Using System Dynamics Modelling to Identify the Factors Affecting the Demand for Fibre Cement Buildings

The global increasing demand for accommodation has led researchers and engineers in the field of construction to investigate approaches and new technologies that can contribute to construct cheaper and sustainable buildings. However, adoption of new technologies in constructing buildings requires intense study of the influential factors that might affect the demand for such buildings. In this paper, the factors that could have a significant impact on demand for adopting one of the construction technologies (fiber cement) are investigated. Identification of such factors can assist construction companies and contractors to improve their service quality to be able to compete with other traditional building construction services. A number of techniques are proposed to deliver the aim of this paper. A questionnaire is designed to investigate a number of influential factors on fiber cement technology. The Systems Dynamic Modelling is selected as a methodology to model the effect of these factors on demand and to show the type of such effect. Fibre cement technology is selected in this paper due to a number of advantages such as cost effective, attractive, and resistant to fire and humidity and other reassembling issues. A number of factors such as construction cost, advertisement, customer awareness, availability of classic buildings and quality of fibre cement buildings are expected to be the major factors impacting on the demand for fibre cement buildings.