Industry - The use of this term designates the 'doing' part of the construction process, which creates or modifies a built asset. This includes design as well as physical construction. The scope therefore includes the construction supply chain, ranging from major main contractors, to sub-contractors through to suppliers. It also includes the consultancy part of the industry. This review, although having a focus on housing, also uses the term to include physical and social infrastructure and commercial construction. It also does not differentiate between new-build or repairs and maintenance type work or private and public sector activity.

Clients - This term represents the various parties that directly commission the industry (as defined above) to create or modify built assets. This is not necessarily the end user or owner of the asset. Clients of the industry can include central government (when procuring construction activities through government agencies or departments or via regulated industries), regional or local government, Registered Providers, private real estate developers, directly or indirectly developing investors, corporate occupiers, and at the domestic end of the market, the public at large (although this review is not chiefly concerned with the public's direct interface with industry). An interesting hybrid situation exists in the shape of the housebuilder model. The review references this sub sector extensively but it is important to note that its characteristics are different to other client types in that it can also be seen, at least partly, as a component of industry. However, this review takes the stance that housebuilders really need to be defined as a client in that they are commissioning the wider supply chain to execute work and are the final piece in the construction value chain prior to onward sale or leasing to end consumers.

Pre-Manufacture - Many different terms are used in the realm of construction innovation including 'off-site manufacture' 'modern methods of construction' or 'pre-fabrication'. This review uniformly adopts the term pre-manufacture as a generic term to embrace all processes which reduce the level of on-site labour intensity and delivery risk. This implicitly includes a 'design for manufacture & assembly' approach at all levels ranging from component level standardisation and lean processes through to completely pre-finished volumetric solutions. It also includes any element of on-site or adjacent to site temporary or 'flying' factory or consolidation facilities which de-risk in-situ construction, improving productivity and predictability. 'Industry 4.0' is a term often used to reference the fourth industrial revolution underpinned by cyber-physical 'smart' production techniques. It is however clear that in many respects, construction has not even made the transition to 'industry 3.0' status which is predicated on large scale use of electronics and IT to automate production. It is important therefore to see this as the immediate goal and to use terminology and definitions based on industrial strategy benchmarks that reflect this current reality.