Construction practice has hardly evolved in 40 years, and nor has productivity. Houses as a product have been criticised as cost-inefficient and failing to meet the market demand. Innovation market failures have been caused by a lack of continuity of business cycles and the presence of discipline silos, as well as the lack of evidence-based benchmarks for modern construction methods and fragmented available knowledge. A consortium including Birmingham City University (BCU) as an academic partner was formed to address these issues.
The consortium comprising cross-disciplinary experts is developing a platform-based approach to design, manufacture and assemble environmentally-friendly and scalable affordable houses that will meet the demand of high volumes of quality social housing.
Project aims
- Develop lightweight steel-framed DfMA houses so that they are scalable, cost-efficient and environmentally-friendly;
- Embed energy efficiency as central to the design to ensure the delivery of the most energy 'active' and efficient homes possible;
- Evaluate the DfMA house envelope to optimise automation capacity;
- Contrast various assembly options based on testbed house projects to develop actual productivity data as benchmarks for improvement;
- Develop a proof-of-concept knowledge-based engineering (KBE) tool from 1. to 4. to estimate the life-cycle cost and CO2 emissions for appraising DfMA houses.
The benefits of DfMA houses
DfMA houses target to reduce 33% life-cycle costs including 10% build cost, 50% design and construction time, 30% household energy consumption and 50% carbon intensity and to increase 20% construction productivity. The anticipated economic benefits for the project include:
- reducing tenant householders' energy bills;
- creating new business opportunity for suppliers;
- reducing regional construction costs and speeding up delivery to meet the completions targeted;
- allowing other registered providers to replicate the business model through partnerships with the Group, which will create a multiplier effect;
- a reduced labour requirement per home will improve the industry resilience to labour shortage - an existing problem likely to worsen over time.
Other social impacts include: 1) improving quality of life by creating more disposable income and more comfortable living environment; 2) quicker access to social or affordable housing; 3) creating new roles and skills for the future; 4) creating a safer work environment for production than the traditional production onsite.