Barriers to Adoption of Precast Concrete Construction in Buildings

The increasing demands for housing the burgeoning urban population in developing countries like India has impelled the need to shift to mechanised construction practices like Precast Concrete Construction (PCCon) for faster supply of projects.  PCCon has been successfully implemented in developed countries to meet the once prevalent housing shortages and is still being adopted extensively in high rise residential building projects in these countries.  PCCon offers several benefits compared to cast in situ construction practices such as reduced construction time, time and cost certainty, improved quality control and improved health and safety.  PCCon also promotes environment friendly construction, addresses shortage of skills and results in minimisation of life cycle costs.  Despite these benefits, there is only limited uptake for PCCon in developing countries.  An extensive literature review was carried out in this study and 39 preliminary barriers to adoption of PCCon were identified.  These have been classified into 6 categories, namely, Cost issues, Project delivery and Supply chain, Design issues, Awareness and Knowledge, Policies and Regulation, Social climate and Market demand.  The prospects and challenges to adoption of PCCon, particularly in the Indian construction sector, are also discussed. The results of study will create an awareness on the barriers to adoption of PCCon and thereby help policy makers, industrialists and various stakeholders associated with PCCon to plan their future actions.