Victoria signals move towards percentage-based MMC procurement

The Victorian Government has signalled an ambition to move towards percentage-based modern methods of construction requirements on suitable government projects, as builders and manufacturers called for MMC to be incorporated much earlier in design and procurement. (main image: Bathroom pods in production at SYNC Industries’ Melbourne manufacturing facility. Managing Director Chris Ong told the prefabAUS conference the company had outgrown its current facility and was planning further expansion.)

Speaking during the Delivering on Efficiency panel at the prefabAUS conference in Melbourne, Nanette Fitzgerald, Executive Director, Industry Development and Manufacturing at the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions, said the government had increasingly been designing MMC into relevant infrastructure projects.

Fitzgerald said Victoria was beginning to set requirements to “maximise MMC”, with an ambition to move towards percentage-based requirements over time.

Hutchies says MMC needs to start earlier
Hutchinson Builders Commercial and Pre-construction Manager John Atkinson said one of the recurring problems was bringing MMC into a project after the design had already progressed too far.

“One of the issues we find is, is either incorporating MMC into projects too late,” Atkinson said.

“If it is outlined as a goal of a project, it can be incorporated early into project.”

He said establishing the intended construction approach earlier allowed the wider project design to respond to MMC rather than trying to accommodate prefabrication after key decisions had already been made.

Atkinson was speaking from a substantial modular base. Hutchies Modular has been operating since 2007 and has delivered more than $1 billion in modular projects and more than 30,000 modules.

He said Hutchies uses prefabrication in different ways according to project requirements, including volumetric modular construction where regional delivery conditions can make offsite approaches more attractive.

Atkinson also pointed to hybrid construction as an area Hutchies is exploring, using volumetric modular construction for selected parts of a building rather than making the entire structure modular.

“There is not a massive amount of innovation there,” he said of conventional high-rise construction, pointing to the continued reliance on established approaches including precast and jump form.

He said integration between prefabricated and in-situ construction remained a challenge, but one that should be capable of being addressed.

Factory quality changes the cost equation
Kapitol Head of Modular and Business Development Andrew Morrison said earlier collaboration with subcontractors, consultants and the supply chain had become central to the builder’s approach.

Morrison said Kapitol was now using bathroom pods as a standard approach on some projects even where they had not originally been specified.

“It costs about five percent more than if we were to build it,” Morrison said, noting that was a general observation.

“But the quality that we get when it’s produced in factory vastly outweighs the five percent initial capital cost because if we have a waterproof leak, it might cost us a hundred thousand dollars … in a project.”

He said the experience of modular delivery was also changing the way Kapitol approached conventional projects, particularly around transport, logistics, installation and design coordination.

Standardise what the customer does not see
SYNC Industries Managing Director Chris Ong said early involvement with developers, builders, architects and consultants was equally important for bathroom pod manufacturing.

Ong told the panel SYNC had manufactured nearly 35,000 bathroom pods, with the relatively small spaces requiring coordination between waterproofing consultants, certifiers, services contractors, architects and other specialists.

SYNC’s approach, he said, was to standardise the elements that occupants do not see while retaining flexibility in finishes and appearance.

“We try to standardize what the end user doesn’t see,” Ong said.

He pointed to build-to-rent projects where different bathroom appearances could be delivered from essentially the same underlying chassis, creating manufacturing efficiencies without producing identical finished spaces.

From projects to portfolios
Morrison said achieving greater scale would also require institutional clients to think beyond individual projects.

Using student accommodation as an example, he questioned why fundamental unit layouts should repeatedly be redesigned when façades, palettes, lobbies and other visible elements could continue to vary.

“If we can standardize it, instead of ordering, you know, three hundred modules, we can order three thousand, and that’s where you really build in efficiencies,” Morrison said.

He said the opportunity was to move from project-by-project procurement towards considering entire development portfolios.

Ong said SYNC was beginning to see the volume and forward visibility needed to support further investment.

“We’ve outgrown our facility in Melbourne,” he said. “We’re planning to expand in Victoria, and we’re also looking at going up to Queensland and or New South Wales.”

He said increased automation could support that expansion and enable SYNC to onshore more components.