52 UNLOCKING MMC & OFFSITE IN RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENTS ROUND TABLE REVIEW


facility that its acquisition Countryside had mothballed), it was great to have research director Jack Brayshaw present to share the company’s MMC experience. Our delegates acknowledged how lack of consistent pipelines of work had led to a Catch 22 situation where business trust and confi dence in  wont e established in the mainstream until there are a signifi cant numer of successes. The round table was a chance to share these, as well as to challenge assumptions around MMC such as on build costs, carbon and aesthetics.


THE DEBATE


Because accelerating MMC spans many cultural issues, the discussion naturally broadened into a look at the motivations and business imperatives of housebuilding, beyond comparing solutions. However it also touched on some of the well-researched existing approaches to optimising offsite construction, such as an MMC ‘kit of parts’ and digital P-DFMA methodologies. There was some agreement that the current mainstream construction model was not working, with a series of major plc liquidations from Carillion in 2018 to Ardmore in June 2026. The chastening symptom in housebuilding was that SME housebuilders numbers had dwindled from around 12,000 to currently around 2,500, so they would need to be carefully incentivised to be involved in MMC innovation. As delegate Andrew Orris of the Structural Timber Association pointed out, “we’re relying on the top 10 house builders delivering 70% of the volume.” Delegates discussed whether the backtracking of several major players from MMC housebuilding was a sign of a crisis in offsite, and the chair, Housebuilder & Developer editor James Parker asked whether the various industry headwinds, plus recent industry casualties had “killed off optimism in the sector around MMC being the panacea for new build homes.” Ultimately, delegates including Stephen


Wightman, UK MMC Lead at AtkinsRéalis, said that in order to accept MMC, the industry’s delivery model needed to fundamentally change, from procurement, and contracts to risk management. He said: “We’ve tried to ram this new technology into it, and it doesnt fi t it breaks the delivery model in so many ways – the way risk sits, where value sits, where responsibility and some of the design responsibility shifts from the architects and the engineers to the manufacturers.” He added however that


OFFSITE, ON MESSAGE Leading architects and contractors were in attendance (Vistry’s Jack Brayshaw, far right)


the long-standing existing model was “pretty ingrained,” and “recognition was needed that people need to make money.” However, delegates such as Vistry’s Jack Brayshaw suggested the slowdown was partly a regular factor of economic turbulence generally across the sector. “When we’re coming out of any type of recession we see the proportion of MMC increase,” adding that its developments were “probably around 35% timber frame now, and will go further as those drivers will always be there.”


Others played down the likelihood of a major downturn in offsite adoption, saying that the initial volume housebuilders’ retreats were around the fact that they were pursuing full-blown volumetric modular solutions. Andrew Orriss of the STA said that it was important to understand that MMC means different things to different people, and that Category 2 was still doing well. “The tricky bit is to be clear about what we think about what MMC is today…the list of names [who withdrew from MMC recently] were largely volumetric.” Large-scale investment in volumetric had faltered, said Tony Woods of Procurement for Housing, because contractors began taking all the risk on having a pipeline of work, as manufacturers for the fi rst time. “Normally he gets his site for free, from the client, but unless you are getting products out, you’re just stacking up costs. There’s always something that can happen on site, for whatever reason. Manufacturers like to make something, take it to the factory gates, and pass it on to someone else.”


Jack Brayshaw said the company had taken a fairly cautious approach, and that volumetric was “just a step too far, too soon.” He said Vistry was seeking the “sweet spot in terms of speed, cost, trade availability, design onsite – what was realistic and viable,” adding it was “no coincidence that Barratt, Persimmon, Taylor Wimpey, Vestry and Bellway all have their own panelised factories, because it gives you the incremental growth that you can control, plus fl eiility. Stephen Wightman said that the non-volumetric forms are effective “because they don’t break the model completely.”


Brayshaw added that the other ‘big four’ houseuilders needed that fl eiility more in order to be able to “slow production when sales may not be as good,” due to them being largely dependent on the whims of the private sale market. Vistry’s business model was different, he explained, as they were tending to build a “pre-sold PRS, social housing and Section 106 affordable homes, so our build rate needs to match our sales rate, although we can’t do MMC on every single site.” However, he added that “certain regions are only doing timber frame, and if they went back to traditional, they’d struggle.”


COST ISSUES & THE IMPORTANCE OF PREMANUFACTURED VALUE Roly Ward of Medite Smartply got to the root of the funding issue for supply chains, saying “if we’re going to adopt more MMC, then we will need to accept upfront payments are needed to procure materials and give cash fl ow to those operations procurement


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