Advanced manufacturing, big data optimizations along with precise resource management are all combining to generate all manner of efficient fabrication and labour-saving production processes. This is the case in nearly all sectors. Why haven’t these translated to a competitive edge for prefabrication deployed toward building construction? This simple question relates to offsite construction and manufacturing requiring different cost structures, an enduring obstacle to a sustainable uptake. Most agree, prefab reduces timelines; if time is money, prefab should be much cheaper when compared to onsite conventional construction. Time savings have not necessarily translated to economies on one-off projects. Higher upfront planning costs, greater factory overhead, entanglements caused by on- and off-site coordination and steep learning curves for inexperienced stakeholders can increase overall expenditures.
When compared to other manufacturing sectors where industrialization has optimized quality, while reducing time and costs per unit, architecture remains bogged down in singular prototypes. Each building includes far too many contextual specificities to justify the mass production flows required to consistently lower costs. Replicating details, components, processes over multiple projects can present opportunities for bulk purchasing and regulating supply chains, however, varying loads, soil conditions, environmental constraints, management requirements in dense urban areas, ever-changing stakeholders, and code obligations all differ from one site to another occluding stable demand for normalized designs that would induce important savings.
Notwithstanding the one-off contextual intricacies, reduced timelines should still translate to savings in overall project costs. A condensed schedule of even a modest 10-15% on a standard timeline can minimize interest payments on loans, site management costs like heating for winter conditions, equipment rentals and even deliver earlier earning potentials, an important advantage in housing or production facilities. A structured global cost analysis and comparisons should be applied to offsite construction by including some type of time equivalent factorization. The archaic nature of onsite construction is still mired in analysing construction costs in terms of management, labor and materials. Reforming costing methodologies is one of the important cultural shifts required to increase offsite construction’s potential market penetration.
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| Extracted from https://www.ellismodular.com/why-modular/ |
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