Supply Chain Vulnerability in Prefabricated Building Projects and Digital Mitigation Technologies

Supply chain vulnerability (SCV) is a driver of risk influenced by the defects of stakeholders’ management and decision making as well as the interactions between SCV factors. We adopted the social network analysis to explore SCV in prefabricated building projects (PBPs) from multiple perspectives. A two-mode network was constructed to quantitatively analyze the impact of stakeholders on SCV factors. A one-mode network was also built to explore the interrelationships between SCV factors. Digital technologies (DTs) were then investigated to understand whether and how they contribute to SCV abatement in PBPs. Results show that stakeholders have different degrees of influence on different categories of SCV factors. The main contractor, assembly subcontractor, and manufacturer are the critical stakeholders generating SCV with significant potential for cooperation in reducing SCV in PBPs. Critical SCV factors, links, and the associated influencing paths are analyzed to gain in-depth insights into SCV. Project organizational vulnerabilities account for the largest proportion of critical nodes. The combination of building information modeling, Internet of things, augmented reality, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence can effectively alleviate SCV in PBPs. This article provides valuable theoretical and practical implications on SCV reduction and DTs promotion.