Industrialised construction can begin long before the robots arrive

Builders do not need to establish a highly automated factory to begin adopting industrialised construction, according to speakers at an industry briefing jointly organised by Built Offsite and Master Builders Victoria. (main image: From left, FTMA Australia CEO Kerstin Gentle, Randek Chief Operating Officer Ola Skoglund, hsbcad Country Manager – Australasia Frank Davern and Master Builders Victoria Sustainable Building Advisor Dr Philip Alviano during the Practical Pathways to Industrialised Construction panel in Melbourne.)

Held at Master Builders Victoria’s East Melbourne headquarters on 4 September, Practical Pathways to Industrialised Construction brought builders, manufacturers, designers and technology specialists together to examine how businesses can progressively shift more construction activity into controlled manufacturing environments.

Built Offsite publisher Michael Dolphin opened the briefing, followed by an official welcome from Master Builders Victoria Chief of Public Affairs Corrie Williams.

The three presentations were delivered by Frank Davern of construction software company hsbcad, Frame and Truss Manufacturers Association of Australia CEO Kerstin Gentle and Randek Chief Operating Officer Ola Skoglund. The presentations were followed by a panel discussion involving the speakers, Williams and Master Builders Victoria’s Philip Alviano.

Dolphin said industrialised construction should be understood as a spectrum rather than a single production model.

“Industrialised construction doesn’t mean that everyone needs to build a highly automated factory now,” Dolphin said.

“There’s a broader spectrum of opportunity from better design, manufacture and assembly through to increasingly sophisticated offsite production. For many businesses, the practical pathway may simply be to start small but think big.”

Digital design before machinery
Davern said the starting point for many businesses could be the connection between design, manufacturing and site installation.

He demonstrated how a three-dimensional building model could contain the architectural, structural and manufacturing information required to produce wall, floor and roof elements.

“We call this the digital twin,” Davern said. “Whatever you see in your architectural and your structural model is what’s manufactured in the factory.”

Under this approach, information from the model can generate CNC cutting files, saw files, robotic instructions, bills of materials and digital shop drawings. The same information can also be used for production scheduling, quality-control records, delivery sequencing and installation instructions for site teams.

Rather than relying on separate drawings and disconnected information, Davern said the objective was to maintain a “single source of truth” from design through to production and assembly.

He pointed to a Homes NSW project involving 16 duplexes and approximately 1,760 manufactured wall and floor elements. According to Davern, the panelised system allowed each duplex to reach a watertight stage following a four-day onsite installation.

A separate UK housing example involved ten homes reaching the market in 52 days. Davern said the manufacturer estimated that the system removed between 50 and 100 days from the construction program, although the manufactured product itself was not necessarily cheaper than conventional construction.

“We’re not necessarily saying that these products are going to be cheaper than what you’re doing today,” he said. “But planned correctly, you can make savings.”

Those savings could come from reducing the period for which a site remained open, limiting scaffolding and waste costs, improving sequencing and allowing factory production to occur while site works were underway.

Building on existing manufacturing capacity
Gentle argued that Australia’s established frame and truss sector already represented a national industrialised construction network. Frame and truss businesses routinely receive building designs, engineer and manufacture structural components in controlled environments, bundle them in installation sequence and deliver them to site.

“We already have hundreds of manufacturing facilities around Australia with people who understand prefabrication, structural engineering, logistics and the manufacturing of building components,” Gentle said.

“Importantly, those manufacturers already have established relationships with builders.”

She said industrialisation should not be framed as a contest between conventional building, frame and truss manufacturing, panelisation and volumetric modular construction. The appropriate balance between factory and site activity would vary between businesses and projects.

“I don’t see industrialised construction as builder versus manufacturer, traditional construction versus MMC, or frame and truss even versus modular,” Gentle said.

“What I see is an opportunity to change the balance between what happens in the factory and what happens on site.”

Gentle said manufacturers should be brought into projects earlier so that design decisions could account for production, transport and assembly. Attempting to convert a completed conventional design into a manufactured solution at the end of the design process would lose much of the potential productivity benefit.

She also identified System 600 and the proposed lightweight timber framing standard as possible pathways for existing manufacturers to move into townhouse and three- and four-storey construction.

Automation as a progression
Skoglund, whose Sweden-based company Randek supplies machinery and robotic production systems for timber and light-gauge steel construction, said industrialisation did not require businesses to move immediately to a fully automated production line.

“Industrialised construction is not a single destination,” Skoglund said. “Every step pays back on its own.”

Initial changes could include improving product information, adopting DfMA principles, digitising drawings, reorganising material flows or introducing equipment for individual repetitive tasks.

“This doesn’t require large sums of capital,” he said. “It does require a bit of tinkering and a bit of engagement.”

Skoglund said standalone machinery could provide repeatability, tighter tolerances, safer working conditions and increased output. Production lines and robotic cells could be added as volumes increased and businesses gained a clearer understanding of their products and future markets.

However, automation suppliers needed to be involved early. Product dimensions, materials, factory layouts, production volumes and possible future products would all influence the type of machinery required.

Skoglund said automation was particularly suited to repetitive, physically demanding and potentially dangerous work.

“Repetition, heavy lifting and dangerous tasks are things that we’re better off doing automatically, therefore creating better work for people,” he said.

The discussion also examined the skills required in increasingly automated factories. Skoglund said existing construction knowledge remained important because machinery operators and maintenance personnel still needed to understand how building components should be assembled.

Williams raised the related issue of responsibility as information and building components moved between designers, manufacturers, builders and installation teams.

“I wonder about risk allocation along the supply chain,” she said. “If the designer is doing something, passing it through then to the manufacturer, if they’re not an integrated business, how is that managed? Can we be doing that better?”

In closing the event, Dolphin said businesses needed to match any investment in industrialised construction to a clearly defined product, production process and market.

“Focus on your business case, focus on your procedures, and be really clinical and forensic about what you manufacture, how you go about it and who your target audience is,” he said.

The central message from the briefing was that industrialised construction does not begin with the purchase of a robot. It begins with a defined product, coordinated design information and a production process capable of expanding as demand and investment allow.