Prefabriction is driving a surge in productivity. The new value created by prefabrication will flow to AEC stakeholders with innovative off-site solutions.
When prefabrication — an umbrella term for all things off-site — is maximized in the building design, the building cost is reduced and the construction is accelerated. How?
The project feels more like the boys in the boat and less like innertubes on the lake.
The most powerful — and most valuable — off-site solutions involve Prefabrication at Scale (PaS). We're talking about the core and shell.
PaS is about reimagining, during design, the parts that comprise the building core and shell to utilize the fewest part types in the greatest quantities and leverage digitalized custom manufacturing for unique parts and assemblies to align these systems with the design concept.
Accomplishing the cost reduction and early occupancy that PaS promises requires virtualization software capable of rapid whole-building modeling.
Using our software, we need just three weeks to generate an initial PaS materials study. Automated arraying replicates parts instantly and automated part tracking means we know the quantities of identical parts and their location in our model.
We can operate with high precision on the data for a small city without breaking the software. We save building data at the level of detail required for manufacturing. We display the data in BIM at a lower level of detail to accommodate the operational limitations of BIM platforms, insuring exact correspondence with the AEC design model.
We curate our parts data to represent, in virtual form, manufacturable parts. The only time spent on vendor verification is to confirm unique design requirements. Automated BOM and draft shop drawing documents complete our deliverables, equipping AEC teams for secure early buyouts.
The PaS design model shifts AEC roles from interpretation to quality control (QC).
Sometimes what you end up with depends on what you start out with. Building delivery is like that. Start out with a set of documents drawn from a conventional volumetric model and you end up with a long revisionary process to get to construction.
Start out with a precise virtual core and shell design and you end up with a round of quality control and a set of early buyouts to get there.
Leverage generates a single truth source that de-risks and accelerates early decisions. These decisions travel through building delivery to accelerate beneficial occupancy.
