One of the major barriers to wider-scale adoption of offsite construction for many is that is is treated as a separate way of doing things compared to traditional construction, a mindset that needs to be addressed.
Anne Daw, from HLM Architects, examines this issue and how working towards a digital kit of parts could see the two methods of construction brought closer together.
In 2023 the Ministry of Housing, Community and Local Government (MHCLG) commissioned a consortium of the nation’s leading design firms to undertake a year-long project to research and develop a digital kit of parts (d-KoP) for low-rise housing to improve standardisation and the uptake of Modern Methods of Construction (MMC). Can you tell us more about the results of this research?
This wide-ranging research project involved one of the largest engagement processes in MMC to date.
Our team worked with industry experts to investigate the barriers to MMC and how we could increase uptake, improve productivity, and enable the opportunities for MMC use in low-rise housing.
The result was a set of digital tools that help to identify standardisation points in design.
This will help to ensure the production of quality homes while consolidating demand to improve pipelines, so that everyone wins.
The recommended steps in your research to address the barriers to MMC adoption closely align with the Construction Playbook. What are these recommendations and is any extra support required?
Our research was built on the shoulders of over 10 years of existing research that had gone before us.
We began with a literature review that identified past and current initiatives, evaluating areas where barriers to the uptake of MMC remained.
The Construction Playbook was one of the fifteen documents we reviewed in detail.
What the research showed was that the remaining barriers to MMC were interrelated and that there were a few actions that would have effects on multiple barriers at once. For example, consistent pipelines would help manufacturers bring down the cost of MMC, but housing design is notoriously inconsistent. Increasing the consistency of design by informing designers in the early stages would help everyone.
Everything is connected. The more we can do to introduce standardisation into the system at every stage, the more the cost of MMC will come down. Increasing communication between manufacturers and designers will be a significant help in this respect.
The digital Kit of Parts research creates a standardised the data language and format..
If this is adopted at scale within housing, communication and sharing of information within the industry would be greatly simplified.
It would improve the way we work together, allowing designers and manufacturers to exchange data instantly and at scale without any work required to de-code or re-order the information.
That could open up a huge opportunity to harness the power of data on a wide scale – with new digital software and automation, which could be a significant boost to productivity in the housing sector.
What are the main observations that your research brought to light about the readiness of the UK housing sector to endorse MMC in new construction and refurbishment projects?
The research showed that there is a general understanding of the value of MMC in the UK.
We have moved past the scepticism around offsite construction and understand the value that it brings to productivity, the construction labour force, and efficient use of resources.
We also found that the supply chain has been working hard to invest and develop their products and delivery methods, which has brought significant improvements in quality and efficiency to the market.
However, there are still other barriers to the uptake of MMC.
Despite all the good things that MMC delivers, there still aren’t enough orders to maintain the pipelines required to move to an industrialised construction mindset in housing.
What our research showed was that these remaining barriers appear to be primarily around the perception of risk and higher cost by clients and specifiers, which is dampening the demand for MMC and the creation of a steady pipeline for manufacturers.
When I talk about the ‘perception’ of risk in MMC, I want to emphasise that this is not a perception of risk due to lack of quality or durability.
It is primarily a perception of risk due to the changes in the design and procurement process that are required to see the most benefits from MMC.
The necessity to develop technical design earlier in the process and to optimise designs for specific manufacturers to bring down costs results in a risk to the client from a single point of failure.
If a design is manufacturer-specific, and anything about the design changes or the manufacturer cannot deliver for any reason, the project and the client’s investment is at risk.
Where do you see the potential for use of d-KoP in meeting UK Government house building targets?
The general election was called just after finishing our research, so it has not yet been published, but we expect to see this happen soon.
We would very much like to see the new government move forward with our recommendations and onto the next steps of pilot testing the d-KoP.
There are some good signs, in that the new government has discussed increasing social housing, which would be an ideal candidate for implementing the tools we have developed.
Homes England has also been very supportive of the research and was on the strategic development board for the project.
We hope this means that the findings of the research will be useful in helping to meet their goals of increasing social and affordable housing in the near future.
The DLUHC research report identified interoperability as one of the main barriers to adopting MMC principles in design and construction. Do designers experience impediments and requests to change their designs when working with manufacturers?
Unfortunately, the design and development process that is best for offsite construction doesn’t align with that of traditional construction.
This means that things like the planning process, which may introduce significant delays and design changes into projects, can be difficult for MMC manufacturers to weather.
Additionally, if a design is optimised to a specific MMC system and that manufacturer goes into administration, the client or developer will probably need to re-design before proceeding with a new system.
These costs and delays can put-off clients and developers from choosing MMC in the first place.
Everything in the system is set up to favour traditional construction: from the insurance and testing processes to the planning system and financing.
The d-KoP helps to re-align the MMC process more closely with traditional construction, by informing designers about products in the supply chain so that they can create a design that is deliverable by multiple manufacturers.
This allows the development to go through the planning process before a manufacturer is chosen.
After planning approval, the client or developer can move forward with tendering at no additional risk because they know that the approved design can be delivered by multiple manufacturers.
If the chosen manufacturer fails, the design can be delivered by another manufacturer with much less cost and delay, on par with a traditional contractor failure.
At the same time, manufacturers will be able to see the digital specifications emerging in the designers’ pipeline and can direct their investment into the right places to capitalise on the market.
This means that products are ready in advance of requirement for optimised production on demand.
What are other resources available to architects today that can effectively change their relationship with owners, developers and contractors, removing some of these blockages?
The MMC market provides a free, web-based marketplace for all MMC related products and services.
Kope maintains a database of MMC advisors, designers, suppliers, and products with case studies and contact details.
This is a great place to start, but it is also an example of how the d-KoP could help.
Currently, data comes to Kope in various formats, requiring them to spend time adapting it for their website and development tools.
If the data coming from manufacturers always used the d-KoP data templates, mapping that data to their system could be automated and instantaneous, allowing the database to be expanded much more easily.
Everyone would benefit from the further development of this open marketplace, particularly if it is maintained and expanded as a free service.
