Analysis of Government-Led OSC Industrialization Index: Focusing on Singapore’s Buildability Score

The global construction industry faces persistent challenges of low productivity and labor shortages, positioning Off-Site Construction (OSC) as a critical solution. However, standardized industrialization indices for objectively evaluating OSC adoption remain underdeveloped, particularly in emerging markets. This study aims to identify a benchmark policy model and derive design principles for future indices. Specifically, this study focuses on ‘policy-driven markets’ where strong government intervention is essential for initial ecosystem formation, excluding mature market-driven economies where the ecosystem is already established (e.g., USA, Sweden, Japan). To identify an optimal benchmark, a comparative assessment was conducted on five institutional frameworks across four countries (UK, Malaysia, Singapore, and China). Notably, within China, Hong Kong SAR was analyzed as a distinct regulatory jurisdiction separate from Mainland China due to its unique construction governance system. This assessment was based on five key policy dimensions: Legal Mandate, Scope, Indicator Composition, Enforcement Mechanism, and Sustainability. The analysis identified Singapore’s ‘Buildability Score’ as the most comprehensive model in terms of systemic completeness and practical efficacy. A virtual project simulation demonstrated that the scoring system functions as a powerful regulatory mechanism, effectively driving the adoption of standardized, dry-process, and modularized high-productivity methods from the earliest design stages. While Singapore’s system serves as an effective policy tool for OSC proliferation, it exhibits clear limitations regarding reduced architectural design flexibility and insufficient sustainability integration. Consequently, future industrialization indices must evolve to balance productivity with architectural design diversity and integrate sustainability criteria while reflecting specific regional construction ecosystems.