At What Project Stage Should You Specify Offsite?

At what stage of a school building project do you have to specify offsite as the preferred building method? Can you design a building and leave it up to the contractor to find the best way to execute the plan, or should you make a strategic decision in favour of offsite from the outset?

It’s technically feasible to take a project designed with traditional or no particular methods in mind and incorporate elements such as SIPs to increase pre-manufactured value. This may save some time and offer greater guarantees over the energy efficiency of the finished building.

But gains would be marginal. The opportunities missed by not designing for modern methods from the outset would be significant.

A Different Approach to Delivery

Offsite isn’t intended to be an afterthought or an add-on. Projects are planned and delivered in a very different way from the highly linear and sequential approach dictated by traditional methods. These have many potential stumbling blocks on the critical path, including poor weather, or materials and skilled labour not being there when you need them.

Making the strategic decision to specify modern methods for a school building programme with multiple projects also opens the way to product standardisation and economies of scale.

Specifying offsite from the outset simplifies the design process as well as the construction phase. A building system such as Osborne’s InForm product for education has a high pre-manufactured value. It’s based on standardised, pre-existing components and configurations. There’s no need to design from scratch for every project.

Standardised Components and Processes

The detailed processes we use to manufacture, assemble and install the elements of the new school are also standardised and documented. Project planning and implementation are greatly simplified – right down to services and FF&E, which are fully modelled in a 3D design environment complete with clash detection. They are then installed on site exactly as planned.

With a known product and process comes a known outcome – whether that’s build time, cost, quality or energy efficiency. However you define project outcomes, specifying offsite from the outset will give you a more certain result.

For more information about Osborne’s InForm product for education contact Caroline Compton-James ([email protected]) or visit our resource centre.