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Why culture, data and process matter more than chasing volumetric headlines.
For more than a decade, Adam Strong has sat somewhere between advocate, critic and operator inside Australia’s industrialised construction sector. (main image: L–R: Simon Xiberras, Jamie Strong and Adam Strong at the rear of the original Strongbuild factory in Bella Vista, manufacturing roof cassettes for the Macquarie University Incubator.)
Strongbuild, formerly based in Sydney, was an early Australian adopter of mass timber and panelised construction. Strong joined the business in 2010 and led its industrialised construction delivery work, combining engineered timber systems, CLT, BIM based digital modelling and prefabricated delivery across medium rise residential and commercial projects at a time when much of the local industry still viewed prefab as niche.
The business entered voluntary administration in 2018 following what Strong describes as an external liquidity event. He argues the operational side of the company was working at scale by that stage, with approximately $270 million in revenue and around 150 staff, reinforcing his broader view that industrialised construction success depends as much on systems and operational integration as the physical building methodology itself.
In a wide-ranging discussion with Built Offsite, Strong said many of construction’s productivity problems begin long before a project reaches a factory floor.
Now consulting through Project Innovator, Strong has shifted away from talking purely about modular buildings or volumetric systems. Instead, he is framing construction productivity through a wider operational lens built around culture, data, lean construction principles, AI integration and incremental industrialisation.
It is a position that sits slightly outside the usual local MMC conversation, which often gravitates toward manufacturing facilities, robotics or imported volumetric housing systems.
Strong believes many businesses are still attempting to industrialise construction without first understanding how fragmented their internal systems actually are.
“I think the market still sees modern methods of construction as jumping straight to the end game,” he says.
“One of the clients I worked with wanted to go straight into a high rise volumetric modular pilot. That’s a huge risk. Businesses need a controlled transition strategy first.”
Strongbuild’s lessons still shape industrialised construction thinking
Looking back, Strong says Strongbuild’s biggest achievement was not necessarily the timber systems themselves, but the operational structure sitting underneath them.
The business had been modelling projects in ARCHICAD since the mid 2000s, well before BIM coordination became standard industry language in Australia. After joining the company in 2010, Strong led the expansion of BIM integrated workshop drawings, sequencing, QA requirements and compliance workflows that tied operational information directly to task-based delivery systems.
Without necessarily using the language at the time, Strong says the business had already adopted many of the principles now associated with lean construction and industrialised delivery.
“We had a manufacturing mindset before we really called it that,” he says.
“We structured programs around flow, sequencing and location-based delivery. We linked information directly to tasks and compliance checkpoints. That’s manufacturing thinking.”
That operational structure, he argues, became just as important as the physical prefabrication systems themselves.
Strong says one of the clearest lessons emerged when working alongside more traditional builders who had not built the same internal culture around collaboration and process integration.
“Management teams might support innovation, but then site teams actively resist it,” he says.
“A lot of traditional site managers become uncomfortable when major project components move outside their direct control.”
According to Strong, that resistance often becomes one of the hidden barriers preventing broader industrialised construction adoption in Australia.
Why culture remains construction’s biggest barrier
While the broader industry discussion often focuses on manufacturing capability, robotics or factory investment, Strong believes organisational culture remains the largest unresolved issue.
“If you don’t create the right culture internally, people inside the business will work against change,” he says.
That resistance, he argues, explains why many highly publicised pilot projects fail to scale beyond isolated demonstrations.
Strong is particularly cautious about businesses rushing toward large scale volumetric systems before understanding their own operational maturity.
“People see volumetric modular as the end destination,” he says.
“But there’s foundational work that has to happen first around systems, workflow integration, data structure and delivery capability.”
Instead, he advocates gradual migration toward industrialised construction methods through smaller interventions including prefabricated building elements, improved BIM coordination, better sequencing and digital integration.
“Builders don’t need to completely disrupt their operations overnight,” he says.
“They can start introducing prefabricated components incrementally while improving digital coordination and process control.”
AI becomes the next productivity battleground
Over the last year, Strong has increasingly shifted his attention toward AI driven operational systems inside construction businesses.
Rather than focusing on consumer-facing chatbots, he has been building more autonomous agent-based workflows designed to connect fragmented construction software systems and reduce duplicated data handling.
“Most builders are operating with 10 to 15 disconnected systems,” he says.
“You’ve got finance, safety, document control, compliance, QA, site systems and reporting all sitting separately.”
According to Strong, the amount of duplicated information handling across construction businesses remains enormous.
He refers to it as the industry’s “manual data tax”.
Traditionally, integrating those systems required major software investment and bespoke development work. Strong believes AI is now reducing those barriers significantly.
“Two years ago, connecting all those systems properly would have cost millions,” he says.
“Now AI can sit across those fragmented systems and start leveraging the data much more effectively.”
Strong argues the immediate opportunity for many builders is not fully automated housing factories, but operational efficiency gains through workflow integration and process automation.
That includes compliance mapping, reporting automation, product development workflows and design coordination.
He has already developed internal AI tools trained on Australian construction codes and standards capable of assisting with compliance analysis and product assessment.
Why material agnosticism matters in industrialised construction
Strong also believes parts of the Australian industrialised construction sector have become too closely aligned to individual material systems.
Over the last five to seven years, he says he has deliberately moved toward a materially agnostic position.
“Timber has its place. Steel has its place. Precast has its place,” he says.
“The reality is most successful projects involve a combination of systems and materials.”
That flexibility, he argues, becomes increasingly important when advising larger developers and builders with established delivery preferences and internal risk frameworks.
“There’s no point trying to force a square peg into a round hole,” he says.
“Some builders are highly comfortable with timber systems. Others simply aren’t.”
Instead, Strong believes the industry needs better frameworks for evaluating methodologies based on project typology, risk appetite, supply chain capability and operational readiness.
Supply chain maturity remains a major challenge
Strong says many developers and builders still underestimate how fragmented Australia’s industrialised construction supply chain remains.
“A lot of businesses jump straight to a solution before understanding the market,” he says.
Builders considering industrialised delivery approaches need to understand supplier capacity, IP restrictions, manufacturing capability and long term scalability before locking themselves into systems.
That challenge becomes even more pronounced as international players continue assessing Australian market opportunities.
Strong believes offshore systems and imported building components will inevitably become part of Australia’s industrialised construction ecosystem as the sector expands.
“If the offsite market grows from three per cent to nine per cent, that changes the scale conversation entirely,” he says.
“It attracts investment and larger manufacturing capability.”
Why BIM and digital coordination still matter
Strong also continues advocating for better BIM integrated workflows across industrialised construction.
He believes the sector still lacks sufficiently developed digital product libraries and configurable BIM integrated component systems that allow builders to rapidly assess compliant construction options.
“There needs to be better digital tools that allow builders and developers to properly assess systems and integrate them into workflows,” he says.
That discussion increasingly overlaps with broader questions around standardisation, digital compliance and national harmonisation of construction systems.
For Strong, however, the core issue remains less about technology itself and more about operational readiness.
The software already exists. The manufacturing systems already exist. The challenge, he argues, is whether construction businesses are culturally and operationally prepared to use them properly.
“There’s a lot of focus on the shiny end result,” he says.
“But productivity improvement starts much earlier than that.”
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