OFFSITE CONSTRUCTION
Automation reducing costs and enhancing quality
Alfredo Andia Ph.D, an Associate Professor at Florida International University in Miami, discusses the growing international use and acceptance of ‘offsite’ in the construction of healthcare facilities.
Figure 1: Prefabrication of the bathroom modules in the Miami Valley Hospital project designed by NBBJ.
In the last two decades, large sectors of the economy in the developed world have been radically transformed by automation processes. However, the construction industry has remained relatively unchallenged since the 1950s. In this paper, we argue that ‘offsite’ construction, or ‘the manufacturing of construction’, has gained significant traction in the past three years, and is destined to challenge traditional ‘on-site’ building processes. In particular, we focus on case studies in offsite construction in the healthcare sector.
‘Offsite’ construction moves significant amounts of building operations to manufacturing warehouses away from the job site. Companies such as NBBJ, Broad Group, Katerra, Prescient, BLOX, Randek, and Lindbäcks Bygg, are moving into prefabricating from flat elements to entire buildings in manufacturing plants. We compare this emerging trend in construction to the developments of ‘car platforms’ in the automotive industry, and strategies such as ‘chunking’ in the aviation industry, to look at the future of design and construction of healthcare facilities.
Figure 2: A modular bathroom unit being elevated to its floor in the Miami Valley Hospital project.
‘Manufactured construction’ in industrial warehouses Since 2015 construction processes that are called ‘offsite’ have begun to emerge with significant traction in the United States and Europe. Such construction refers to processes that plan, design, manufacture, and assemble elements of the construction of a building away from the building site. Generally, offsite construction occurs in large industrial warehouses; consequently, building sites become places where construction teams rapidly assemble different construction elements created in warehouses far from the new building’s location. Offsite construction is not a new concept. It is associated with the tradition of prefabrication and modular construction that has seen many developments over the last 150 years. Even authors such as Gibb1
point to the
beginnings of manufactured construction in the early 1850s that led firms like Eiffel to develop projects such as cast-iron train stations, and even churches, around the world. Many early examples – from the massive house pre-fabrication in the 1960s and 1970s, to the robotic
The synopsis for this article from Alfredo Andia was submitted with a view to the publication of the full article in the 2019 IFHE Digest, but was unfortunately received too late for the feature to be used in that edition. HEJ acknowledges the help of the IFHE in allowing its publication in this edition of Health Estate Journal.
construction prototypes developed by the five biggest Japanese contractors in the 1990s – offered some glimpses, but none radically transformed on-site construction.
Number of new start-ups What is new today is the number of new start-ups, new automation processes, and the extraordinary funding these start-ups are receiving. For example, the start-up, Katerra, has already received more than US$1.1 billion in risk capital, including a single investment of US$865 million from SoftBank’s Vision Fund. Such funding has allowed companies to create large warehouses to manufacture prefabricated buildings on an accelerated timeframe that we have never seen before.
Key ‘forces of change’ There are four major forces that are driving offsite construction methods: In developed countries, there are fewer and fewer workers specialised in construction, more tight deadlines, and more concise margins. Offsite construction can move 70% to 90% of construction work into more ergonomic warehouses, where labour employment is more constant.
The opportunities for collaboration that BIM technology affords to design and construction professionals.
August 2019 Health Estate Journal 23
©NBBJ
©NBBJ
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