Impact of Environmental Regulations on Construction

Chapter 1: Introduction

Housebuilding not only in the United Kingdom (UK) but globally is experiencing a significant transformation. The advances driven by such factors as the increasingly complex market demands, global financial stability, increasingly regulations of the industry, technological advancement, socio-economic variables, and globalisation have necessitated the constructions industry to readjust it operations. In the industry that has been traditionally regarded as slow in adopting changes, new dynamics deems its inevitability. For instance, heightening awareness and demands for environmental sustainability by public resulting in restructuring regulations such as noise and air pollution particularly in urban and residential areas is forcing construction companies to see alternatives or face heavy penalties. Shrinking construction spaces in urban areas is another factor that the industry has to contend with, while at the same time improving efficiency, safety, and predictability. These have given rise to the offsite construction. However, the transition to offsite construction also referred as modular construction has been marred by number of challenges that include sustainability, cost, technological maturity and knowhow, reluctance to adopting change, and quality regulations. Construction activities that include housebuilding have enormous effect on human health, environment, and economy. Being a new dynamic in the larger construction industry, there is need for better understanding of its concepts, progress, and implication.

Background Information

The United Kingdom government's housing memoranda, coupled with the current business circumstance such as COVID-19 pandemic, presented the housebuilding industry with an inducement to produce more innumerable modern homes while advancing Modern Method Construction Composition (MMCC) all-embracing efficiency within the challenging building sector (Arif et al., 2017). Although, Atkinson and Jacobs (2020) argued that channelling resources into development and provision of low cost, good quality, secure, and environmentally friendly housing is not attractive to private investors particularly the social and vertical housing. On the other hand, modernisation has been claimed as the key-way-find to availing the challenges; it has been promulgated feeble at best in exercising or endorsement. Implementation entails a transformation period from subsisting methods, and it is in this period, the drawbacks will transpire. In adoption of change in construction industry, six key stages are identified, representing the consistency among the processes that include formulating constructs, evolving examination, utilisation, evaluation, and enrichment. These drawbacks limit significantly adoption of modern construction techniques such as offsite manufacturing and slowing progress in improving time, cost, and quality. The measure of the new homes launched by the prominent housebuilders represented their effect on new housing development in the UK (Wellings, 2006), which implies large firms' significance in taking up reform. Building from this, this research study aimed to investigate in depth barriers and drawbacks and their profound passivity headway within the housebuilding sector. The dissertation addresses a large UK housebuilding company's problem and explores tremendous life cycle reforms in the development response plan.

Research question

The primary research question for this investigative study is: what are the challenges faced by housebuilders in the UK in adoption of changes in the industry? This is supported by raised question of ways in which these companies in housebuilding sector can navigate through policy change, challenges/barriers, and drivers in adoption of offsite construction technique.

Research aim

To investigate the recent United Kingdom housing policy changes, challenges/barriers, and drivers the UK's housebuilding sector faces, including proposing a data-driven strategy to address these (short, medium or long term).

Objective of the Research

The objectives of this study were to:

Investigate in depth, the changes faced in the housebuilding sector in the United Kingdom Post COVID-19

Examine the influence of modernisation through the adoption of key drivers to offsite manufacturing approach to the UK housebuilding industry.

Attain data-driven alternative resolutions from the UK and Malaysia sector and propose the most effective solution using MMC composition for output in the housebuilding industry.

Scope and Practical Implication of the research

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This study focuses to investigate the recent policy changes in the UK housebuilding sector. Recently, UK housebuilders have faced challenging business and operating environment (Siebert et al., 2018). The lockdowns hampered the industry in the first year of the decade. Shortly afterward, however, increased demand and stamping holidays caused shocking sales in 2020. House prices had risen by 7% compared to March by the end of the year. However, there are still many challenges that have been recorded in the periods of 2019-21 by the survey that we conducted (Hurlimann et al., 2018). However, housebuilders face problems - companies have told Lloyds Bank that Brexit is likely to restrict access to EU workers, while the rate of the UK joining young adults is declining. Along with the limits on planning and access to land, the industry seems to be dealing with a special set of obstacles (Burgess, Jones, & Muir, 2018). The study demonstrates that housebuilding companies increase staff development and planning investments using innovative new construction techniques such as site-based modern construction methods to enhance efficiency. Results demonstrate that architects, plumbers, planners, bricklayers, joiners, and site managers are currently the hardest roles to recruit. The survey also shows that 47% say that apart from the coronavirus pandemic, Brexit's uncertainty is the top obstacle for the sector. As such, there is increasing need to quantify the industries experience on the problems raised in the project aim and draw on a national audience of household builders and developers, an online survey was conducted.

Research Limitations

The purpose of this research was to investigate the Offsite Construction / manufacturing and their integration to enhance the productivity of construction operations to investigate the barriers/ drawback to MMC. Although techniques, guidance and development successfully developed and tested on live projects (case studies) that demonstrated a considerable potential to improve cost and time savings and resource utilisations, it also has the following limitations: There are social economical paradigms; however, due to insufficient time and other resources, this study has only investigated the implementation of MMC paradigm. This investigation has contributed by development OSC / MMC based on types of case studies, i.e. United Kingdom & Malaysia. However, construction sector involves various other types of processes as well throughout the timeline of a project. The developed cases have only taken the operation phase of a scheme into consideration. The most significant justification for this step is that OSC is most beneficial during with various scenarios. It does not take in to account other stages of any construction process like decisions making, logistics or risk modelling. The enormous potential to improve resource utilisation and labour planning; however, the construction community as a whole to training or courses to understand its working, methodology, experimentation tools and ability to understand the generated results. Many companies, especially SMEs are not willing to spend resources on training or adopting new technology which is a significant barrier. The data essential for the key development collected within the United Kingdom, and Malaysia, that these may not represent a generic picture of a construction process in other countries. In practicality, different construction scenario provides a different perspective and problems unique to what is being building, internal factors, and external forces. Data from survey was captured and used for the research are restricted due to uniqueness of individual participant experience, perspective, and situation. However, using simulated scenario for testing and validation purposes would provide an idealistic perspective delving away from reality.

Structure of the Dissertation

Following this introductory chapter, the next section is literature review. It covers a critical review of the previously done research in the areas related to construction industry, driving forces in the industry, changes and challenges/barriers current faced, and future prospect. It discusses current trends such as modular constructions, off-site housebuilding technique, and regulatory changes. It focuses particularly on research studies conducted on housebuilding in both the UK and Malaysian industries. The third section is methodology. It captures the theorised views in which the knowledge regarding wayfinding in housebuilding as the focus of this research. Additionally, it outlines the methods and procedures followed in ensuring the answers to research questions as well as addressing the objectives are satisfactory. These guiding principles acts as roadmap to systematically answering the research questions and addressing the outlined objectives. It discusses critically applicability of such techniques as Design Science Research (DSR) and qualitative methods as appropriate techniques in answers searching. Principally, accuracy as well as quality of the answer to the research question while at the same time ensuring all the objectives are attained systematically are fundamental to any research. It also captures the data collection process and ways in which it is analysed into useful information. The fourth chapter is a findings and results. It covers the findings from primary sources converted into information under the results on the wayfinding of housebuilding in the UK. The result is discussed under discussion chapter where it is correlated with previously done research. The last chapter is conclusion. It draws inferences of the findings from this study and previously done related the research topic.

Chapter 2: Literature Review

Introduction

In this literature review, the focus is on existing studies on the areas related to the research topic. Core to this is grounding theorised concepts of change in modern world, forcing driving construction industry, and modular construction technique. Acknowledging the influence and drivers of such elements as technological advancement, regulatory change, consumer preference, and socio-economics on the operational structure as well as future strategic prospects of the construction industry, this review of literature tries to aligns different perspectives taken by scholars on these core research variables. Offsite construction referred to manufacturing, planning, designing, fabricating, and assembling of a building elements in a location other than where the building in being constructed.

Factors Driving UK Housing Sector

Discuss categorisation of the Factors (Expound the following sections)

Regulatory Factors

As part of its renewable emissions commitment, the United Kingdom (UK) government has promised a mandated zero carbon building by 2016 (the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), 2020). In 2007, the government had committed to build more than 240,000 homes yearly, however, according to the report released by DCLG, completed homes in 2019 were approximately 170,000, the highest in over a decade. These missed targets come despite a sharp rise in demands for housing. In attempt to address the rising housing crises characterised by homelessness, overcrowding, and unsuitable housing conditions, the government announced in 2019 a plan to invest £9 billion towards delivering 250,000 homes by 2022 (Bulman, 2019). Thereby, the housing sector has also been required to develop further home building and industries becoming more constructive to levitate these plight. Automation would be a way to escape impoverishment and implement sustainable construction (Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), 2008). However, the proportion of advancement has been reported marginalised in UK house construction (Ball 1999; Barker 2003). It is misleading to assume good predictions from those profiles (Roskrow 2004; Pan et al. 2008).

Several factors have been attributed to the problem that includes political elements, demographic and socio-economic change, failure to innovate match rapid innovation and technological diffusion, pressures on natural resources and demand for environmental sustainability, global uncertainty particularly housing market, cross-border economic competition, and economic downfall following 2008 global crises and novel Covid-19 (HM Treasury, 2007; Mulheirn, 2019). In 2012, the government introduced a slimmed-down National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) aimed at streamlining and simplifying the process. However, according to Home Builders Federation (HBF), planning systems and local opposition are the primary challenge faced towards addressing the housing crisis arguing ‘slow, bureaucratic, and expensive’ nature in the housing industry (Castella, 2019). According to Taylor (2010) and Chiang et al. (2006), offsite manufacture (OSM) in the construction industry faces several challenges ranging from cost performance caused by both labour and material cost, project performance, skilled labour shortage, low productivity, technological change, and demand for sustainability and efficiency. Alonso-Zandari and Hashemi (2016) argued that the industry does not attract enough talent to meet those retiring, the growing market demand, as well as change forced into the industry. In a survey conducted by Wang et al. (2016), 75% of the firms in the industry were expected to increase into workforce but it was estimated that 78% would have challenges in attracting and filling vacancy with qualified personnel. Demographically, the findings by Sokas et al. (2019) showed that 21 of the workforce in the industry are above 55 years while only 9% are below 24 years. This disparity induces two major problems. First, the lack of technology-savvy younger who would otherwise push for integration of technology-driven approaches limits the industry in attempt to modernise. Secondly, as pointed by Lavallière et al. (2016) and Koh et al. (2019), lack of new idea and perspective on approach and process being used advances the status-quo in addition to lacking pushing factors to adopt change.

Environmental and Technological

A study conducted by Ball (2014) highlighted that despite the industry becoming increasingly complex caused primarily by technological advance within and externally, and consumer demands such as need for cheaper and sustainable housing, the entire construction in generality has failed to innovate. According to Gambatese and Hallowell (2011), inability for designers to be creative whilst taking rulebook approach as opposed to total design freedom has hinder innovation and change approach in the industry. Technology in the sector has primary influenced communication, survey, transportation, telematics, project management, and human resource management. Currently, such technological advancement such as Virtual Reality (VR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), robotics, 3D printing, and automatous vehicles are being integrated and poised to significantly influence operations and performance of the entire construction industry (Sun et al., 2017; Bilal et al., 2016; Wu et al., 2016). However, it should be noted that successful adoption and integration of these technologies and new approaches, is subject to myriad factors that include perception of key players towards change, the incentives and push factors to adopting alternative and efficient methods. One can argue that ultimate de-skilling of designers from creators to specifiers would lead higher productivity. The findings by Wang et al. (2020) on digital technology adoption in off-site construction (OSC) highlighted the approach significance in reducing resources wastes, enhancing productivity, and cutting cost and time as well as offering higher productivity and safety to the industry. The off-site construction supported such technologies as building information modelling (BIM), AR, VR, 3D printing, geographical information systems (GIS), photogrammetry, and data-driven. According to (Wheeler et al., 2020) OSM still does not feel the impact of various measures that have been put in place such as code for sustainable homes in UK, zero carbon emissions will cost in the near future. Therefore, they always have to use quantity surveyors to make a forecast that gives them an image of what to expect so that they can assume the worst in order to identify ways on how to minimise future risks. However, the potential factors of reducing costs to measure regulations/ make regulations affordable are an opinion that is limited for OSM. The entire process of building and selling houses (as with any other product) is a trade-off between cost and value. It is critical, therefore, to avoid making savings in areas that will have a negative impact on achievable revenues, such as specification reduction (e.g., "fewer bathrooms"), where such value reductions are likely to outweigh any savings (Rodriguez-Sánchez & Martinez-Romo, 2017).

Socio-economic

According to Arif et al. (2017), failure by the UK’s construction industry to industrialise and taking up such techniques supported by such approaches offsite constructions has disadvantage and hampering its overall growth and adopting to evolving demands and environment. The offsite construction, also commonly referred to as prefabricated construction, modular construction, or precast construction, give the industry advantage of reducing significantly construction time on site while increasing quality compared to traditional construction (Wang et al., 2020). According to Kolo, Rahimian, and Goulding (2014), compared to traditional construction approach, OSC reduces construction time by up to 30-50% by enabling such process as site preparation and the manufacturing to be undertaken concurrently. The construction industry benefits the economy in three ways: first, because of its massive size; second, because it primarily provides investment goods; and third, because the government is a large portion of its client (Wheeler et al., 2020Construction is a large-scale industry in most cases. It is the largest employer in the United States, the second largest employer in the United Kingdom after the health sector, Brazil's third largest employer after agriculture and banking and finance, and Australia's fourth largest employer. Construction, due to its large size, can be used as a social safety net for job creation and poverty reduction.

Sustainable Construction

The construction sector in the United Kingdom has been facing increasing pressure to improve their quality production and the efficiency of their constructions. However, this pressure has also been in cooperated with sustainability roles in the building and construction processes including the products which they use during the construction must comply with a number of sustainability factors such as, social, economic, and environmental issues.

Environmental factors

According to Williams, Crespo, & Abu, (2019) the use of OSC in recent years has improved environmental performance through the products they provide. The influence of OSCE has contributed to the performance of, lower ecosystem damages, and lower resources depletion. However, these factors have been constantly affected by the shortage of in-depth studies on environmental sustainability. The increasing concern regarding environmental sustainability has also put all construction companies on their toes to always come up with the best solutions for managing the environment.

Social Issues

The decision made by OSC on product quality, society, and labour relations affects the factors under this category (Evariste et al., 2018). They relate the most frequent social issues in the UK to product value, and product quality, this has also increased the demand of providing value to the clients of construction businesses. Labour-related concerns, such as a labour shortage, have historically driven the use of OSC, which is now a growing worry for the AEC sector. Hence, this has affected customers' attitudes towards value creation in the construction sector. Client requirements; customer perceptions; reaction to fresh proposals; challenges in establishing construction value; owner comprehension; receptivity and acceptance; consumer-focused (Leal Filho et al., 2019).

Economic factors

The economic issues involve factors that can be included in the construction industry to help in reducing costs in the construction sector, reduce risks involved in the construction business, and increase productivity (Leal Filho et al., 2019). According to Kgosikoma et al., (2018), the decisions made by OSC have contributed much in this sector as it has helped in creating monetary ideas on how to help and improve the economy. When comparing the recurrence of cost and time elements to the recurrence of usefulness and board factors, it is critical to remember that the OSC writing has not focused on administration techniques' potential to increase efficiency while decreasing expenditures and project terms (Kgosikoma et al., 2018).

Lean Approach in Construction

Lean construction

Researchers search has investigated lean approaches in the construction sectors in the UK over the past years as (Zougmoré et al.,2018). Lean construction is defined as a project management theory with approaches that increase management production. The lean system was first introduced and hence possessed by Toyota production system Dinesh, et al., (2017), their primary aim of introducing lean was to manage and reduce waste to increase the organisation productivity. Lean principles state that only activities that produce value to an organisation should be left in the production system however, factors that are less valuable to the company should be reduced (Nascimento et al., 2017). Therefore, Zougmoré et al.,(2018) states that the main objective of introducing lean construction in the construction industry is to help in managing or reducing waste, for instance, money, materials, and time to maximise value for the construction sector. Lean construction is a new sector in the construction industry hence most industries have not adopted or are in the process of adopting this new technology (Dehdasht et al., 2018). All construction activities may be split into two categories that are responsible for providing value to the construction sector: tangible and flow activities, which can be created through conversion activities. Significant wastes are present in the construction flow operations. The removal of waste from such processes might result in "reduced" waste (Nascimento et al., 2017). Furthermore, Dinesh, et al., (2017) defined lean construction as the practice of continuously removing waste while achieving all client needs. A lean construction helps in chasing value-adding streams for an organisation and all other environmental sectors because each sector has its level of waste.

Prefabrication and Off-Site Construction in Housebuilding Industry

Investigating the drivers, constraints, and the future of prefabricated construction, Vijayakumar (2018) found that although increasing adoption, the approach faces number of challenges linked to energy and environment, market demands, socio-economic factors, and labour productivity towards realising its full potential in cost-savings and productivity. Gan et al. (2018) and Alazzaz & Whyte (2015) highlighted that labour skills required is a leading factor in failure to fully adapt and reach its full potential. A 2017 survey on employer skills in the UK workforce conducted by Winterbotham et al. (2017 found that the employers face more challenges in recruiting skilled and experiences workforce particularly in technical and practical sector, similarly, the respondents noted skill shortages in their existing workforce. Some studies hold that the time from design stage to onsite assembly would actually be longer that traditional approach (Kilaire, and Stacey, 2017; Azman et al., 2013). According to Salama (2018) and Arashpour et al. (2016) planning and scheduling process required involve formulating and choosing relevant policies, procedures, and methods while constrained by available resource, quality, and productivity rate is mostly marred by lack of coordination and collaboration among key stakeholders on the project. Lean construction practices and design-build requiring high level of communicating and coordinating among key players found to enhance productivity and efficiency –technology such as BIM. Hosseini et al. (2018) argued that evaluating the OSC based on material, labour, and transportation costs compounded by site facilities, site space, rectification, and crane use On the other hand, technology forms bedrock to the adoption, integration, and success of OSC. A survey conducted by Cheng and Ma (2020) on factors limiting Chinese prefabrication sector found that 90% of the respondents pointing to implementation of technology as a major constraint. Whereas, Hoover et al. (2017) found 87% of the contractors holding it a core factor in meeting accuracy, efficiency, and productivity spanning from logistics management, automation, streamlining and enabling transparency in supply chain, enhance key players’ interaction and engagement, and enabler of near-real-time information flow.

Factors affecting the growth of the construction sector

Two major obstacles for house building and development enterprises are the planning process and the accessibility and expense of land which can be viably developed. Since 2019, the impact of these issues has seemingly deteriorated. The planning of Wales and Southern England is of major significance, whereas land availability and costs influence England, notably the southern and the midlands. There are concerns about financial availability nonetheless, but since 2019 they have eased (Zhang et al., 2019). The impact of these company limits is to increase the time needed to put new houses for sale, limit the number of new houses constructed and increase expenses according to the housebuilders and developers experiencing them. The availability of competent craftsmen and materials among small builders and developers is not considered to constitute substantial business restrictions (Sooriyamudalige et al., 2020).

Constraints to building new homes

Housebuilders, especially those building 1–2 homes a year, find that the continuity of development operations and the jobs required maintaining the relationship between subcontractors is difficult. Due to the economy and the loss of jobs that have been affected due to coronavirus and government influence in the sector (Ullah, Lill, & Witt, 2019, May). Larger companies can probably offer more continuity. If the next site is not ready, the risk of building increases lost supplier and partner relations, and the deterioration of any retained employees will increase (Gan et al., 2018).

According to Williamson et al. (2019), the key issues restricting the capacity of builders and developers to create a higher number of dwellings were identified.

New regulations for home builders

Several new regulatory problems for UK homebuilders. The first is the establishment of the ombudsman for new homes (Black et al., 2021). The ombudsman of the government will apply higher industry standards following complaints about the quality of some of the new buildings. At the same time, the government will continue to push the house building industry to meet standards of sustainability. Two-fifths of The UK carbon emissions are derived from our stock of housing. It will encourage homebuilders to achieve all properties with maximum energy efficiency (Sooriyamudalige et al., 2020). United Kingdom builders build a larger range of homes than ever. The dynamics of the population are changing. With people living longer, retirement homes are more in demand that meets the needs of the elderly, who need support. Younger people live alone for long on the other side of the equation (Hong et al., 2018). Even smaller, modern family sizes. As a result, "two up, two down" homes are no longer the best strategy (Agapiou, 2021).

From above figure, the funding for builders in England and Wales is more of an issue (the exception to this finding being companies in the North of England). Since 2019, the availability and pricing of feasible property have become significantly more important —housebuilders view this as a barrier to planning for their operations. Land, in comparison to other parts of the UK, is a significant problem for modest housing manufacturers and developers across England, particularly in the South and Midlands (Sooriyamudalige et al., 2020).

Research Gaps

Several studies have highlight the significance integration and implementation of OSC techniques would have to the UK’s construction industry ranging from advancing efficiency, reducing time and cost, improving quality, to enhancing productivity. From the literature, the current OSC is limited to lack of the capacity to respond to widespread demand, and on-demand. Therefore, the default, where capacity is unavailable, is traditional build methods. In the UK, the challenge is exacerbated by lack skilled and experienced workforce in the market to advance technology implementation in the sector coupled by low competition by organisations offering similar systems leading to a lack of competition. However, studies demonstrated the significant benefits, but it is counterintuitive to see low adoption rate particularly in the UK. As such, the big question is why the housebuilding and entire construction industry has been slow implementation and embracing technology-driven approach given its huge potential.

Chapter 3: Methodology

Introduction

The methodology section covers the methods and processes employed in addressing the outlined objective systematically while, at the same time, ensuring that all the research questions are answered satisfactorily. Ideally, the chapter discusses with justification the reasons of using the picked approach rather than other available. It further outlines the tool used in transforming the collected data into useful information.

3.1. Research Philosophical Framework

The aim of this study was to investigate recent United Kingdom housing policy changes, challenges/barriers, and drivers the UK's housebuilding sector faces, including proposing a data-driven strategy to address these (short, medium or long term). From the literature, several factors have limited the entire industry in implementation technology driven and adoption of such approach as prefabrication techniques. Studies point to such factors as lack of skilled and experienced workforce, lack of capacity to deliver volume to common designs, acceptance concern of key stakeholders on modular manufacturing, and limited by structural including policies driving the industry given that an evolving sector (Vernikos et al., 2014; Arif et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2019; Nawi et al., 2014). Unlike positivism paradigm that perceive variables of a given a phenomenon in a measurable and verifiable manner, interpretivist argue that in social research participants hold different perspective, opinions, and point of view informed by one’s experiences (Alharahsheh, and Pius, 2020; Aliyu et al., 2014). In order to gain perspective and understand a given phenomenon, a research has to engage and hold direct in depth interaction with participants. In this case, the drawbacks faced by house building industry as well as developing passivity strategy as a response plan requires in depth interaction and engagement with key players in the field. The Design Science Research (DSR) approach extends Lukka (2003), which seeks to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Innovative construction research takes the form of assessing the performance of interventions or artefacts executed within the context of the intended use (Van Aken, 2004). This research approach to study and test construction is multiple case studies. The advanced research involved PAN-Asian cases studies compared to UK house building construction schemes through the modern construction method. Notwithstanding the finalisation of the designated framework, the application of Choosing by Advantages (CBA) in the case studies became an explication to afford a tool for optimising group determinations. The information gleaned from these reflections would then be used to the end of the fundamental reflective enrichment

3.2. Research Approach.

The methodology captures statistical and data quantifying the problem through patterns, distribution, regression, mode, and mean (Goertzen, 2017; Bloomfield, and Fisher, 2019). For the qualitative, as described by Creswell (2014), involves collection and analysis of non-numerical data aimed to gain an insight of the problem, opinions, experiences, and point of view. In combining the two methods, one can map out number of participants answer to a given question while exploring individual reasons for holding that view. However, due to prolonged novel COVID-19 pandemic and following the UK government movement restrictions and lockdowns, the interactions with the participants with aim of attaining an in depth understanding on the issue was not possible. Hence, secondary data was used under systematic literature review.

3.3. Data collection

In data collection, this study had aimed an online survey. The survey acted to map and draw themes on varies elements influencing house building in the UK as well as strategies need towards implementation of OSC and prefabrication techniques in the industry. The themes drawn from the literature informed the research questions, structured in a manner that delves deeper to have an insight of the problem. The secondary data was sampled from previously done. The sampling process involved searching online databases that included Google Scholar, ProQuest, Emerald Insight, EBSCO, ResearchGate, and ScienceDirect. Key words and combinations as well as variations was keyed into search engine of the databases. Due to huge hit number of papers, and also to ensure reliability of the findings, sampling process was done checking the articles titles, objectives, and abstract on whether they align with this research objectives and problem statement. The sampling aimed to gather 20 peer-reviewed articles focusing on changes in housebuilding sector, modern building methods in construction, and MMC. The inclusion and exclusion criteria include the articles published within the past 10 years, in English language, and focusing on UK construction industry. The gathered data is then interpreted and analysed using thematic analytic tool.

3.4. Ethical Consideration

In order to ensure reliability of the information acquired will adhering to ethical considerations framework, number of conditions were set to be observed. First, in addition to requirement of all articles being peer-reviewed and focusing on the UK, the papers were required focused on in the UK or Malaysia construction industry. Secondly, all data and information gathered from the papers are cited and referenced accordingly. The collection data was evaluated for validity and reliability before identifying themes and drawing patterns using thematic analysis tool.

Chapter 4: Findings and Results

Introduction

This chapter covers the data from the secondary sources into an investigation of the key challenges and problems faced by house builders in the United Kingdom. The main aim of this section is to captures data aimed at answering what are the challenges faced by housebuilders in the UK in the adoption of changes in the industry? House development in the United Kingdom has several interconnected issues. The epidemic, of course, remains the most persistent and ubiquitous concern. However, this is not exclusive to the construction industry. Therefore, the investigation dug a little further to look at the underlying issues. The research took a secondary approach because it provided a platform of answering the questions while also adhering to the COVID-19 containment protocols. Initially, this study aimed to interview and discuss with experts in the construction field the core parameters of construction industry highlighting the challenge particularly brought by MMC. The research aimed to reach a larger audience of construction companies from the United Kingdom. The sampling process was done after keying in keywords into online search engines that include Google Scholar, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, EBSCO, and Emerald. The search process involved keying in the keywords, the combinations the varying of the words using Boolean operators. For instance, using combinations ‘modern construction industry UK + challenges MMC technique’ gave number of hit articles. The keywords searched included ‘modern methods of construction + UK’, ‘off-site construction + UK’, ‘modern housebuilding + UK’, ‘barriers of MMC + UK’, ‘barriers + opportunities + modern housebuilding UK’ and ‘barriers of off-site construction UK’. The returned articles were noted down the sampled to eliminate multiple entry, enhancing reliability and accuracy, while also ensuring the data aligns with research questions.

Findings

The table below shows the most sampled articles capturing the author(s), the title, and a brief description of the objectives of the articles. The result of the online search and sampling yielded 13 peer-reviewed articles. The data is then analysed using thematic analytic tool.

Construction Time and Initial Cost

The findings by Shibani et al. (2021) indicate that despite increasing popularity of the modular constructions, most companies (33%) still rely on the traditional on-site construction approach. However, the response to the drivers of using off-site approaches pointed to faster construction process (20%) followed by cost reduction and reduced health and safety risks. Therefore, respondents perceived time savings as more apparent than cost savings. A follow-up question highlighted that the approach is an efficient construction time by reducing project time and construction speed, the initial cost is a major limiting factor. Sadler and Shahab (2021) study in the perceived effectiveness and transaction costs found that the former varied considerably and the cost being relatively high, and in some stage, faced with several uncertainties. Further, evaluating the UK offsite constructions ten-years on, Taylor (2020) found that the approach still faces high number of inefficiencies, labour shortages, gross output, and value addition. The approach is supported by new technologies and approach that in addition to high initial capital cost of instruments and the technology itself, acquisition of the skilled labour tends to be relative expensive similar to training labour forces. Shibani et al. (2021) found an 8-10% increase in construction cost in using MMC.

Skilled Labour Forces

In conducting a bibliometric analysis of traditional and modern construction approaches in the UK, Nazir et al. (2020) identified lowering skills levels, reducing returns, cost blow-outs, and pressures on time-to-delivery as major factors that have led to the recent housing crisis. Despite an increased adoption of the MMC, the ever-widening housing supply as a result of failing delivery of houses and increasing UK population has plunged the housing into a crisis. Koronaki et al. (2021) found that MMC that included prefabricated timber housing faces a severe shortage of skilled personnel. The challenge exacerbated by Brexit and COVID-19 pandemic, is inhibiting growth of the sector and meeting demand. While UK homebuilders had a great year in 2021, the market is anticipated to decrease in 2022 and beyond. Many customers who planned to buy a home expedited their purchases because of the stamp duty holiday. However, for some who fared less well during the crisis, buying a new home may feel more out of reach than ever. When furlough plans run out, significant unemployment and a reduction in demand for new houses is expect rise.

Perceived Housing Design and Quality

Agha et al. (2021) found that construction specialists despite acknowledging the benefits of MMC that include efficiency and time, they pointed out that individuals perceive traditional housing to being of higher quality and design flexibility. Williamson et al. (2019) in research into MMC barriers faced in the UK construction industry also found perceived upfront design as one of the main issues.

Policy and Regulations

The findings by Shibani et al. (2021) further indicated the adoption of the modern construction process is limited by formulated Section 106 agreements that requires procurement new houses to be done through design and building contracts. It noted “The housing companies have not been able to fully adopt the modern methods of construction partly due to Section 106 agreements and the development of new homes through design and building contracts. Procurement of new homes through these approaches means that the companies may not always have a chance to choose the construction method used”. The findings by Archer and Cole (2014) highlighted that low adoption rate is primarily due to shifting demographic trends and policy over housing supply. As individuals live longer lives, there is a larger need for retirement facilities that are specifically built to fulfil the requirements of the elderly who require assisted living. Younger people, on the other hand, spend more time alone. Family sizes have likewise shrunk in the contemporary period. As a result, mass-producing "two up, two down" houses is no longer the most effective strategy (Sadler & Shahab, 2021). Several new regulatory challenges are on the horizon for UK homebuilders. One example is the establishment of the New Home Ombudsman. Following complaints about the state of certain new houses, the government's ombudsman will enforce harsher standards on the industry. The Grenfell Tower probe has also shown a pressing need to evaluate safety standards and sign-off on materials and work completed (Martiskainen, and Kivimaa, 2018). Housebuilders and other members of the construction industry are being pushed to develop the "Golden Thread" to assure accountability and safety in completed projects. They also stated that simultaneously, the government will continue to put pressure on the housing industry to meet sustainable standards (Shah et al., 2020). Two-fifths of UK carbon emissions are attributed to our housing stock. Homebuilders are already under pressure to make all of their homes as energy-efficient as possible, and this need will only increase.

Strategies for Integrating the Use of Off-site Construction

Pan et al. (2012) found that although the MMC approach held huge potential in advancing the housing building sector, the technologies behind it represented a complex and multi-layered structure idealised with long ingrained culture. MMC approaches introduces not just new ways of doing things but perspective and culture change. Therefore, an elaborate strategy for adoption is crucial to ensure smooth transition with minimal clash with traditions and culture in the sector. Zami (2021) found that adoption of modern construction techniques is hindered by a series of interconnected barriers that include absence of supply chain network, resistance in changing familiar approaches, and prejudicial conflict. However, the findings indicate failure to have a structured approach capturing the transition to future of construction. The findings by Williamson et al. (2021) indicated lack proper education on the associated risks and procurement processes of the new paradigm makes implementation by management difficult. Another element highlighted by Koronaki et al. (2021) is that, unlike conventional construction approach, the MMC lacks a well-established methodology and guidance on the structural analysis. For instance, the new approach relies heavily on the computational skills and manufacturing procedures for planning and optimisation of fabrication process. Such factors need to be properly factored in order to ensure uninterrupted procurement, fabrication, and assembly process.

Environmental Impact

According to the findings by Taylor (2020), adoption of MMC has been curtailed by environmental concerns. Although the findings by Sadler and Shahab (2021) indicate that relative to traditional approach, buildings built using MMC require lesser energy that include heating and cooling, energy leakages and air infiltration, the whole constructions process has attracted questions of its sustainability. Environmental consciousness was met to be contributed and there was no multiple option. Legislation, together with economic drivers, was deemed to be the most essential topic of drivers for the delivery of zero-carbon homes. Under legislation, a variety of subthemes were revealed, with the Building Regulations being identified as the key push for zero-carbon homebuilding. Government measures may make decreasing carbon emissions a legal requirement, with all residents in the UK compelled to comply. Among the government's goals include lowering greenhouse gas emissions through carbon budgets and carbon limits, using the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, and using carbon values to guarantee that project and policy evaluations account for the effects of climate change. The UK has ratified the Kyoto Protocol, a global pact to tackle climate change. The agreement binds countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible (Sadler & Shahab, 2021).

Chapter 5: Discussion

This chapter will discuss some of the information gathered that the research gathered from the interview. The housebuilding sector is a very important part of the United Kingdom's government because they contribute to the largest share of the size and the nature of housebuilding in the country. The data collected from 13 peer-reviewed articles discussed relative to theorised concepts and discussion from previously done researched.

House building construction in United Kingdom

According to the findings, the challenges faced by house builders in the country have contributed to the reduction of house building capacity. This is a major effect that should be controlled by the government particularly because the sector has been mostly affected by the current pandemic. The novel of the COVID-19 pandemic has harmed the global real estate industry. Containment measures in many countries involved total or partial construction site shutdowns, and the resulting income and revenue losses for households and businesses harmed the outlook for various segments of the property market, depending on the timing and stringency of confinement, as well as the severity of the public health crisis, which varied by country. In April 2020, construction products in the United Kingdom declined by 40% (Shibani et al., 2020; Nanda et al., 2021). The containment measures also affected labour supply to the sector as many people were advised by the government to stay home (Ogunnusi et al., 2020). Also those travelling from different states were not allowed to do so in order to contain the disease. Similarly, the number of new housing, or new residential construction projects, in the United States plunged by more than 30% in April and just barely recovered in May (positive 4%) (Alsharef et al., 2021). On the other hand, the issuance of house permits, which generally precedes residential building activity, gives some hope: after a significant decline in April (Negative 21%), permits rebounded substantially in May (positive 14%). The upward trend continued in June (positive 2%), bringing the year-to-date permit total close to the levels recorded in 2019. There are just a few high-frequency cross-country indicators unique to the real estate market. A construction industry variant of the Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) examines business conditions and mood in a few countries. The indicator indicates the precipitous drop in business confidence at the outset of the outbreak. Activity began to fall in March 2020 and peaked in April, when strict lockdowns were enacted in the countries for which the construction PMI is available (Barua, 2020). Despite the removal of the most stringent constraint measures, construction activity fell in May, except for Italy.

Quality Control and Carbon Emission

Housebuilders have been forced to follow the latter policies and regulations set by the government to control carbon dioxide emissions. Some of these measures are very expensive in terms of material buying, although this initiative is a good one it gives the weight and burden on the housebuilders because the government aims to achieve a 0% reduction of carbon dioxide by 2050 (Martiskainen, and Kivimaa, 2018). The government needs to help and assist the housebuilding sector because if they do not intervene the sector will continue witnessing low production. Additionally, they are forced to adopt some other quality control measures to follow comply with the government set protocols (Jerome et al., 2019). Quality control across several sites and multiple small subcontractors presents substantial issues as a result of the industry's building process. The NHBC's claims experience demonstrates the problem since it gives a ten-year warranty against building problems for 80 per cent of new houses in the UK (Taylor, 2020). Exterior construction repairs and property rendering are the most common grounds for claims (40 per cent of all claims). The most common flaws in this region are produced by improperly built damp proof courses, which are a ubiquitous component of home building and a source of fully avoidable mistakes.

Financial Crisis Impact on Housebuilders

According to Stephens et al. (2021), the weight of the financial crisis of 2008/09 impacted the house building sector and the impact is still felt today. During the period the development of smaller house in UK quadruped that was from 12% in the year 1997 to 46% in the financial crisis years of 2008/09. Also, it reduced sales in the sector and also bank lending to the housebuilders, the similar situation was phased in 2020 at the hit of the COVID-19pandemic, this has left the housebuilders in limbo to acquire the capital needed for land purchasing and house building (Nanda et al., 2021). The house building sectors have tried to respond to these challenges by trying to revert to the initial large family houses rather than the two-bedroom house that has been attributed to the financial crisis and the COVID -19 pandemic (Marmot et al., 2021). They have tried to do that to reduce working capital requirements and a shift away from bank financing for land acquisition and toward the usage of 'land creditors,' where the price of land is paid for after the sale of completed units. By 2018/19, the number of flats in the housing mix had more than halved to 21 per cent of output, while the share of one and two-bedroom dwellings had fallen from 53 per cent to just 21 per cent of output. By 2019/20, the figure had risen to 29 per cent. As a result, the sector essentially shifted away from construction houses for first-time buyers to homes for second or third-time buyers (Iafrati, 2021). As a result of the financial crisis's influence on forcing a change in the production mix of There has been a loss of skills and knowledge in apartment building construction among home builders, and a decrease in both duplication and the necessity for more complicated documentation of the undertaking.

Shortage of Labours

Even though the housing sector was less affected in the UK in the year 2020 by the current COVID-19 pandemic because many projects resumed work immediately as the lockdown measures were eased, however, the number of skilled workers to the sector has changed reduced from 2.3 million in 2017 to 2.1 million by the end of the year 2020 (Ogunnusi et al., 2020; Shibani et al. 2020). These figures represent the 4% reduction of the workers born in the UK and 42% of the workers from the European Union. Many industry participants are reporting a shortage of qualified construction workers, such as joiners, quantity surveyors, electricians, and other skilled tradesmen. While the 2021 Budget contained a number of efforts to encourage enterprises to create new apprenticeship roles in the industry, it will likely be some time before newly-trained domestic employees can cover these skill gaps. Also, there are the issues of general material supply cost that has affected that should also be looked into.

Rising demands of houses in the sector

House prices in the United Kingdom jumped by around 8.8 per cent in the year to June 2021, aided by stamp duty vacations and cheap mortgage rates. According to Build Scan’s New Build Homebuyer Index, 38.7 percent of all new build houses in the UK are presently sold subject to contract or under offer, a nine percent rise from June 2020. However, the housebuilding sector cannot meet the demands of this new increase because of the present challengers felt from, supply chain and labourers (Young et al., 2020). Also, the pandemic has and some major effects on the sector this year and therefore the house builder's needs government intervention to be able to address some of these major issues. Additionally, since 2020, supplies have been curtailed, and they have been much tighter in recent months. British Steel will suspend receiving structural steel section orders for a short time in May 2021, citing "high demand". Plant closures in the EU last year have left some manufacturers scrambling to catch up. Extreme demand in China, along with stricter emission restrictions, has limited exports and contributed to higher prices of procuring steel from international suppliers.

Chapter 6: Conclusion and recommendation

Conclusion

This research aimed to investigate the changes and challenges faced by MMC in the UK construction sector. Based on the significant changes brought by technology and adoption of prefabrication approaches, this study intended to find out some of the major challenges that the house building sectors face in the country. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was forced to use secondary data in attempt to answer research questions. The data collected from 13 peer-reviewed articles was analysed using thematic analytic tool. The research has managed to cover most of the issues that are affecting the housebuilders and some of the government policies that have been sate to meet the carbon zero reduction target in the coming years. COVID -19 was noted to be one of the major issues that have affected the house builders in terms of interfering with the supply chain of construction materials as well as construction labourers. The labour issue was supported by the survey the research conducted online as a larger number of house building companies stated that it has been a challenge as it shows a bigger reduction in 2021. Additionally, there is the issue of the financial issue 2008/09's weight has been felt by the sector in the post COVID- 19 times. This has also sowed the reduction of the hose construction as the companies try to use the little they have to build new small houses that cannot house a larger family. The construction sector in the United Kingdom needs proper assistance from the government and the lending institution because they are currently faced with many challenges that will affect the production of houses that are meant to help in reducing carbon emissions. The research also shows that the house building communities have acknowledged and hence have accepted the new policies that have been introduced and the challenges that have a companied them the is why. Finally, the research has recommended some important factors that if implemented by the house building sectors they can be able to control and manage some of these factors.

Recommendations

In order to find it easy, the housebuilders should help the government in fighting carbon emission so that the government should not continue posing more policies to achieve Zero carbon emission by 2050.

The housebuilders should direct all their challenges to the government for financial support because the government pledged to help the sector back to its normal functions after the COVID-19 effects.

If the issue with the labours is not sorted out the sector will continue witnessing labour challenges, therefore, they should payments because currently, the pandemic has weakened the economy, making things difficult for everyone.

They should also learn to and to the new policies and the micro-population in the sector because it is something that is bound to witness in a long time.

Land acquisition has been a primary factor they must look for a solution to this too; it means that they should first source for lands or try to renovate the old house, bringing them to the current state.

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