Photo credit: Areaware
In my last blog Starting with the End in Mind I touch on the topic that designers, builders and managers of the AEC industry will require to innovate – re-tool the AEC industry supply chain by disrupting traditional process, and rebelliously discarding old business clichés and remaking the AEC project delivery model.
To able to re-tool an entire industry’s supply chain we need to greatly accelerate the way AEC industry operate by understanding customer needs and problems . Our customers have changing needs as we now live in a world of digital Darwinism where through Disruptive Selection it is reported that, 70% of the companies on the Fortune 1000 list 10 years ago have vanished and in an environment where no business is too big to fail or too small to succeed, where technology and society are growing at a faster pace than organisation and corporation can catch.
In this changing business environment many companies are taking initiative to meet the demands of their clients and the need for facilities that are design to evolve but built to last”. Nestlé seem to understand this challenge and are making attempts to meet it thorough modular factories, a new type of factory that can be built in half the time of a more traditional one for about 50%-60% of the cost. A modular factory will be made of multiple, easy-to assemble component sections designed to offer a highly flexible, simple and cost-effective solution for creating production sites in the developing world. Peugeot’s new food truck looks like a luxury Transformer is an example of companies meeting the challenge of their markets
Design to evolve; built to last will have to uses the a kit-of-parts & building block approach to faster and efficient delivery system which will enable our clients to deliver their accelerate their products and services to market. In large projects within the infrastructure, mining, resources and energy industries is the use of the concept of modularization wherein this execution model splits the project into process (functional) blocks and moves into designing modules (blocks) that then drives the plot plan. A very basic example of this concept is their article in Core 77: Stack a Desktop Cityscape
Modularity as the name suggest is to form or organize into modules, for flexibility. Modularizations using prefabrication and modular construction have been used for some time but largely on the fringe of the main building construction industry. The concept of modularization has been regular used by EPCM – Engineering, Procurement, Construction & Management - for large projects in Infrastructure, Industrial; Mining and Oil & Gas sectors.
It is not a new concept it is a 50 year old Concept proposed by Starr, M. K. Starr in an 1965 Harvard Business Review detailed Modular-production: A new concept – “It implies a product design approach whereby the product is assembled from a set of standardized constituent units. Different assembly combinations from a given set of standardized units give rise to different end-product models and variations. Thus, modular design effectively marries flexibility (of the end product) with standardization (of constituent parts). It provides opportunities for exploiting economies of scope and scale from a product design perspective”.
Design to evolve; Built to last the kits of parts and building block approach - modularization has been slowing creeping into traditional construction in small measures for pre-construction of trusses etc. or with piping on backbone racks/steel module - since the early'90s; This has further evolved to more complicated equipment mechanical and lately modularity building of residential spaces – micro apartments etc. Fluor calls it 3rd Gen Modular Execution and are leaders in modular design; engineering & construction.
The traditional stick and build method to implement design and engineering solution used in our cities and towns are inherently inefficient and consistently producing varying quality of work. The future lies: in design; engineering of building designed to evolve & built to last.
Developed for manufacture in a controlled environment.
Manufacture with use repeatable & deskilled production of blocks.
The blocks will be “assembled at site versus built on site”
Installation of Sub-Assemblies requiring minimum site clear out vs Clear cut
Minimum carbon foot print sensitive to geographical influences
Highly technology intense - Internet of things- monitoring and reacting
Sustainable Process of Installation & relocation with nil- minimum modification
Disassemble and reissue or recycle in it entirety.
Able to re-forestation of original site on relocation
The key here is to design Build like Lego- build blocks from kit of parts which can be used in any required combination and can be conveniently assembled providing flexibility in manufacture; assembly; dis-assembly; relocation and reissue or recycle in its entirety.
Do you think this concept is far fetched ? I will love to hear from you.