There was a time when just the word “prefabrication” sent chills down the back of any reputable contractor in the construction industry, but in recent years, the stigma has all but disappeared. Today, contractors of all types throughout all sectors of the industry are realizing that prefabrication offers benefits never before possible. If you are a construction contractor who has never thought about how modular construction can benefit your particular corner of the industry, here are six benefits you might like to explore.
1) The speed at Which Projects Can Be Completed
The most recent research indicates that prefabricated or modular construction can reduce project times by as much as 35% to 50% of the time it would have taken with more traditional methods. When you factor in the benefit of many components being built off-site, some of which are already manufactured, you can see just how quickly those pieces can be assembled. In anything from pipe bridge assembly to modular homes and commercial buildings, by using parts built in a manufacturing plant, you can simply ‘piece them together’ so that your time on site is reduced significantly.
You’ve heard it said that “time is money,” and nowhere is it more evident in the construction industry than when using modular components. Take, for example, that pipe bridge mentioned above. These are generally built to run natural gas or petroleum across such things as roads, gorges, and rivers. While they are often pre-engineered when building a new pipeline, sometimes they are being run to replace older pipelines that can cause biohazards simply because of their age. Learn more about how pre-engineered pipe bridges can help you complete that line in less time than you ever dreamed possible.
2) Reduction in Production Costs
Getting back to that old adage about time being money, in the construction industry, time is one of the biggest concerns contractors have. Not only are they contracted to get a job done within a specific pre-defined timeline, but all those extra labor hours are costly as well.
When bidding on a job, knowing that you can use modular components can reduce the amount of time a project takes to be completed. This, in turn, can help you underbid your competition. If you have any hopes at all of doing that, keeping your production costs low is absolutely necessary and modular construction plays a key role in cost reduction.
3) Standardization of Materials
Since modular construction takes place, for the most part, in a controlled environment, you will find that prefabricated components can be manufactured to strict standards. In the construction industry, this is a key factor in quality control and inspectors who sign off on jobs will have a much easier time of it as well.
Consider just how many jobs fail that inspection due to substandard materials. In other words, quality control can be assured because of the precision with which those components were manufactured in a controlled environment.
4) More Efficient Use of Resources
If you were to ask any general contractor what their biggest concern is, it would be keeping labor costs within budget. When you can speed up the process by as much as twice the speed of traditional construction, those laborers and licensed professionals can make better use of their time. Not only can they complete jobs quickly but they are then freed to work other concurrent jobs while other materials are being transported to the job site.
Your biggest resource as a contractor is your team, and what better way is there to efficiently use your resources than to keep them producing because they aren’t held up waiting for the preceding team to complete their tasks. Those are typically the jobs completed in the manufacturing plant and only brought to the job site when they are ready to be assembled.
5) Reduction in Site Disruption
This is a huge issue on more than one front. Not only are contractors concerned with cordoning off an area to be worked on, but clients and the general public are often annoyed as well. The longer a job takes, and the longer ‘normal’ activities are interrupted, the more frustrations arise. For example, a new hospital wing is being constructed. Disruptions might include moving wards to keep patients and staff away from work areas and all the noise that typically results from construction can interfere with patients who need bed rest.
They are kept in-hospital because they need medical attention and there is nothing as disrupting as construction going on right outside their windows. The longer construction takes, the longer patients will be disturbed. Yes, that new wing is needed, but not at the risk of disrupting patients in the hospital’s care.
6) Eco-Friendly Waste Reduction
Finally, along with quality control comes the fact that prefabricated components of a building project manufactured in a plant can make better use of waste materials. In an effort to work towards sustainability, today’s industries are urged to significantly reduce waste. Any time something is cut to size at a manufacturing facility, all that waste can easily be collected to be recycled.
It’s rather difficult, and sometimes virtually impossible to accomplish that on a job site. Whether you are prefabricating pipe bridges or modular buildings, there will be waste involved. How you handle that waste is critical and there is no better way to reduce waste than to recycle wherever possible.
Prefabrication in a New Age
The whole idea of prefabrication in the construction industry has always been to cut cost and time, but in the 21st century with all the technology available to us, it is a new day for modular (prefabricated) buildings. No longer frowned upon as a construction ‘cheat,’ prefabrication is often chosen because of the many benefits to be realized. Any company seeking to cut costs while using quality components should seek modular construction as the best solution.
Modular construction is no longer the industry cheat but rather the industry standard for quality, cost-effective processes. Looking to build your bottom line with industry standard best practices? That would be prefabrication wherever and whenever possible.
