Prefabrication experiments - 485 - On- and Offsite management

Dealing with difficult climate conditions, labour shortages, or even health and safety issues on building sites seems to point toward greater offsite uptake as an obvious solution for improving construction's productivity and efficacy. The enduring fragmentation of the sector made up of many small contractors and trades managing their projects on a one-by-one survival-of-the-fittest model has led to a construction industry that is not only conservative but is refractory to any type of change or innovation. Buildings in general still go up inefficiently the same way they have been for the past hundred years and industrialization, while promising an integrated model for producing other commodities, has led to a disjointed process isolating designers from fabricators and builders.

 

Construction has become about managing disparate subtrades and coordinating an onsite entanglement of systems or tasks, that,  at best is ordered by a proficient general contractor or at worst a convoluted mess of discordant contractual relationships. While the building industry’s fragmented culture is difficult to shift on a dime toward harmonized practices, one of the current drivers for reform is the impetus to efficiently respond to the environmental crisis, by reducing waste and gaining any competitive advantages linked to streamlining potential efficiencies.

 

This potential swing toward reducing waste is where construction management and offsite fabrication can be tuned to operate in a just-in-time symbiotic relationship to deliver value added subcomponents. The pre-assembly model is different from basic modular volumetric or panelized systems as it is based on what makes sense to prefabricate and can yield greatest results in terms of time management. The overlap of onsite and offsite tasks is an untapped opportunity to apply manufacturing principles to construction. The constructor-manufacturer integration model also presents challenges, as traditionally companies have specialized in one or the other. However, the benefits of managing tasks ideally suited to their off- or on-site conditions can create a different type of prefabrication company based on managing project processes rather than completely separating construction and manufacturing, which only leads to further entanglement of stakeholders.

Just-in-time delivery of a preassembled chunk