Logistics and capacity

Overcoming the key barriers

The discussion opened with debate about the various logistical challenges and capacity issues that modular projects had to overcome.

One consultant said: "Working on residential schemes in London, we experienced problems sequencing the manufacture and getting units to the site on time. We had issues securing the temporary road closures which were critical to the delivery of the units.""There was a three-month delay and a standstill with stock stuck in the factory. This impacted on other schemes depending on that facility."Another at the table agreed that a lack of capacity was one of the main limiting factors:"The capacity in the industry is the key underlying bottleneck. Manufacturers just aren't geared up to cope with everything they're being asked to do.Delays and logistical problems drive the cost up, and the pricing element of offsite versus traditional is a fine line. To encourage customers to buy into it, we need to be driving cost down, not up," they said.Expanding on this, an attendee added: "On the residential side we're seeing a disconnect between the people who are doing the groundworks and making the site ready, and the manufacturer who just expects to come and drop in units.Without proper coordination, timescales rarely match up. Factory line scheduling rarely applies to real world conditions in and around a site."

We've started to see manufacturers attempt to go direct to the customer offering a turn-key solution. Some manufacturers are getting better, but the reality is project management and design management skills are critical. Main contractors have been doing that for years and it's not so easy for a manufacturer to put things right when they go wrong.

Nearly all at the table predicted increased investment in proprietary modular facilities by main contractors: “We need more contractors investing in manufacturing facilities. Years ago, many set up their own concrete building plants to help speed up delivery. The same investment now needs to happen in offsite,” said a consultant.There were universal calls for more factories to be built and few could see any reason why the trend of basing them predominantly in the north should change.“There’s no issue with the majority of manufacturing being based up north. Transporting the units isn’t cost prohibitive. Land and commercial property are cheaper there too."There’s loads of regular construction work down here, why not provide work to the industry in the North East where there are fewer projects on-site? It can also deal with some of the skills shortages down south by moving the work to the north.”

It won’t achieve the scale at the pace we need if we wait for the modular firms to grow naturally. As the larger main contractors embrace it more wholeheartedly, we need them to take the risk and put up the investment to catalyse MMC capacity.