Jaimie Johnston and Kevin Masters talk to ICE Publishing about automated construction

A 2016 study of a group of offenders who re-offended within 12 months of release from prison estimated that the total economic and social cost of reoffending was £18.1 billion..

The best incentive for industry-level change will come from owners, who are starting to understand the enormous financial costs of delays and disrupted schedules more than ever before.And when owners make certain decisions, the supply chain will follow.. To learn more about our Design to Value approach to design and construction, sign up for our monthly newsletter here:.

http://bit.ly/BWNewsUpdatesIntroduction – what is automation in construction?.The overall landscape of the construction industry has been changing in recent years, driven by an expanding interest in areas such as Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA), Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), and the use of transformative new technologies ranging from digital design tools to construction robotics and intelligent control systems.Broadly speaking, when we refer to automation in construction, we mean the development and application of tools, methods and technologies that automate various parts of a construction project from design through to the actual construction process.

This could include creating many building options with generative design at an early stage, testing facilities or construction schedules with simulation, or on-site construction robots performing tasks which could be inefficient or unsafe for people to do.In this article we go into detail on a case study where discrete event simulation (DES), developed in collaboration with Tata Steel, supports the analysis and development of an off-site, automated factory which manufactures the FASTtruss structural building assemblies.. How can automation be used in construction?.

Traditionally, construction has been an on-site process with a minority of off-site construction operations, but it is now shifting to include a hybrid of both on-site improvements and increased off-site operations (.

https://www.brydenwood.co.uk/offsiteoronsiteconstruction/s125064/.This allows an initial solution (or multiple solutions) to be developed, with pre-defined rules assuring compliance.

These design solutions can be assessed and compared for optimisation of flows, simplicity of enabling works (cut and fill, extent of utilities works) etc..This is not a complete design solution but can quickly generate a working feasibility model so clients can make highly informed decisions in days or weeks and at a fraction of the cost of a non ‘reference design’ approach.

Clients can even take a virtual tour to aid their insight, feedback and input.The design and procurement stages that follow can then also be compressed through focusing time and effort only on the bespoke elements of the largely standardised design.