A Comparative Study of Offsite Construction Manufacturing Techniques

Offsite manufacturers are commonly competing with each other, as well as with conventional construction companies for projects. The construction industry is interested in knowing how the performance of the manufacturers compares to traditional onsite constructed projects in terms of time, safety, waste, and cost. While this comparison is important for the industry; limited information is available to make this comparison since the vast difference in the methods makes detailed comparisons time consuming and the same project is rarely built with both methods, so different projects must be compared. Each manufacturer carries out their construction process differently, employing varying levels of planning, automation, and manufacturing principles. While some manufacturers are operating almost as conventional builders in a factory, others have leveraged the opportunities available through offsite construction to create a more predictable and productive process. Because of this diversity, there is a significant variance in the cost, time, safety, and waste measurements between offsite manufacturers. This variance necessitates the comparison between the varying approaches for offsite construction first. This paper details some of the methods used for floor panel construction in offsite construction using two case studies and begins to compare them based on cost and time.