The key to achieving this is better communication between owners and suppliers, where the supply chain can offer equivalent alternatives and remove some ‘bespokeness’ from the process..
key takeaway article on the benefits of Reference Design below..Defining Reference Design.
What is a Reference Design and why use one?.Many major clients have national or global rollouts that are happening at a rapid pace.. Often these clients have to procure a bespoke design for every site, introducing unnecessary design cycles and complexity that adds cost and time to construction projects and ongoing operations..Yet, from our experience, these clients have a very well-informed view on how their asset needs to perform and the layouts and designs that deliver their operational outcomes.
This knowledge and understanding lends itself to a repeatable solution that can comprise c.80% of the asset.. We call this a ‘Reference Design’: a highly optimised, site agnostic ‘core design’ for a portfolio client.Typically, a Reference Design will contain a number of repeated elements at varying scales (from key equipment to whole assets) that can be configured in a number of different ways (with more or less flexibility in how these are arranged depending on the asset type).. For some assets, the Reference Design can become the fixed design.
The house blocks we designed for the.
Ministry of Justice prisons rollout.There’s enormous potential here, but the industry needs to take some time to work out what the terms of such a mandate might be, in order to ensure it manifests as something helpful for everyone..
The mention of a possible future mandate in TIP 2021 reflects positively on the work that has been done so far, and the commitment from the government on the issue.Although some might challenge this, there is a vast amount of evidence supporting the idea that the adoption of manufacturing approaches and processes, as well as certain elements of standardization in how we build our buildings, will deliver significant change and great benefits.
A mandate would force people to keep pursuing this new, MMC approach going forward, helping us to keep this push towards modern methods of construction and a better way of working from fading away.. A mandate would also encourage collaboration, because we’ll have to do this together in order to reap the benefits.Additionally, it would also provide a timeframe to prove what we’re doing, collect the data to demonstrate the opportunity, and work together to shape the next steps of the journey.