What is Offsite Construction?
Offsite construction includes the process of designing, planning, fabricating, transporting, and assembling components of buildings, allowing for very rapid on-site assembly compared with traditional on-site construction. Also known as prefabrication, prefab construction, or modular construction, offsite construction offers many benefits over more traditional onsite construction.
What Are the Benefits of Off-Site Construction?
There are many benefits of off-site construction for a variety of applications in industries such as security, manufacturing, and medical. These include:
Customizable
Offsite construction of custom buildings incorporates optimal features. For example, non-combustible walls can be fabricated with steel for use in flammable environments. Another example would be the installation of noise-controlling doors, walls, and windows for environments with significant noise pollution.
Sustainability
Offsite construction reduces carbon emissions because there is far less commuting back and forth to the job site. In addition, producing materials offsite enables accurate control and measurement of released emissions throughout the building process. Furthermore, the use of construction materials is significantly more efficient.
Safer Working Conditions
Prefabricated modules are easily assembled at the final destination and are installed by only one team. By reducing or eliminating the number of teams working on a project during the installation phase and largely eliminating a wide range of dangerous construction equipment, the risk of site accidents can be mitigated significantly.
Short Lead Times
Modular construction can cut months off the total constructions schedule. Once the site is fully prepped, buildings can often be constructed in as little as one day.
Consistent Quality
Prefabricated modules are created on an assembly line using repeatable processes and implementing consistent quality checks. This ensures that completed buildings will be of the highest possible quality throughout.
These features make offsite construction ideal for a variety of applications, such as:
- Manufacturing/Distribution/Energy
Manufacturing operations can benefit from a wide range of prefabricated buildings, such as plant offices, employee breakrooms, locker rooms, restrooms, and more. These buildings offer an ideal solution for quick expansion or optimization of existing space.
- Security
Security applications can benefit from the fast addition of modular guard shacks and other outbuildings to shore up weak points in a perimeter or in response to threats. These buildings can be customized to be blast proof, among other security features.
- Medical
Urban and rural areas alike often see an increased need for quality healthcare facilities. Modular buildings can provide a wide range of medical buildings to compensate for increased patient demands, such as clinics, patient rooms, offices, laboratories, clean rooms, locker rooms, and more.
Off-Site Construction vs. Traditional Onsite Construction
Traditional onsite construction is notorious for low productivity, unpredictable budgets, quality defects, and significant delays. Each step in the process must be completed before the next step can take place, so one hold up early on can throw off an already long lead time. Traditional construction is also vulnerable to many complications, such as:
- Supply shortages
- Inclement weather
- Workforce illnesses
- Lack of available skilled labor
Offsite construction is completed inside negates many of these risks.
Predictable Cost
With traditional construction, the majority of the budget will be spent on conditions, contingencies, fees, and labor. Furthermore, the uncontrolled building environment may cause project delays due to inclement weather. In contrast, a mere 30% of offsite construction budgets are reserved for labor while approximately 70% of the construction cost is materials.
Production Efficiency
Production efficiency is one of the most significant differences between offsite and onsite construction. Onsite construction requires long-term equipment management, security concerns, and an increased labor force. An indoor workstation in a controlled environment lends itself to sustainable, consistent high-quality, high-volume production capabilities. Meanwhile, a single construction team provided by the building supplier ensures that labor will be readily available when the time comes for building assembly.
Timeliness of Project Completion
The fabrication of components occurs simultaneously with site preparation tasks such as pouring slabs or connecting plumbing and electricity to municipal grids. This, combined with the production efficiency capabilities of offsite construction in a controlled environment, allows for more projects to be completed on time.
Offsite Construction Services from Speed Space
Offsite construction is changing the construction industry for the better. With benefits including decreased costs, enhanced production efficiency, timely project completion, predictable costs, and reduced material waste, prefabricated buildings offer an affordable option for new buildings or the expansion of existing ones.
For over 44 years, Speed Space has been proud to manufacture offices and buildings across a number of industries, supplying thousands of buildings to some of the world’s largest companies. We typically have a turnaround time of three to four weeks, are extremely flexible, and can give you a fixed cost in advance. For more information on offsite construction, request a quote or contact us today.