billion won. small and medium-sized construction fields are not obliged to designate a safety manager, and have limitations in engaging self-regulating disaster prevention activities due to reduced budget for safety facilities. For the small and medium-sized construction sites with less than 10 billion won, the Ministry of Labor has been carrying out mobile inspections of construction safety. However, the effect so far is insignificant and an improvement plan is required. Therefore, in the present thesis, we derive problems appearing in the current construction safety mobile inspection system, investigate and study systems in foreign countries, and suggest an efficient and effective plan to operate safety technology inspections. First of all, we establish a standard to select sites to be inspected that are high in construction risk and disaster occurrence probability In addition, we suggest a plan to take administrative and judiciary measures based on the total score for disaster factors considering the disaster occurrence probability and the illegal practices. Furthermore, a scheme to maximize the effect of disaster prevention is sought by building an organic cooperative system between the Ministry of Labor, Korea Occupational Safety ＆ Health Agency and other organizations specialized in instruction of construction disaster prevention. Finally, we induce a research conclusion that leads to self-regulating safety management through checking and instructing systematic management on mobile inspections.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.641-652
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• 2021

Although detailed information on the construction of Hwasung was recorded in the Hwasungsungyouk-eugye, analysis and evaluation from the perspective of modern construction management were limited. Therefore, in this study, construction management related information such as time, cost, and manpower was analyzed for Paldal-mun. The main work involved in the construction of Paldal-mun was foundation work and masonry work, and the total construction period was 6 months, with the overall construction progressing very quickly. The total cost of the construction of Paldal-mun was about 52,423 Nyong, which can be divided into about 15,9332 Nyang for materials and 36,4901 Nyang for labor cost. Converting these to present value, the material cost is about 1.1 billion won and the labor cost is about 2.5 billion won, and the sum of these is about 3.6 billion won. In the future, we plan to conduct additional research in this area such as deriving detailed input manpower related to the work period for each type of work.