Adopting Modern Methods of Construction in Low-Income Housing Projects in Egypt
Creators: name: Bakhaty, Yamen Mohamed Badawy Sayed
Publisher: name: London South Bank University
Year: 2023

description: Despite being one of the significant contributors to the global economy, construction has been constantly accused of productivity issues, which resulted in the continuous pursuit of innovative methods to improve its performance. Consequently, Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) was proffered as an innovative construction method that brings the advantages of industrialization to construction by manufacturing building components offsite and then transferred and installed onsite. MMC has been adopted in many developed countries to address the housing shortage as it can increase the supply of units, decrease costs and improve the quality of units. Egypt, one of the largest countries in Africa and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, is facing a severe shortage of low-income housing. Despite implementing several housing policies, the shortage continued to grow, especially with the continuous increase in population and other economic and socio-culture challenges. The rationale behind this research is to proffer MMC as a solution to address the shortage of low-income housing as well as the challenges that the Egyptian construction sector is currently facing. The research adopted an inductive approach with an ontological relativism instance and social constructionism epistemological assumption to identify all the influencing factors to MMC adoption in lowincome housing projects from various data sources. Convergent parallel mixed method approach was adopted for data collection and analysis by merging qualitative and quantitative data to provide comprehensive results. Governmental support, industrial capabilities, enhancing the socio-cultural aspects and achieving sustainability were identified as critical success factors to MMC adoption in Egypt. At the same time, high capital costs, lack of training facilities, lack of MMC knowledge and reduced technological readiness were illustrated as challenges and barriers to MMC adoption. From the results, a framework to adopt MMC in social housing projects was established, consisting of seven main pillars that cover the influencing factors on its implementation. The framework was divided into four phases to ensure successful implementation, including the role of the involved stakeholders during each stage. The framework was validated through a series of interviews with experts in construction management to ensure its effectiveness and practicality. The framework provides a clear strategy for adopting and implementing MMC in social housing projects in Egypt by considering all the influencing factors that can impact it. It provides an understanding of the specific nature of the Egyptian construction and housing sectors, where its main target is to integrate MMC systematically. The research contributes to the theory of adoption of MMC in developing countries by considering social and cultural factors that can help accept or reject innovation in social housing projects. This research contributes to knowledge by providing new insights into MMC implementation in developing countries by integrating the socio-cultural factors with other economic and technical factors. The study provided critical analysis on how MMC can address the current challenges in the Egyptian context such as the deteriorated architectural heritage, social-cultural needs and other economic, industrial and technical factors.