The world we build impacts almost every human being on this planet. From the environments
that we call home, to the way we travel, generate our energy, drive our economies and shape
our children, it is the construction sector that underpins the direction of our societies.
But despite its fundamental impact on our way of life, our approach to construction
has changed little over the ages, and we still use many of the same techniques and materials
to build prototype structures in volatile outdoor environments.
Now, as our planet experiences unprecedented change,
the sector is embracing rapid advances in digital technologies and
making a bold shift towards the world of manufacturing, merging the two to usher in a new dawn.
For centuries, the way we construct our world has remained largely unchanged. Still using
many of the same materials and processes, each project that the construction sector
undertakes requires the delivery of a unique product in a unique outdoor location.
Moving works away from the challenges of each site and into controlled conditions offers many benefits.
Economies of scale can be achieved through automated production lines.
Productivity can be significantly improved, and quality can be ensured. Such an approach also reduces
the amount of time that a project is on site for, helping to lower costs, negate site-specific
challenges and to minimise disruption. The extent to which construction works are taken
away from their final sites varies hugely. While volumetric solutions create entire enclosed
spaces remotely and then deliver those to site for installation, non-volumetric systems
are large elements of a building or structure that are prefabricated before being brought
to site. On a more granular level, component-based approaches and platform systems create a kit
of parts and draw from a series of predetermined items that are consistent across a number
of projects. Each of these offsite construction approaches offer different benefits and each
has its advantages depending on the type of project being built. However, non-volumetric
and component-based approaches can retain the benefits of offsite production while offering
the adaptability needed across the many different types of site that the construction industry contends with.
But despite the seemingly compelling benefits over several decades, the concept
of offsite construction has struggled to find traction. Now, with many countries facing
rising populations, housing crises and a lack of skilled people coming into their construction
workforces, and with technology coming to the fore, there is renewed excitement in the concept.
It is technology in particular that is helping to make the step change and overcome
the long-established barriers. The rise of automation is hugely increasing productivity
on production lines, while digital design information is helping to streamline processes
and increase accuracy. It is in this way that the concept of offsite construction is rapidly
evolving into offsite manufacturing, a shift that sees the construction process move much
closer to the approaches of the manufacturing sector and the techniques it has honed.
That shift can be clearly witnessed at the UK's Explore Industrial Park (EIP). Conceived and
owned by Laing O'Rourke, a global general contractor with some 13,000 staff and an
£8 billion pipeline, the vast factory is the most automated concrete products facility in Europe.
Since opening in 2009, Explore has manufactured concrete elements for some
of the UK's most impressive projects, including London's 48-storey Leadenhall skyscraper and
Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport.
Explore Industrial Park is one of the most advanced precast manufacturing facilities
in Europe. It allows the Laing O'Rourke group to control its own supply chain to a large extent.
We can react quite quickly to requirements on site as a result of that.
With EIP, Laing O'Rourke has managed to move 70% of its onsite manufacture to an offsite
means, and that's brought a 60% increase in productivity and a 30% increase in accuracy
to the delivery schedule.
What sets us apart from other precast manufacturers is our use of automation through machinery
on the factory floor, also software tools that we're using, and we do a lot of engineering
of our processes to ensure we are as efficient as possible.
Automation is very much a part of that paradigm shift and having the right automation can
eliminate most of the issues a typical design process would encounter. So, human error,
uncertainty, your factor of risk, everything else is just eliminated when you have a reliable,
precise system doing it for you.
Throughout the last ten years, Explore Industrial Park has continually evolved and innovated,
embracing automation and digital technologies as they have matured. Repetition, honed processes,
quality control and a consistent flow of work are all key to the facility's success.
In this context, it is critical that the design information shared with the production teams,
that is used to cast and form concrete components, is accurate. For major projects, like Manchester
Airport's Transformation Programme and Liverpool's new specialist cancer hospital, both of which
are currently moving through the factory, the importance of accurate digital data could
not be more acute. Errors in production can slow the overall progress of projects, affect
other activities out on the construction site and mess up the factory's work schedule,
costing time and money.
Because we're at the point where things are cast in concrete, as they would say, it's
quite important that we assess every single facet of the design.
From a project landing at Explore we would meet with the site team, the clients, architects
and structural engineering consultancies, as well as interfacing disciplines.
We'd go through the product set, look for similarities between different component types and we try
to rationalise them. This allows us to achieve a level of standardisation across a project.
We take the concept that the architects and the engineers want to enforce and bring that to reality.
So we have to think about how manufacturable it is, how handleable it is
and how viable it is for the build.
A typical manufacturer would generally produce one product type in one precast factory.
This precast factory, we produce multiple so we can supply all the precasts on the project.
That allows a certain level of coordination between the different product sets.
Other things that set us apart are the complexity of the products that we're willing to manufacture.
Traditionally, precast concrete, it's fairly simple geometries. We do a lot of architectural
product here at Explore that you might not find elsewhere.
From the outset of a project, Laing O' Rourke's teams consider which elements could be fabricated
away from the construction site. Working within the broad parameters of what the factory can achieve,
they then develop detailed design information models, to inform both the construction
and operation process and the manufacturing of components. To ensure the accuracy of their
digital information, the team use Solibri Office to validate its contents. Pulling information
from various different members of the design team into a single combined or federated information
model in Solibri, the tool can then be used to check the quality of that data, communicate
any issues, enable quantity take-off and classify components.
With their design information quality checked,
the team then issue digital production information directly to the factory floor,
where the process of component manufacture begins.
From the cutting and fabrication of steel reinforcement cages,
including placement of the ties, to the distribution of concrete
across the factory, the pouring of that concrete and the process of curing it, Laing O'Rourke's
manufacturing process is highly automated, helping projects delivered through Explore
to take significant strides in productivity. Once produced, the building elements are loaded
onto vehicles, taking into account the order that they will need to be unloaded in, and
are transported to their sites. Those on the ground in the project's location are able to
seamlessly engage with, and see the data about their scheme, through tools like Solibri Anywhere,
which enables access by any member of a project team, wherever they may be, and Solibri Site,
specifically tailored to those working in the field. The geographic positioning of Explore
in the very centre of the UK is deliberate, and the factory has created components for
sites in both the south of England and in Scotland. From the outset of the design process,
right through manufacturing, to the delivery and installation of components on site and
the operation of the built asset afterwards, the entire process is informed by digital data.
The success of such projects is therefore dependent on the quality of the data used
and the idea of not quality checking or validating it, seems very risky.
If something's inaccurate, it can not only be at the detriment of your product and your
quality and your safety, but it's immediately visible in your coordination checks. I mean,
as a species, we're quite a visual species, so now that we're doing everything in 3D,
it needs to be spot on or you will know about it.
One of the things that we use Solibri for is checking the quality of the incoming information.
So, prior to us receiving the information at Explore we provide the consulting
engineers or architects with a library of standard objects, produce a BIM object library.
We then pass that back to the consulting engineers, they populate their model and then provide
us that information. We'd also do checks between the different precast elements for construction
joints to make sure that's as per the agreed details.
You are able to streamline the design in the best way possible and ensure that everything
works before it's tangible in any way, shape or form. So, for us it's very key that we
get the models and all our theoretical understanding of the entire structure spot on before we
get anywhere near the floor sites.
Once all the issues have been closed out, then we will transfer the model through into
our precast RC detailing platform. We add more detail to the models and we'd be adding
information such as casting fixtures, reinforcing bars, basically to get a digital model as to
what we're trying to produce actually out in the factory.
Having a safe system that is able to carry out these checks for us eliminates the possibility
of human error and uncertainty, giving us a much better outcome in the way that the
product is built. Information not being right has impacts to every single facet of the system,
because if you think about not just the safety and the economy of the whole thing, it's the
environmental impact as well. So, to move six tons of concrete all the way down to a project,
let's say, in London or up in Edinburgh, and to have it wrong on site wastes a lot of time
and money. So, it's always key that we get it right the first time.
Explore Industrial Park effectively sees two of construction's most disruptive new innovations
come together under one roof: offsite manufacturing, enabled and further advanced by digital technology.
Run on digital data, Laing O'Rourke's use of Solibri during design, manufacture and
final assembly is key to ensuring the process runs smoothly, underpinning the success of
countless projects. Indeed, as our world becomes ever more dependent on data, ensuring the
accuracy of that data, so that it can serve us in the best ways possible, is critical.
It's about having controlled conditions, controlled quality, precision, all of the good things
you get from a factory setting that you may not ideally have the ability to implement on site.
There's quite a lot of complexity in the systems that we have based at EIP.
As a factory we look at ourselves as any other factory, the same way an automotive factory
would look at the way they manufacture things. While we are indeed in a very archaic industry,
that hasn't changed much since the Egyptians, we are trying to be the best we can be by
looking at industries that are fundamentally ahead of the game in the way they produce things.
So we're not trying to just be the best construction concrete facility we can be,
we're actually trying to be the best manufacturing company we can be.
The approaches employed at Explore Industrial Park that can offer improvements in productivity
of 60% could be the answer to making a step change in overall performance across the wider industry.
With others now following suit and with the trend gaining in momentum across
the sector worldwide, combining the power of digital technologies with the approaches
that have made manufacturing so successful, is seemingly ushering in a digital manufacturing
revolution in construction that could transform the built world, shaping all of our lives.