Economics of on-site vs. off-site fabrication of rebar

Gul Polat, David Arditi, Glenn Ballard and Ugur Mungen

Construction Management and Economics, 2006, vol. 24, issue 11, 1185-1198

Abstract: Many contractors prefer on-site fabrication of rebar while others find that off-site fabrication is more advantageous. The economics of on-site and off-site fabrication of rebar need to be compared on the basis of several factors that include the project environment, wages, labour considerations, the initial investment for equipment, waste of rebar, the cost of inventory, cycle time, and supply chain management. This study presents an economic comparison of the on-site and off-site fabrication practices of rebar by means of a simulation model that makes use of the factors mentioned earlier. The model is populated with actual data obtained from a trade centre project in Istanbul, Turkey. The article indicates that the off-site fabrication practice would have been more costly than the on-site practice in the project in Istanbul, a finding that was to be expected in circumstances that prevail in most developing countries.

Keywords: Lean construction; cut and bent rebar; on-site fabrication; off-site fabrication; simulation model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01446190500529432 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:conmgt:v:24:y:2006:i:11:p:1185-1198

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RCME20

DOI: 10.1080/01446190500529432

Access Statistics for this article

Construction Management and Economics is currently edited by Will Hughes

More articles in Construction Management and Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().