Award Date

May 2025

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction

First Committee Member

Jin Ouk Choi

Second Committee Member

Pramen P. Shrestha

Third Committee Member

Jee Woong Park

Fourth Committee Member

Jeehee Lee

Fifth Committee Member

Ashok Singh

Number of Pages

198

Abstract

Modularization involves shifting site-based work to offsite locations to enhance overall productivity, reduce costs, shorten schedules, and improve project competitiveness. By developing and utilizing consistent designs, facility standardization further optimizes project schedules, costs, and value. When combined, they create a leveraging opportunity, as seen in the shipbuilding and manufacturing industries. While both strategies offer significant advantages, capital projects struggle to have a well-informed modularization and standardization decision during the early project phase (i.e., Opportunity Framing). This often results in improper implementation and lower modularization and standardization levels. The main cause for this is the industry’s limited understanding of early-phase high-level decision factors to justify and implement modularization and standardization decisions. To address this, this research investigates modularization and standardization decision factors along with their combinatorial and interactive impacts on modularization and standardization decisions using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). The study conducts a detailed analysis of the decision factors using descriptive analysis and compares the results with the QCA findings to have a comprehensive understanding of decision factors as well as respective modularization and standardization decisions. To do this, the research has adopted the twelve modularization decision factors identified by Construction Industry Institute (CII) Research Team 396 and ten standardization factors adopted by CII RT UMM-01, analyzing real-world project data to assess their implications on decisions. The findings will assist industry practitioners in making informed decisions on modularization and standardization, strengthening justification, and improving modularization and standardization implementation. Subsequently, the results and the findings of the research will enhance the existing body of knowledge on early modularization and standardization decisions. The research aids in providing a better understanding of decision factors and their combinatorial and interactive effects on modularization and standardization decisions and provides recommendations for informed decisions in capital projects.

Keywords

Capital Projects; Decision Factors; Modularization; Standardization

Disciplines

Civil Engineering

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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