According to many experts, the most important role in the rapid rise of the Japanese construction industry was played by the requirement, officially enshrined in national legislation, for the six largest national construction corporations (the so-called Big Six: Shimizu Corporation, Taisei Corporation, Kajima Corporation, Takenaka Corporation, Obayashi Corporation and Kumagai Gumi) to invest at least 0.5% of their annual turnover in R&D. Moreover, the regular contributions of the Big Six significantly exceeded this state-regulated lower threshold, since the heads of the largest Japanese construction companies, even without additional prodding from the authorities, readily allocated funds for the creation and development of their own research and development departments.
Japan has made particularly great progress in the area of production technology and improvement of new building materials: for many years, the construction industry and its supporting industries have paid close attention to promising foreign technological developments, spending significant funds on the purchase and subsequent independent refinement of all interesting licenses. A striking example of the successful implementation of such a long-term program for the development of building materials production is the steelmaking sector and steel processing. Today, Japan is a recognized world leader in the production of welded refractory steel grades and high-strength steel profiles. Special mention should be made of the developments of Japanese engineers and technologists in creating active and passive systems for controlled damping of buildings in the event of earthquakes and various strong aerodynamic disturbances.
The modern construction industry of our eastern neighbor is a classic two-tier system: at the top level is a relatively small number of large corporations (the so-called zenekon), while the lower level consists of more than 500 thousand small subcontractor firms. In addition to the already mentioned «big six», zenekon also includes about twenty relatively large companies, of which five corporations — Fujita Corporation, Toda Corporation, Hazama Corporation, Tokyo Construction and Mitsui Construction — belong to the so-called second tier of the upper level.
The largest Japanese corporations — Zenekon, both first and second tier, today have advanced technologies for designing and building ultra-modern skyscrapers, their factories are equipped with special clean rooms for automated assembly of high-tech components, Zenekon — are recognized world leaders in the field of construction of tunnels and various underground structures. Finally, what is especially important, they have the most modern technologies of robotization and computer automation of construction processes and the construction of «intelligent» buildings (with automated life support systems), as well as the mass use of factory modular structures (prefabricated modular devices).
In the 1980s, stagnation in domestic demand caused by the aftermath of the first oil shock led to a reorientation of leading Japanese construction firms to seek new contracts abroad. This forced change of priorities turned out to be very successful: from the overall seventh place in the international construction contracts market in 1981, Japan moved up to second place in 1989, second only to the United States. And already in the early 1990s, thanks to the active integration of automated construction systems and robotization of its construction projects, the country finally established itself in a leading position in the global construction market.
According to independent foreign experts, over the last two decades of the 20th century alone, more than 550 different systems for automation and robotization of construction work and unmanned construction technologies have been developed and implemented in Japan. The most significant technological innovations include automatic floor finishing systems, machines for continuous factory production of reinforced concrete reinforcement, CNC welding and painting robots, unmanned forklifts and giant robotic manipulators, thanks to which it is possible to achieve a significant reduction in the number of workers on the construction site.
Particularly effective methods were proposed by Japanese engineers and technologists in high-rise housing construction. Thus, the mass use of automatic floor jacks made it possible to drastically reduce the construction time: high-rise buildings grew approximately twice as fast as using traditional methods. Automated equipment delivers factory-made modular elements of the future building to the construction site, from columns and beams to floor panels and interior trim parts. Construction begins with the installation of a special stepped platform for the top floor (thereby creating a kind of protection from possible adverse weather conditions). Then everything goes according to the normal scheme, that is, from the bottom up. Robots equipped with a computer control system accurately install all the modules in accordance with the project, and automatic welding units weld the columns and beams. Upon completion of the installation of all interfloor ceilings, the integrated hydraulic systems of the stepped platforms rise to the next level, and the entire cycle is repeated anew. The automated system allows not only to dramatically reduce construction time (all construction work in this mode is carried out on a 24-hour schedule), but also to achieve a significant reduction in specific labor costs and industrial injuries. Thus, according to experts, when constructing a twenty-story building using this technology, labor costs, measured in man-hours, are reduced by an average of 30%.
Tigran Oganesyan
Expert Group |
