• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Structure & Construction
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.139-146
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• 2019

The modular building system is a type of prefabricated construction method, and is an industrialized building system that transports, assembles, and completes a three-dimensional module manufactured in a factory to the site. The economics of a modular building system where 50 to 80% of the entire process takes place in a modular factory is dominated by productivity of the factory manufacturing process. Since the building of the module is finished by the combination of unit parts produced by each material, it is necessary to manage the process in each module unit. However, currently marketed process control programs do not reflect the features of these modular methods. In this paper, we introduce Modular Factory Design software(MFD 2019) that can make modular unit production plan which reflects production base(modular factory) and production target(application and number of modular units). In order to verify software compatibility and reliability, two production plans with different production methods were formulated and simulated.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.704-705
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• 2015

Recent research has been ongoing for modular buildings in the country, and interest increases. However, in accordance with legal restrictions in the country with regard to Project Delivery system of Modular Building, the activation of modular buildings industry is obstructed. In Korea, in accordance with national contract law, the construction contract is apply to the project delivery system of modular buildings, and in accordance with Framework Act on the Construction Industry, The project delivery system of modular buildings has to be a separate order. The definition of separate order in contract as defined in the law is that the electric work and Communication work and digestion facility work has to be separate each contract in order to be ensured professionalism. In accordance with law, the project delivery system of modular buildings is that the contract for construction is concluded with the Owner and the Construction Contractor and the contract for goods is concluded with the construction Contractor and modular manufacturer. Due to these project delivery system, the domestic factory production rate when making a modular unit is significantly reduced compared to the rate of factory production abroad and the domestic factory production rate is estimated to 10-20%. Due to the factory production rate is also low, despite what can be done at the factory the workload in construction field increases. According to the workload in field increases, the effect of the schedule reduction can be reduced. It resolved to form a consortium with a modular manufacturer and construction companies or the contract is concluded with Owner, modular manufacturer and construction companies in each. In this paper, we propose a specific project delivery system for modular building to solve the problem of the low factory production rate and the problem of schedule reduction. Through this paper, due to the variety of project delivery system on modular buildings is expected to contribute to the activation of modular buildings.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.411-414
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to conduct a comparative analysis between Korea and the United States of the supply process of unit modular housing at both the factory production phase and the transportation and lifting phase, as part of an attempt to invigorate the unit modular housing market in Korea. Unlike the practice in the United States, one of Korea's unique characteristics is that the floor is constructed with reinforced concrete and hot water heating system. To do this, the wet method in Korea is used that includes concrete placement, curing and constructing hot water floor heating system at the factory production phase, which results in a longer production time and also requires the lifting of heavier loads. In the United States, interior and exterior finishing works of modular housing are performed by different companies, and the distance between the unit module factory and the construction site is quite far. This kind of dualized production structure may cause confusion when it comes to schedule management, procurement management, and stock management. Moreover, problems caused by external environmental factors such as wind and rainfall were reported in the course of long-distance transportation. The results of this case comparison are expected to provide fundamental data that will reduce the amount of trial and error in the unit module production, transportation and lifting work in Korea, which has a comparatively small number of unit modular housing cases.

• Land and Housing Review
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.67-75
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• 2019

The modular construction means that more than 70% of the parts such as walls, windows, electrical wiring, facility piping, bathrooms, and kitchen appliances are pre-assembled at the factory and transported to the site. It is possible to shorten the construction period than general construction work and to secure high quality through modular mass production since the modular construction works in the field at the same time as the modular production. However, there are only four domestic modular manufacturers, and each company's modular components and construction methods are different, so it is necessary to standardize them. Therefore, this study investigated the construction process centering on the stacking method of modular housing construction work applied to D site in Cheonan-si, and proposed the key points of quality management by construction stage. As the project was conducted as a pilot project for government R&D projects, some differences may occur from general modular housing construction. However, the construction process and quality control focus of each unit box type modular house analyzed in this study can be used as basic data in the future of modular housing construction. In addition, the results of this study can be used to establish construction standards, such as the development of checklists and establishment of standard processes.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.336-343
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• 2022

Industrial robotic arms are widely adopted in numerous industries for manufacturing automation under factory settings, which eliminates the limitations of manual labor and provides significant productivity and quality benefits. The U.S. modular construction industry, despite having similar controlled factory environments, still heavily relies on manual labor. Thus, this study investigates the U.S., Canada, and Europe-based leading modular construction companies and research labs implementing industrial robotic arms for manufacturing automation. The investigation mainly considered the current research scope, industry state, and constraints, as well as identifying the types and specifications of the robotic arms in use. First, the study investigated well-recognized modular building associations, the Modular Building Institute (MBI), and renowned architecture design magazine, Dezeen to gather industry updates. The authors discovered one university lab and a few companies that adopted Switzerland-based robotic arms, ABB. Researching ABB robotics led to the discovery of ABB's competitor, Germany-based KUKA robotic arms. Consequently, research extended to the companies and labs adopting KUKA models. In total, this study has identified seven modular companies and four research labs. All companies employed robotic arms and gantry robot combinations in a production-line-like system for partial automation, and some adopted design standardization for optimization. The common goal among the labs was to achieve greater flexibility and full automation with robotic arms. This study will help companies better implement robotic arm automation by providing recommendations from investigating its current industry status.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2016.05a
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• pp.19-20
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• 2016

Domestic construction industry has experienced many difficulties as it has been on a downward. It's a way that active modular structure market to solve this problem. However, as Modular structure technical standard in Korea is in the early stages, our modular factory maufactured rate is almost 40% lower than overseas. Besides, there is less design diversity so it just applies for a few buildings like low-rise building and general group barrackes. To deal with these problems, it is essential to modulating the equipment which can improve the production rate. This will help to ensure the quality, shortening of the construction period, the reduction of labor costs. We have defined the name of segmented by each installation location of the equipment to modulating equipment. And it was examined the suitability of the modulating of the location-specific utility system. The results of the analysis are discussed on the page.

• Journal of the Korean housing association
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.137-144
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• 2016

In modular architecture, manufacturing drawing which includes whole information for modular unit production is essential since works for modular unit have to be performed in manufacturing factory not construction field. Although the manufacturing drawing is important as known it is insufficient to utilize the manufacturing drawing in modular architecture project and this makes modular unit low-quality with re-work and work time delay. To prevent low-quality modular unit caused by insufficient manufacturing drawing, in this research firstly manufacturing drawing's current situation and error cases in manufacturing phase of past modular housing project were analyzed, and correlation between reduction of errors occurance frequency and improving manufacturing drawing was verified. Secondly manufacturing drawing improvement factors were deducted in interior, furniture, mechanical work phase which errors' occurance rate is high and the way of deducting manufacturing drawing lists and contents were suggested with light-weight work as an example in case of new type of errors occurance. A series of research process can contribute to good-quality modular unit by errors reduction. As a result of research, about half of errors occurance can be reduced with suggested manufacturing drawing improvement factors. And the manufacturing drawing process can contribute to modular production which have uniform quality.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.103-112
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• 2012

Republic of Korea is recently becoming an advanced country with increasing standard of living. This is causing a lack of employment in the construction industry because of high labor costs and it is resulting rapid increase in foreign labors. Modular Method of Construction can be defined as 50%~90% of the entire process is completed in factory, and transferred to construction field to install. The main purpose of this process is to minimize the entire process that possibly can be done at construction field in order to maximize the quality. The current local usage of Modular Method of Construction started at Shin Ki Elementary School during 2003 and it is widely used for military facilities. It should be used more because it has strengths of spending short time period to complete and low production costs. It can make a change if Modular Method of Construction is applied. Toyota is currently producing vehicle with conveyor system and if Modular Method of Construction is applied, then it is possible to reduce the waste of labor, and automatic production time. Expansion of the modular Market can be expected by applying this method because it will improve producing costs, high quality, and enforced process. This research tried to solve the problem of factory's manufacturing production by applying local Modular Method of Construction to provide suggestions and analyze the profitability with applied conveyor system. It is depending on produced model, but this research's model will take 20 months including assessment of payback period.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Structure & Construction
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.29-36
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• 2019

Modular construction has benefits such as short construction duration and high productivity owing to the production in factory and owing to simultaneous on-site work. However, rework occurs in modular construction and the rework affects the efficiency of modular construction. The almost of causes of rework are exist in design process. To reduce the cause of rework, the information flow of the design process should be managed and the plan to reduce rework should be included. However, the modular construction has complex process because of impeded unit production so it is hard to manage the information flow in design process. Moreover, when the plan to reduce rework is included, the design process will be more complicated. Therefore, the objective of this research is to suggest the design process including the rework reduction plan and to alleviate the complexity of design process by using Dependency Structure Matrix(DSM). By using DSM, the iteration and feedback in design process is reduced and it can be expected that rework in modular project can be reduced by using suggested design process.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.12-21
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• 2019

Specification is an important document for securing safe construction and improving quality as well as the contract document. Currently, the specifications used in modular buildings in Korea are only the construction specification, and most of the contents are used by borrowing the standard specifications of the building, so the contents of the modular buildings can not be reflected and it is contents are similar to the guideline book. The current status of domestic specification for modular buildings is affecting the quality of modular buildings. Therefore, we analyze activity through monitoring the modular process of modular buildings and analyze systematically relationship by applying IDEF modeling with analyzed activity. As result this paper proposes a structure of special specification specialized in modular building through generalization. The major classifications were divided into three stages : factory construction, transportation, and on-site installation. The specification structure was divided into 32 types of construction items from the floor slab assembly of the factory production to the joint finish of the on site installation in accordance with the opinion of experts.