It’s exciting and very creative.
If these additional modular construction costs can be offset by large improvements in construction site efficiency, for example by relocating wet trades or complex specialist trades away from the site, a 3D module might make sense.But, with modular construction, it’s often the case that prefabricating comparatively simple parts of a building as 3D modules adds cost and complexity, especially if the required trades need to be present on-site anyway..
The problems found in modular construction are only compounded by inefficient factory working.The cost of any prefabricated component (indeed, any component of any building) can be divided into materials and labour.If we ignore the cost of the labour that has gone into making the component, we only have material costs left, resulting in limited opportunities to add value.
Manufacturers have understood this for decades and spent a great deal of effort developing highly productive assembly routines that enabled the mass production, automation and commoditisation that fuelled the consumer age.. Too often factories are treated as ‘construction sites in a shed' producing bespoke, custom components with overlapping trades and poor works sequencing, causing reduced value and the same inefficiencies that are often found on construction sites.We want the factories that produce components for the construction industry to be more like the best factories making consumer goods; highly efficient, controlled and focused on achieving the highest throughput for the lowest cost, without compromising on quality..
In short, we want factories to be less like construction sites.. Construction Platforms: our MMC approach to achieving the best mix of on-site and off-site construction.
At Bryden Wood, we have over 25 years’ experience applying all types of MMC solutions to a huge range of projects.Once an agreed set of options has been identified and developed, we finalise our evaluation, develop recommendations and an output which is a clear and compelling presentation of the findings, and possible next steps.
We focus on ensuring that the output: meets the business’s needs; is cost effective and robust, but also flexible and adaptable, and; is practical to implement (for example: along with the usual constraints of time and budget, we may well need to work around keeping current processes fully operational while we effect any changes).. It’s important to state that this is not Bryden Wood dictating the master planning solution to the client.This remains a collaborative process.
What we are doing at this stage is offering a range of best possible options, to allow the client to decide for themselves the approach they want to follow.This decision is rightly theirs – based as it may be on future flexibility, their assessment of market direction or, not unusually, on commercial considerations that they may not want to share with us.