It’s not what you do …

Off-site manufacture is essential to the success of schemes such as BAA’s Terminal 5 project. More than 60% of its building services are being fabricated off site on this £4.2bn super-project.

David Thomas, director of innovation consultant Mtech Knowledge, says prefabrication is increasingly becoming the construction method of choice for building services assemblies – and the key to success is following the right procedures. “Get the process right and you are assured of the successful application of off-site manufacturing techniques,” he says.

Terminal 5 is unusual in that cramped site conditions forced the client and the design team down the off-site manufacturing route from the outset. Thomas says that even without this restriction, clients and contractors should consider off-site manufacturing. “There is no reason why the building services sector should not maximise the potential of off-site manufacture and pre-engineered solutions,” he says. But he emphasises that this will only work if the sector focuses on processes. “Processes change things,” he says.

Another factor that Thomas emphasises is the need to please the client – off-site manufacture only adds value when the end product meets the customer’s expectation. “Prefabrication processes only truly add value when the customer requirement is met in full, delivered right first time, on time and at a price the customer is prepared to pay,” he says.

If a team focuses on process through the supply chain then “it can identify non-value adding activities and eliminate them”. An integrated supply chain is essential from a project’s outset when complex modules incorporating a variety of interconnected elements are being assembled. Without buy-in from the supply chain, some of the efficiencies offered by prefabrication will be lost. “More often than not the areas for improvement lie in the interfaces between parts of overall processes and as such can be found in activities between departments or companies,” Thomas explains.

So how do you know if you’ve got it right? For those considering making the leap into prefabrication, Thomas has developed a simple checklist focusing on the key process activities that need to be undertaken at each stage of the a project development (see below). Because as he says again and again, it’s the way that you do it that counts.