• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.33-41
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• 2017

A modular specification is a contract document that specifies the requirements of production, transformation and installation in a modular construction. A problem of the currently used specification is that it does not guarantee the level of performance required by the modular construction and fails to accommodate unique characteristics of each construction because it widely uses the standard specification as it is. This study proposes a specification that reflects the unique feature of modular construction in order to improve the quality of modular construction. Research focuses on the leakage in waterproof and mechanical equipment because it is the area with the highest rate of defects. This study suggests ways to improve the modular specification as follows: 1)Descriptive specifying (following MasterFormat) 2)Propose leakage verification method and test clause 3) Reflect characteristic of modular construction. Proposed modifications to modular specification are reviewed by experts for validation and their opinion verifies suggested improvements as a way to secure the quality of modular construction and to promise characteristics of the modular specification. This improvement will be used for reference when writing construction project specification, which can be an important contract document, so that it could lower occurrence rate of the modular defects.

• 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.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.49-56
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• 2016

Recent research has been ongoing for modular buildings in the country and interest increases. However, the activation of modular building projects is obstructed in the construction industry. There are many reasons to identity for this obstruction but one issue should be focussed. Modular buildings require to change the existing construction production system to a new construction production system, which is factory production - transportation - erection. However, the existing project delivery system in the public sector could not be adapted for this new construction production system due to the obligation of multi prime contract use, such as electrical, communication, fire fighting contracts by Law. Therefore, modular buildings in the existing project delivery system are separately contracted by multi prime contracts and modular units composed of the buildings are contracted by an architectural prime contractor as a commodity. As results, construction costs are increased, potential quality problems are raised and the existing project delivery system is finally an obstacle not to maximize benefits of the modular buildings. In this paper, we propose a new project delivery system for the modular buildings to adapt then ew construction production system.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.124-134
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• 2018

Despite the many advantages of modular housing, low preference for modular housing for consumers who are familiar with RC structure leads to high construction cost of modular housing. The cost of modular buildings is about 130% of that of RC structures, so it is urgent to secure economical efficiency of modular buildings. Therefore, in this study, after calculating the savings amount of modular housing by type of construction work, economic analysis was conducted from a long - term perspective. In order to carry out the research, the authors compiled and analyzed the material cost, labor cost, and expenses incurred by each type of work by reclassifying the statement of the modular housing into the factory production and the site installation. After that, Pareto diagrams were created to find a core work that is included in the cost ratio of about 80%, and selected it as a cost reduction subject. Based on the assumption that the market size of domestic modular housing is similar to the level of modular advanced countries such as Japan and European countries, six cost reduction methods were set up that reflects the characteristics of the modular construction method and used for the expert interviews. Cost saving potentials in percentage from the interview were converted to the amount of savings that can be achieved by each type of method when applying the method. Finally, the findings of the study are expected to suggest long-term directions for technical development for modular construction and cost savings.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.263-272
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• 2019

Building Information Modeling (BIM) and modular construction are regarded as important technologies that have contributed to advancements in the construction industry. However, the utilization of BIM in current modular construction projects is limited; moreover, there are no specific guidelines pertaining the applications of BIM in modular construction projects. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the utilization of BIM for onsite construction planning in modular construction projects. First, a realistic BIM application was selected through literature review and expert interviews. Then, the construction plan of the modular projects was analyzed to classify the BIM application items into five different categories. The utilization of BIM in each category was then analyzed in terms of necessity and efficiency using a questionnaire. Finally, the BIM Utilization Index (BIM UI) was suggested based on the findings of the survey. As a results, the BIM UI for module point details, lifting plan, other installation details, site layout plan, and schedule plan was 0.811, 0.787, 0.770, 0.729, and 0.699, in the descending order of usability. In addition, through the findings of the study and interviews with experts, a case study for implementation of BIM in modular construction plan was conducted. The results of this study can be used as application guidelines for BIM in future modular construction projects.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.50-60
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• 2018

Recently, modular construction method has been widely applied to projects with repetitive processes including dormitory, the residential facility, and the hotel construction due to reduced labor input and shortened construction schedule. Generally, about 40% of total on-site construction cost excluding unit installation cost, is put on exterior finishing work, and thus management of finishing work is deemed important in maintaining the targeted schedule and cost. Since limited equipment is shared so that subsequent activities are not affected while carrying out on-site installation and finishing work, lifting plan becomes more important for modular projects with greater portion of finishing work load. In this regard, tower crane operation plan may take the form of a single cycle or multiple cycles in which equipment efficiency can be affected. However, difficulties exist in evaluating alternatives to tower crane operation plans supporting unit installation and finishing work. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the alternative of tower crane operation method according to the cyclic period setting in modular building site to determine the effect on T/C uptime and process by parameterizing lifting time for unit and exterior finishing material, lift cycle for unit and exterior finishing material and time required for finishing work. Accordingly, this study develops a simulation model that can increase the tower crane efficiency by controlling the work speed. An academic contribution of this study is to suggest a resource leveling method applying the concept of lifting cycle, and further is expected to be managerially used as a basis for an alternative evaluation of equipment plan.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.36 no.10
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• pp.873-881
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• 2012

This study is about the case study on the application of modular system to the superstructure of floating architecture in Europe. There are many restraints in the onsite construction of floating architecture. Then, various industrialized construction methods are needed to reduce the portion of the onsite construction in floating architecture. Among the various industrialized construction methods, the modular system can be more suitable for floating architecture. At this background, this study analysed the European cases of the application of modular system and classified the types of applied modular system. As a result, this study could classify the three types of modular system, such as, building unit modular, space unit modular and planning concept modular, and define the characteristics of three types by comparing with each other.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.3-12
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to provide a domestic applicable modular building construction process by benchmarking international best practices. In this study, we derive the risk factors that may occur in performing a modular construction projects and the modular construction management factors through case analysis. In order to effectively respond to risks in performing a modular building projects, we propose the modular building construction process which is separated by a transportation, lifting, assembly steps based on the unit module construction sequence. It is the key to providing management information and guidelines for the design, production, construction participants by reflecting the information for each step in the process. This study would prevent a potential hazard which may occur in the construction process. Consequently, It could result in saving the entire cost of modular construction project as shortening the project schedule and could improve workability of modular construction.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.65-71
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• 2008

The object of this paper is to evaluate on constructability of modular steel frame with the hollow structural steel section to LEB C-shape. A modular building is built with factory-manufacture and site-construction. The advantage of a Modular building presents that enhanced building quality, shortened construction period and easy at an expansion and enlargement for buildings but also has demerits such as size restriction of the modular units according to the Road Traffic Law and Inflexibility of the unit composition. So in this study we use light-weighted structure members with bolted joint for easy Knock-down and traffic, also we evaluated the constructability of this bolted joints type modular buildings.

• Proceeding of KASS Symposium
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.43-48
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• 2008

The object of this paper is to evaluate on constructability of modular steel frame with the hollow structural steel section to LEB C-shape. A modular building is built with factory-manufacture and site-construction. The advantage of a Modular building presents that enhanced building quality, shortened construction period and easy at an expansion and enlargement for buildings but also has demerits such as size restriction of the modular units according to the Road Traffic Law and Inflexibility of the unit composition. So in this study we use light-weighted structure members with bolted joint for easy Knock-down and traffic, also we evaluated the constructability of this bolted joints type modular buildings.