The Voice of Authority:
How will offsite manufacturing
support the recovery programme?
In partnership with:
16 April 2020 Post webinar report
Post Webinar Report How will offsite manufacturing support the recovery programme? 16 April 2020
In partnership with:
Chair: Toby Fox Managing director, 3Fox Panelists Mark Baigent
Tina Barnard
Interim director of housing,
Chief executive, Watford
regeneration and planning,
Community Housing
Haringey Council Rory Bergin
Pat Hayes
Partner, sustainable
Managing director,
futures, HTA
Be First
Overview Sponsored by HTA Design, the third episode in the webinar series saw the panel discuss the role that offsite manufacturing might play in post Covid-19 recovery programmes.
The discussion ranged widely and this report contains a sample and summary. Watch the webinar in full at thevoiceofauthority.co.uk, and subscribe to stay updated on future episodes.
Post Webinar Report Discussion summary Mark Baigent has only been in his current role at Haringey for just over three weeks, and while there have been some obvious immediate challenges for him to grapple with, he has so far adjusted well. In terms of schemes gone to site in the borough, 50% of projects have paused or are on hold, with the other half still moving ahead in accordance with social distancing guidance. Interestingly, much of this slowdown has been caused not by difficulty implementing social distancing rules on site, but more so through supply chain issues.
Despite this Haringey is remaining busy. “There’s still the scope to do lots of work around design, feasibility, and everything that can happen off of the site”, Baigent
Development is like a tanker; if you stop it takes a long time to start it again. So we’re doing a lot of work behind the scenes to make sure that we’ll be up and ready.
explained. It is a similar scene in Watford
Tina Barnard
for Tina Barnard. “On our existing sites it’s around 50%...in terms of the number of homes being developed”, she explained. This is a number she expects to see start going up, as they are already seeing several contractors talk about coming back.
Be First, Barking and Dagenham Council’s regeneration arm, is also being kept occupied. “We’re actually carrying on flat out effectively”, Pat Hayes explained. Be First has eight major projects at the moment, with five of them currently operating “in some shape or form”. Relating back to the session theme, Hayes explained how one of their modular projects was shut down very quickly into the lockdown. Again, the problem here was less so the difficulty of implementing social distancing rules, and more so one of logistics and transport, with the units and subcontractor staff coming from the north and north-east. Be First is however now trying to accelerate the completion of that project for it to become an overspill hospital.
Both public and private sectors will want to accelerate schemes as quickly as possible in the recovery period, and offsite manufacturing might provide the means to do so. “This is the time
Post Webinar Report now to buy an offsite manufacturing company”, Hayes explained. “If I was someone with a huge amount of capital, I would start to generate as much non-bespoke product as I can, and start to accumulate that inventory that you need to then move into a public sector response which is hopefully going to be fairly rapid.”
For the team at HTA the situation and conditions posed by Covid-19 have been a “mixed bag”, as Rory Bergin detailed. While some of their factories slowed or stopped entirely, others involved with the healthcare sector have actually ramped up production and are dealing with increased orders. Even where some factories do slow down, Bergin explained that “in our experience factories are twice as productive as sites. So even if a factory is running at half productivity, it should still be as productive as a site at full productivity”. In terms of following guidance in the factory environment, Bergin reminded that “factories are safe. They’re organised, they’re dry, they’re secure. Managing this problem within the confines of the factory is always going to be easier to manage than on site”.
The panellists all called for increased collaboration and consolidation in the industry. “The thing to hold back factories
I think that it’s important that we all share successes and – we’re not very good at in this sector – failures
historically and now has always been
Rory Bergin
a lack of clear pipeline”, Bergin explained. “If organisations can work together to organise their pipelines so they’re not flooding the factory with orders… then (they) can scale up pretty quickly.” Baigent added “the concept of ‘local authorities clubbing together to procure, if they can agree on the product, then it’s a much more efficient model of procurement”.
It is important that factories are continuing to produce even at this time, as Baigent spoke about how modular might offer the answer for a number of Covid-related housing problems they are dealing with at Haringey. “We’re already picking up rough sleepers and other people who would normally be in temporary accommodation where they’ve got sharing of
Post Webinar Report facilities which is now not appropriate”, Baigent explained. “We are now trying to put them into self-contained accommodation.” Likewise, there is an immediate need for temporary accommodation for people coming out of hospital who can’t yet go home. “In Haringey for example we’re looking for something like another 100 to 200 spaces of accommodation…We’re already thinking about modular as a stopgap solution.” Similar situations are being faced all over London, and indeed the UK. Baigent put out a call for “a product that's sitting unused at the moment that's recyclable”.
Looking to the future, could local authorities come together to purchase a factory themselves? “Possibly”, Hayes thinks. “I think the greatest opportunity is at regional government level in terms of organisations like the GLA who have got significant access to funding and the ability to negotiate significant funding deals with government.” Bergin also argued for things being done at a macro rather than micro level. “In our experience, the effective businesses are the bigger ones. What we need to be doing is aggregating demand.” Bergin called on housing associations and authorities to work together and aim a pipeline at manufacturing businesses who can then deliver it. “I think we need larger factories, fulfilling orders for larger sets of demand. But I don’t think we need hundreds of small factories taking construction and moving it into a big shed.”
Hayes’ ideal would be for the UK to adopt the Scandinavian model, in which the major contractors buy into or establish their own supply chains. However, there’s a twofold desire to have an offsite manufacturing facility in Barking and Dagenham. Firstly, there is the issue of jobs and the added values of those jobs being created. There’s also an environmental consideration to “trekking components around the country”. Bergin agreed on the issue of transport, but considered it from a different aspect. “What’s happening now with Covid-19 is really seismic in terms of how we look at the movement of stuff, of goods and people. This is a time to rethink some of the processes we have set up as a society.” Logistics looks to be one sector that is set to benefit from the current crisis; many logistics companies are currently hiring and growing.
Post Webinar Report Polls and Insight A number of polls were carried out over the course of the webinar surveying the audience of industry professionals. 1. Does your organisation intend to increase its use of offsite methods of construction?
Buyer apprehensions about quality 2%
No 11%
Other 11%
Access to frameworks 6%
Unsure 27%
Yes 62%
3. What is the most important benefit of moving to offsite manufacture and construction?
Safety 10%
2. What is the biggest barrier holding back the industry?
Other 2%
Sustainability 10% Improved build quality 13% Speed of delivery 23%
Lack of government investment 11%
Lack of reliable demand / pipeline 50%
Funder and insurance risk aversion 20%
4. Will Covid-19 cause current levels of interest in offsite-manufacture to slow down or regress?
Unsure 22% Increased efficiency and predictability 44%
No 52% Yes 22%
Our next session is entitled ‘What role will councils play in the town centre of 2021?’ and will take place on 23 April, 11:00 – 12:00 Covid19 has devastated the high street, and the investment model for high streets. But in many ways it has merely accelerated what was already happening, particularly to the retail basis of many town centres. Some office and restaurant-focused solutions may not be viable, given the behaviour change that might follow the epidemic. But what innovations and interventions, both small and large-scale, have already emerged to make a better town centre – and what previously unthinkable adaptations have been made possible by the scale of the crisis?
Speakers: Mark Bradbury Director of property and economy, Enfield Council Dawn Hudd Assistant director physical and cultural regeneration, Medway Council Connor McDonagh Assistant director of economic growth, Ealing Council
REGISTER HERE For more information, or to be involved in future episodes, contact: finn@3foxinternational.com