Randek urges Australian builders to get the workflow right before automating

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Australian builders considering offsite manufacturing should first establish how their products, information and materials will move through production before committing to advanced automation, according to Randek’s Ola Skoglund and Jason Reints. (main image: Randek’s ZeroLabor robotic sub-assembly system automates the manufacture of timber wall components, including door and window openings and multi-stud assemblies.)

Speaking with Built Offsite, Skoglund, Chief Operating Officer of Randek International, and Reints, Randek’s Australian Managing Director, outlined a staged approach to industrialisation, with investment guided by practical production experience and the demands of the product.

Swedish company Randek supplies machinery and automated production systems for offsite construction, including equipment for manufacturing timber and light gauge steel (LGS) building elements. Its range extends from assembly tables to robotic production lines.

For Skoglund, a factory’s maturity becomes apparent on the production floor. Material movement, machinery utilisation and the way people respond to production information reveal how effectively the operation is managed.

Digital systems need to work alongside reliable material supply. Accurate production data has limited value if materials arrive late or fail to meet the quality required by the machinery.

Communication is equally important, particularly when designs change.

“Everyone’s communicating through the same channels,” Skoglund said. “When something changes, everyone needs to be aware of the changes.”

Reints said his early conversations with customers focus on understanding their product and digitising its design. A digital workflow built around building information modelling (BIM) can support better quality assurance, pre-cutting systems and progressively more developed prefabricated elements.

The starting point is therefore a business’s ability to define and manage what it intends to manufacture.

Production experience should guide investment
Asked whether a particular annual housing volume makes advanced automation commercially viable, Reints focused on the experience a business needs before making that decision.

A company introducing digital workflows and basic production may need six or 12 months to understand its preferred product, the appropriate level of prefabrication and the tasks creating difficulties.

“How pre-finished should it be? What are the tasks that are causing them challenges?” Reints said.

Those answers help determine where automation can deliver value. A builder might begin by manufacturing frames internally, then progress to partially finished open panels. Moving to fully finished panels incorporating wiring and cladding depends on factors including control over design and integration with the wider construction process.

Skoglund said modern machinery can accommodate design flexibility within the parameters established when a production line is configured. However, manufacturers still need a clear view of their principal products and expected workload.

Investment based on an anticipated product mix that fails to materialise can leave a business with equipment poorly matched to its actual work. Correcting that mismatch takes time and effort.

Early collaboration between designers, manufacturers and machinery suppliers can help avoid these problems. Design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA) provides an opportunity to simplify products while configuring equipment around their production requirements.

Reints said that collaboration also needs to account for how the product and operation may evolve.

Skoglund encouraged manufacturers to consider how their first equipment purchase will connect with later investments.

“How are you going to extend your production capacity if you’re buying something that’s maybe solely designed for your first step in your production?”

Automation changes the skills a factory needs
Skoglund warned that even experienced offsite manufacturers can underestimate the organisational changes required when production accelerates.

Higher levels of automation increase demands across digital design, factory data, material handling, incoming quality control and lean production. Each supporting process must keep pace.

Traditional construction knowledge remains important, particularly in understanding products and identifying quality issues. Automation can take on physically demanding or hazardous tasks while increasing the need for digital capabilities.

“The human eye is a fantastic thing when it comes to quality,” Skoglund said.

He also pointed to engagement with schools and vocational education providers as a way to prepare workers for changing factory roles.

For Australia, Reints identified broader adoption of more pre-finished building elements as the next opportunity. He said Randek’s large-scale automation entered the Australian market in 2013 supporting the frame and truss sector, which had since invested extensively in production technology.

Building on that experience, he sees scope for manufacturers to undertake more finishing work before elements reach site.

“I think that’s the next step that’s waiting for Australia to really embrace.”

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