Traditionally, construction is a relatively site-dependent process. You ship the materials to your building site, and your contractor(s) will begin to build your facility. But increasingly, alternative ways of building anything from an office building to a restaurant and even residential facilities are beginning to enter the equation.
The goal, as always, is to save money and time. If you cannot finish your project on time or on budget, your business can suffer significant quantitative and qualitative losses. That’s why prefabrication is rapidly gaining popularity among both residential and commercial construction companies. Once you understand the concept and its benefits, you may even consider it for your next project.
Understanding the Prefabrication Concept
At its core, prefabrication is relatively simple. As the name suggests, it involves building parts of your project off-site, and simply shipping it to your development location for final assembly. Merriam-Webster defines it clearly, stating that prefabication describes the process of
fabricating the parts of at a factory so that construction consists mainly of assembling and uniting standardized parts.
That, of course, is in contrast with more traditional construction processes, which occur entirely at the building site.
An Increasing Construction Trend
As the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a subdivision of the U.S. Department of Commerce points out, prefabrication is rapidly rising in popularity. Across industries, construction companies are using modular building concepts to improve their projects.
Perhaps the most obvious example of prefabricated construction comes in the forms of modular homes. But in reality, a number of commercial and business applications exist for the same concept as well, thanks in large part due to its benefits that can be universally applied across industries.
4 Undeniable Benefits of Prefabrication
There is a reason more and more construction companies are working with their clients to take advantage of prefabrication. In fact, there is more than one reason. Here are just 4 of the major benefits that embracing the concept and philosophy can bring to your construction process:
1. Saving Time
The most natural benefit of prefabrication is the time it saves. If you don’t have to assemble everything in a linear fashion on-site, you can work on multiple aspects of the project at the same time. Assembly of standardized parts is also much quicker than custom-building every bit of the project.
2. Budget Friendly
Across industries, prefabricated buildings tend to cost significantly less than the alternative. Like the time you save, that makes sense: if most materials can be assembled prior to arriving on site, you save far more than the potential added delivery cost.
3. Environmentally Friendly
Constructing industrial buildings in this manner tends to be significantly more environmentally friendly than having to construct everything on site. In fact, one study found that prefabrication in this industry reduces both the Carbon and energy footprint of your construction project.
4. Potentially Higher Quality Control
Finally, pre-building parts of your building at the factor allows for higher quality control of these parts. Too often, construction sites are limited by time constraints, so that an assembly phase may not have enough time to actually undergo a rigorous control process. Through prefabrication, that won’t be an issue.
Working With the Right Partner
Of course, all of these benefits are only possible to achieve if you work with the right company. A major drawback of the rising popularity of prefabrication is the fact that a large number of construction companies are jumping on the trend without considerable experience in projects that involve prefabrication.
Stay away from those companies. To achieve the above benefits, you need to work with a partner that has extensive experience in this type of construction work. We’d love to talk to you about how we can become that partner; contact us to learn more about our experience in prefabrication, and how we can help your construction project succeed.
