The future of construction is off-site

The future of construction is off-site
Posted by Virve Juhola on Thursday June 2, 2011 | 5 Comments

For a couple of days last week I was very fortunate to follow a Buildoffsite delegation's visit to Finland. I was listening hard to find out if and how they would see the role of BIM in enabling and advancing offsite manufacturing and construction.

Finland is considered to be a leader in innovation for construction, implementing BIM as a process as well as offsite manufacturing methods. We saw some terrific new examples of BIM utilization from Finnish engineering and construction companies and others, e.g. Skanska.

The Buildoffsite organization works to promote the increased use of quality off-site construction solutions within all sectors of the UK construction industry. This includes increasing the awareness of these solutions as well as the project, process and sustainability benefits they offer.

Pre-manufactured steel components

Deltabeam components at Peikko factory in Finland

Buildoffsite's Chairman Richard Ogden is committed to radical change within the industry and claims faster ROI for manufacture. "Construction is too expensive and takes too long; it's got to change," Ogden said. "The industry loves its bricks and blocks and is slow to change but there are huge opportunities in the 'global village' we live in."

"Precast elements, for example, should be so simple and standard that we could buy them in IKEA. The most economical, safest and sustainable elements are hybrid structures of wood, steel and glass. Pre-manufactured components are the 'white goods' of construction."

The way architects are being educated must change, too, was agreed between Ogden and Finnish engineers from A-Insinöörit and Lemminkäinen Talo. The architects' job in the future will be to create beautiful buildings by bringing beautiful components together.

Ogden made a point of talking about BIMM with two M's in order to not forget that it is not only about modeling but building information management, too.

"Paul Morrell wants every government project BIMMed," he reminded us. "BIM is crucial," he admitted. "Tekla models, for example, are like vacuum cleaners that can suck up an enormous amount of building information that can be leveraged at different stages of construction. But I still want to see the metrics of project benefits - show me the money!"

SRV commercial center supermarket construction site in Lahti, Finland

Richard Ogden and James Guthrie visiting SRV supermarket construction site in Lahti, Finland

Well, how do we measure things that haven't happened? Results for BIM systems can vary from 20 up to 60% depending on the size of a company and the type of projects they do. Cost and labor savings are easy to calculate but most companies are not willing to publish figures for their BIM-generated revenue as it is much more difficult to establish accurate metrics for that.

The biggest growth in construction productivity, however, will come from automated off-site activities that BIM enables. I'm referring to Rafael Sacks's thoughts on BIM ROI and off-site productivity from a couple of years back. "Look at how steel industry is working," pointed out Ragnar Wessman from Tekla, "they can't afford to do without modeling."

Buildoffsite currently operates in the UK but Ogden would like to see its organization spread into other countries, such as the USA, New Zealand, or Finland. James Guthrie of Miletus Group, the US representative in the delegation, recently contributed to Buildoffsite's newsletter writing: "Improving productivity can really only be tackled by carrying out as much construction as possible away from the construction site. I have absolutely no doubt that the future of construction is going to be offsite. In the US we don't yet have the equivalent of Buildoffsite but we are working on greater knowledge sharing and integration."