# Construction Quality of Prefabricated Buildings Using Structural Equation Modeling
## 1 Introduction  
Prefabricated buildings have received significant attention and undergone extensive development due to their numerous advantages, such as heightened construction efficiency, reduced environmental pollution, and effective improvement of building quality [1]. In the 20 th century, Europe witnessed the emergence of industrialized prefabrication techniques. This gained traction globally, especially in Europe, Japan, and the US. Urbanization, driven by the Industrial Revolution, prompted a shift of rural populations to cities, resulting in poor living conditions. Prefabrication was developed to address urban housing demands. Post-World War II, severe urban housing damage and labor shortages led to the significant growth of prefabricated modular construction in select advanced European nations during the 1950s. Industrialized assembly methods became a key solution for large-scale residential projects, laying the groundwork for standardized and serialized housing systems that persist today. During prefabricated building construction, diverse factors significantly impact quality--encompassing design, materials, hoisting, and management. Poor oversight at each stage risks accidents, yielding substantial economic losses [2]. Major development challenges encompass the following: limited project planning experience leading to inadequate feasibility studies; design coordination issues due to designers' insufficient grasp of advanced technology meeting production needs; scarcities in advanced manufacturing and transportation techniques and protective measures for finished products; contractors applying conventional concrete-focused quality practices instead of tailored ones; a lack of construction personnel responsibility; and unclear quality management goals among managers [3]. Notably, both project managers and construction personnel often lack experience in fabricated building practices. Issues like improper component lifting, weak connections,lax acceptance scrutiny, and seismic performance assessment hamper quality and industry progress. Hence, exploring factors impacting quality and enhancing performance is pivotal in influencing the prefabricated building sector's advancement. The design and construction of assembled buildings are closely integrated, necessitating a professional construction team capable of executing the construction with high standards of collaboration among involved parties; moreover, the new process entails unclear sources of hazards and poses significant risks during the construction hoisting [4]. Traditional cast-in-place construction is categorized as on-site wet work, involving a significant amount of manual work with limited specialization among workers. However, in the case of fabricated buildings, the construction phase primarily relies on mechanical hoisting, necessitating a certain level of expertise among workers. Consequently, changes in construction methods and processes and the operation of the construction phase directly influence the construction quality of fabricated buildings. Hence, this work will focus on the construction phase of fabricated buildings. The process of constructing fabricated buildings by contractors is not conducted in isolation, and the parties involved in the project must be viewed as a system, with the constructor functioning as a subsystem of this system [5]. The efficient performance of the overall system requires the mutual collaboration of its subsystems. The owner or supervision unit is responsible for providing the necessary site facilities and conducting construction acceptance for the contractor. The component supplier collaborates with the contractor to complete the component transportation and inspection. The design unit conducts drawing reviews, technical deliveries, and design changes for the contractor. The contractor supervises the construction quality of the subcontractor at the same time.