A FINE BALANCE: SKILLS PLANNING FOR AN EVOLVING INDUSTRY

Dr Karen Manley has researched the thorny issue of skills training for the prefab sector with other Queensland University of Technology academics, Dr Wendy Miller and Dr Dale Steinhardt. She says that the uptake of prefab by consumers is the primary driver in the sector evolving and therefore having the numbers to support appropriate training courses.

“The evidence from leading countries, such as Japan and Sweden, with prefab adoption rates of 15 per cent and more than 50 per cent respectively, suggests consumer demand and energy regulations are key industry drivers. Australia’s adoption rates is less than 5 per cent.

She says that consumer demand can be stimulated from within the industry, but not many industry participants want to take the lead.

“In Australia, I think that leading architects in Sydney and Melbourne are demonstrating to consumers that a prefab can be beautiful, affordable and cheap to run. It is important to overturn the image of the mining donga and uniform post-war housing.”

“In this respect, the project home builders are very important. Do their display homes model prefabricated advances?

So far, ‘no’, but key players, like Stockland, keep a watching brief on developments, in Japan, for instance. They are waiting for the business case to improve. And I don’t mean the whole-of-life-cost, because that is already demonstrably lower than for a traditionally built home, due to up-front and on-going energy savings, with improved waste utilisation during construction, and more precise joins between building interfaces reducing unintended air-flow during operation.

“Stockland, and other key players, know that prefab will ultimately be cheaper; they are just waiting for it to become a reality. The EU has done a lot of work on the business case; it is just a matter of gathering more hard evidence internationally. When this is done, Australian project home builders will drive change, as consumer demand will rise with reduced costs.

The University of Melbourne began teaching prefabrication in building in 2012 and has offered the subject every two years. From 2018, it will be available yearly.

The subject attracts a mix of architects, construction managers and some civil engineers and is offered as a multi-discipline elective towards the end of their masters. Numbers are increasing and have risen from around 22 in the early years to 50.

The subject aims to give students an appreciation of how and why prefab is used, and looks at the latest componentised, panelised and volumetric systems. As well as a strong appreciation of the industry here and overseas, students also come away with the skills to quantify the benefits of prefab, techniques for analysing and comparing prefab and conventional building and the knowledge to understand how prefab can be applied to minimise or avoid issues faced by the construction industry. The subject incorporates site visits to panelised and modular factories and to prefab construction sites.

“Every year we try to polish the subject and make it better,” says Dr Andre Stephan, lecturer in architectural engineering at the University of Melbourne. “We more or less cover the basics and all the different assemblies.

“We have to make a decision at some stage to make this a core subject.

In 2015, the University of Melbourne, in partnership with the University of Sydney, Curtin University of Technology and Monash University, was awarded a $4 million grant to establish Australian Research Council Training Centre for Advanced Manufacturing of Prefabricated Housing. Stephan says that the PhDs who worked on research under this grant are graduating industry ready.

“It is injecting a lot of skills into the market,” he says. “They either get a job here or take their skills overseas.

“Every year we try to polish the subject and make it better,” […] “We more or less cover the basics and all the different assemblies.

“We have to make a decision at some stage to make this a core subject.”
Dr Andre Stephan, lecturer in architectural engineering at the University of Melbourne.

David Christy, senior educator in the Building, Design and Management department at Chisholm TAFE in Victoria, is looking at requirements on the factory floor and on-site construction. From his point of view, supply and demand is a delicate balance. “Educators need to be ahead of the curve, but not too far ahead. If we are too far ahead, there are no jobs,” he says.

The TAFE is conducting a pilot four-week skills-set unit that concentrates on the core knowledge that people need to make a start in the construction industry, whether in the prefab sector or in traditional building.

“What we do is draw from existing units and contextualise and modify them for the manufacturing area of prefab. We’re making it as relevant to industry as it can be.”

“We see this as a real starting point and something that participants can build on,” says Christy. “There is no qualification specifically for prefab at the moment.”

The skills set is seen as a pathway to further education or to looking for work. Units taught are workplace communication, measuring and calculation, reading and interpreting plans and specifications, tools and equipment, occupational health and safety, and the construction induction card (white card).

“We couldn’t do everything at once. The industry is still small and we can’t be churning out students when there is no work for them. We engaged consultants to do a training needs analysis and they identified manufacturing as the best area to start with.”

“We couldn’t do everything at once. The industry is still small and we can’t be churning out students when there is no work for them. We engaged consultants to do a training needs analysis and they identified manufacturing as the best area to start with.”
David Christy, senior educator – Building, Design and Management, Chisholm TAFE.

It seems most likely that prefab training will evolve as part of existing building courses, included where appropriate. The design, development and accreditation of a new course make for a lengthy and expensive undertaking. “It can take years,” Christy says.

“It might be best to start embedding elements of prefab into other courses. Our building design course, for example, is up for reaccreditation. We need to have something in there about prefab. We need to try to future-proof that course.”

Christy says that just ensuring the continuation of the pilot program is quite challenging. “We’re trying to educate our trainers. We’re hunting for students. Vocational training can be a bit stop-start until the word gets out. We’re also hunting for businesses that want to become involved – companies that can donate materials or meet us halfway with materials.

“We have a workshop at our campus in Dandenong, and we need examples of various panelised systems so that students can see the different types and put them together.”

He says that in some ways, training for prefab is about training a mind-set rather than skills. “A lot of companies will look to carpenters to fill the skills void, particularly for on-site staff. They’ve worked in an industry that’s all bespoke. If something doesn’t fit, for example, a typical carpenter has the skills to make it fit. In prefab, that process is quite different. Carpenters are used to being onsite for a long period. When they’re told that they have to erect a building in three days, they often don’t understand. It’s a mindset they need training for.”

“A lot of companies will look to carpenters to fill the skills void, particularly for on-site staff. They’ve worked in an industry that’s all bespoke. If something doesn’t fit, for example, a typical carpenter has the skills to make it fit. In prefab, that process is quite different. Carpenters are used to being onsite for a long period. When they’re told that they have to erect a building in three days, they often don’t understand. It’s a mindset they need training for.”
David Christy.

Christy says that Chisholm is not getting the numbers of students through building courses that they used to and says that the vocational training sector has taken a hit because government funding has been reduced and the requirements for a university place have been lowered. “People who would have gone to Chisholm can now get into uni.”

Chisholm has delivered workplace training with prefab factories and identified skills gaps. The greatest lack, Christy says, is technology skills. “Longer term, we will probably be training people in multiple qualifications.”

Shane Strong, business developer manager at Strongbuild, says that it was the lack of skilled workers in the traditional construction industry that prompted the family to incorporate modular construction into their conventional building company.

Strongbuild, which operates out of Sydney and Berry in NSW, employs around 175 people in two divisions – home building, prefab and custom, and a community building division. Prefab manufacturing occupies an 8000 square metre state-of-the-art factory.

“We could see that there would be trouble down the track, because of the lack of skilled labour. There are not the same number of trades apprentices going through.”

“Not having skilled labour affects everything – pricing, quality of the product, delivery times.

“Strongbuild decided to go into prefab as way of being able to control the process and the quality of the product.”

However, it’s not the answer to every problem with construction in the future, he says. Builders and architects still need to look at each project individually and decide the best technique. “Prefab may be applied in various ways, from just a bathroom pod to full panelisation or volumetric construction.

“As far as courses and learning about prefab goes, it needs to be integrated within standard building courses.”

Strong says that good carpenters and people with technical knowledge are hard to find. The company has an internal people and culture manager with a lot of contacts in the industry. “We’re also using social media quite a bit, along with Seek. We’ve got quite a few staff through Facebook. We post the ads and push them out through our networks. We use LinkedIn for the more professional jobs.”

“It’s certainly an employee’s market at the moment.”

Strongbuild does a lot of its own training of staff and brings in training providers for job-specific topics such as time management and computer skills.

Joe Gordon, head of human resources at Impresa House in Derrimut, Victoria, says that the company, which employs around 35 people, generally looks at attitude as much as skills sets.

“With factory staff, we look for a positive attitude and a strong work ethic. Staff retention is important to us. However, it’s also important to find people who can adapt to the technology.

“Probably the most trouble we have is finding the balance between strong carpentry skills and strong technology skills,” Gordon says.

Impresa House, which focuses on creating sustainable, energy efficient and full customisable homes, has quite recently made the transition from conventional building to panelised construction and is creating modular homes with an eight-star energy rating using German Weinmann tech-nology.

New recruits to the factory floor are trained in-house training with a zone leader.

“We spend two weeks or more on training – the right practices, safety, technical training. People need to know how we do things and how all the processes fit together before they start.”

“We spend two weeks or more on training – the right practices, safety, technical training. People need to know how we do things and how all the processes fit together before they start.”
Joe Gordon, head of HR – Impresa House.

The design team comprises four draftspeople headed up by a building designer.

“Generally the candidate pool for draftspeople is not large,” says Gordon. “As well as knowing the software and the design practices, they also need a good understanding of such aspects as town planning.

“In a way, the techno side of things may not be such an issue as we go forward and technology becomes more and more commonplace.”

The Master Builders Association of Victoria has been working with displaced employees from the car industry to explore the possibility of transferring to the prefab sector.

Radley de Silva, CEO of the Master Builders Association of Victoria, says that the recent rapid population increase in Victoria means the building sector faces a shortage of skilled tradespeople, and we need to look at displaced workers in the auto industry as potentially well-placed to help fill many of those roles.

“It may not be obvious, but there are parallel skill sets in the auto industry and the building and construction sector, perhaps most notably when it comes to preparedness for roles in prefabricated and manufactured housing.”

“It may not be obvious, but there are parallel skill sets in the auto industry and the building and construction sector, perhaps most notably when it comes to preparedness for roles in prefabricated and manufactured housing.”
Radley de Silva, CEO of the Master Builders Association of Victoria.

“Master Builders was pleased to help outgoing auto employees, from both Toyota and Ford, to identify their transferable skills and refine them to present themselves as highly attractive, employable workers in the building and construction industry.”

“Our Building Leadership Simulation Centre (BLSC) in South Melbourne specialises in real-time, immersive training that helps clients develop soft skills, like communication and interpersonal transactions, which make them more effective workers,” he says.

Meanwhile recruiting companies contacted by Built Offsite say that they have few specific prefab requests, but do fulfil requests for prefab companies for the more conventional occupations such as forklift driving.■