Off-site manufacture of apartment buildings

The populations of major cities in Australia are increasing rapidly and facing an acute housing shortage. Traditional apartment procurement techniques involve lengthy lead-times and factory-based, or offsite manufactured (OSM) multi-storey apartment buildings offer the opportunity to help fulfill the need by significantly reducing build times. Other advantages of OSM may include superior quality, low weight ratios, economies of scale achieved through repetition of prefabricated units, use on infill sites, sustainable design standards and better occupational health and safety. There are also positive labour and training implications, which may help to alleviate an industry-wide shortage of skills through the use of semi-skilled labour. Previous uncertainties about the adoption of offsite due to the high capital costs and perception issues were generally based on pre-cast concrete structures, which are quite a different building type in terms of flexibility, construction, delivery and finishes. Identification of drivers and constraints assists in the determination of current industry status, allows for a benchmark to be established and future opportunities and directions for OSM to be determined. This paper adopts a case study approach to investigate the drivers and constraints of OSM, and details the development of OSM.