Managing vulnerabilities and capabilities for supply chain resilience in industrialised construction

Abstract

Industrialised Construction (IC), as a modern construction technology replaces conventional cast-insitu concrete construction and has attracted immense attention from many countries over the past two decades. This widespread interest can be largely explained by the inherent superiority of the technology. However, a major challenge faced by managers of IC is to anticipate and withstand its inherent supply chain disruptions. Indeed, the IC supply chain is found to be quite complex resulting in potential disruptions that can significantly affect performance levels. This, therefore, requires a new focus on disruption management that transcends ‘conventional wisdom’ and standard practices. Supply chain resilience (SCR) as a new initiative has emerged in other industries to address supply chain related challenges in effective disruption management by calling for supply chains that are less brittle and more adaptive. There is a dearth of literature in construction SCR, while the research gap is even wider and also more critical for SCR in IC. Therefore, a systematic literature review followed by an empirical study is performed in Hong Kong, by gathering, analysing and consolidating the relevant research data and findings, to develop a framework that identifies and maps vulnerabilities and capabilities for SCR in IC, thereby enabling deeper examination of how best to address and manage them together and more effectively. Thus, the main thrust of this study is to propose a basic framework to enhance SCR in IC by first identifying potential supply chain disruptions; and next proposing well-informed management strategies to withstand these disruptions.