44 Concluding Remarks More Homes Through Manufacture A Housing Forum Working Group Report Concluding remarks Jim Martin, Chair of The Housing Forum’s Working Group, Smarter Supply: Smarter Resources, weighs up the evidence for offsite manufacture in housebuilding. This report demonstrates that the case for Jim Martin Chair of the Housing Forum’s Working Group, Smarter Supply: Smarter Resources offsite manufacture (OSM) is compelling. As we’ve seen from the case studies, prefabricating homes in factory conditions delivers numerous advantages. — Higher quality of building, being assembled in controlled, benign conditions, from standardising process and factory testing. — Greater certainty of programme because of simplifi ed site processes and works becoming less weather dependent. — Improved energy performance through enhanced specifi cation and controlled, factory processes which allows much more accurate jointing and testing of components, to reduce air leakage, increase insulation and seal airtight components. — Safer working conditions. Working in a controlled environment can reduce accidents and improves safety. The use of pre-assembled components has been increasing in many sectors of the construction industry over the years and it is almost impossible to build anything without a high proportion of preassembled components within the structure. New commercial buildings, hotels, education buildings and health service buildings are all exhibiting a very high proportion of OSM as standard: curtain walling, services pods, and classroom extensions. Existing companies such as Laing O’Rourke are making major investments in the OSM process. The cost of OSM is coming down because there is now a steady fl ow of work into the manufacturing facilities at volumes that make the process viable. As production runs increase with volume, the comparative cost should reduce. It is
47 Publizr Home