FEATURE PANEL PRODUCTS
Reducing Construction Risk According to the new Health and Safety Risk Profiling of MMC Solutions report from AIMCH, panelised timber methods can improve new homes and reduce health and safety hazard exposure on construction sites by 20%.
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Which is safest: masonry or open panel timber frame
closed walls. These systems require a crane to offload and position the
built with a forklift or more advanced panelised
components on site.
modern methods of construction (MMC) using a crane?
The study, Health and Safety Risk Profiling of MMC Solutions,
That question is explored in a new study prepared by
prepared by Stewart Milne Group, with support from Limberger
Advanced Industrialised Methods for the Construction of Homes
Associates, assessed the difference in risk exposure between two
Innovation Project (AIMCH). The study concludes all methods are
timber frame systems: one built on-site using manual assembly
safe, but have differing health and safety risk profiles, with crane
techniques with the aid of a forklift (GEN1), also typical of masonry-built
erect panelised methods, providing 20% less exposure to health and
home – the other a more advanced MMC system (GEN3), using higher
safety risks on site.
levels of prefabrication, requiring the use of a crane on site. Stewart Dalgarno, AIMCH Project Director and Director of
The £6.5 million collaborative R&D AIMCH project seeks to industrialise how homes are constructed by mainstreaming the use of
Innovation & Sustainability at Stewart Milne Group said: “This is the
panelised MMC methods. Previously AIMCH research has demonstrated
first study we have undertaken to compare the health and safety risk
how utilising panelised MMC systems would result in new homes being
exposure of both construction methods and it is gratifying to see that
built faster, cost effectively, to a high quality and with a lower carbon
the crane-erect panelised MMC methods championed by AIMCH reduce
footprint. This latest study strengthens the case for panelised MMC
safety risks and hazard exposure by 20% on-site, where the injury rate
by concluding that housing sites using panelised MMC systems could
per 100,000 workers is 42% higher than in manufacturing, and where
reduce on-site health and safety risk exposure by 20%.
50% of deaths are attributed to falls from height, compared with 16% in manufacturing.”
Increasingly, panelised MMC systems are being used to build new homes that have progressively more pre-manufactured elements such
The study undertook two deep dive evaluations of working
as prefabricated floor cassettes, pre-fitted windows, and pre-insulated
practices and techniques in two areas, floors, and windows, where
Timber Construction Magazine
Summer 2022
32
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