Defining customer value to drive innovation in design and construction | Will Lichtig, Chief of Staff at The Boldt Company

The benefits of the platforms approach include cost savings, increased safety on-site, better quality, and more sustainable buildings.

However with accelerating interest in Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) and Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), it sometimes seems that on-site construction is falling out of favour..In 2019, the UK’s Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) – as it was then called – published an MMC Definition Framework (see my earlier article,.

Defining customer value to drive innovation in design and construction | Will Lichtig, Chief of Staff at The Boldt Company

What does DfMA stand for?).This framework proposes Pre-Manufactured Value (PMV) as a metric for assessing the scale of MMC adoption on a project.PMV is calculated as the percentage of cost that is derived before any site works and strongly encourages maximising the proportion of off-site works.. As a result, many parts of the construction industry are focusing more and more on off-site prefabrication in pursuit of benefits including lower cost, reduced delivery timescales, higher quality, improved health and safety, less waste and more productive site labour..

Defining customer value to drive innovation in design and construction | Will Lichtig, Chief of Staff at The Boldt Company

But is off-site always the best way to achieve these benefits?Construction sites have been around since the dawn of civilisation.

Defining customer value to drive innovation in design and construction | Will Lichtig, Chief of Staff at The Boldt Company

Do we really want to walk away from all that learning, and start moving as much of the construction process as possible into distant sheds?.

Is on-site construction really all that bad?.Within this period a great deal of the time is taken in permitting processes and getting power to the site..

Different countries and regions have different regulations and bureaucracies.One of the reasons why there’s a big focus on projects in the US (other than technology development) is the relative lightness of the permitting and approval process.

The UK is seen as relatively straightforward; however, the system is often slowed by multiple objections.In other countries (for instance, Spain) the permitting process is very long.. Getting power to site is another key factor.. Power in Europe is supplied by a monopoly.