Is this finally the moment for industrialised construction? A new study conducted by Dodge Construction Network in partnership with Autodesk suggests that the tipping point is coming soon. The global research was conducted via an online survey with 763 respondents employed by construction owners, designers, general and trade contractors, and building product manufacturers in five regions: Australia/New Zealand, Germany, Japan, North America and United Kingdom/Ireland. It demonstrates that, while most of those familiar with the three industrialised construction methods studied—prefabrication, productization and design for manufacturing and assembly (DfMA)—expect these methods to become business as usual on at least half of the projects at their organisations, their current levels of adoption and implementation vary strongly by region.
Adoption and Implementation
Familiarity with Industrialised Construction Approaches Is Frequent Globally, But Lags in North America
Only those who were at least familiar with one of the three methods studied were allowed to participate in the survey in order to have meaningful responses to many of the questions. The global findings clearly demonstrate, though, that those who are aware of one method are aware of the others, with awareness at 94% for prefabrication and above 80% for productization and DfMA.
The only exception to this trend is North America. While awareness of prefabrication was very high (a finding well-supported by previous studies conducted by Dodge that demonstrate that prefabrication is a well-established practice in North America), only 50% of respondents from this region were even familiar with productization or DfMA. This lack of familiarity is just one of many findings that demonstrates the degree to which this market lags the others in embracing industrialised construction.
A Wide Gap Still Exists Between Awareness and Use
While familiarity is widespread, use of the methods is considerably less common. Slightly less than half of the owners, designers and contractors report that they have used prefabrication (44%), productisation (49%) or DfMA (49%). In addition, even those who use these approaches currently do so on less than half of their projects, and the levels of implementation vary widely by region.
- Respondents from Germany and Japan use productisation on more than 30% of their projects, but the other regions do so on less than 20% of their projects.
- The elements that are productised on average account for more than 35% of the total contract value on projects in Germany and Japan as well, compared with less than 20% in the other regions.
The Tipping Point
The majority of the respondents who are at least familiar with each method expect to be using it on more than half of their projects in the future.
- Many respondents in Germany and Japan expect this transition to happen soon
- Over 60% of owners, designers and contractors in Germany believe this has already occurred or will occur in less than three years for all three approaches, and belief that it will occur eventually is nearly unanimous.
- Nearly half (46%) of German manufacturers, in fact, report that they already see productization as business as usual on 50% or more of the projects that they engage in.
- Around 40% of owners, designers and architects in Japan are equally confident that this transition has already occurred or will happen soon, and nearly as many manufacturers (35%) believe the same about productization, but fewer (17%) find DfMA to be a widespread standard practice.
Most respondents in Australia/New Zealand, North America and UK/Ireland are also confident that these approaches will be used on the majority of their projects, but the time frame is longer, with three to five years being the most common expectation.
- All but a handful of respondents believe this in Australia/New Zealand and UK/Ireland.
- While the share expecting this transition is lowest in North America, it is still the majority of those familiar with these approaches.
