, Vice President of Enterprise Transformation at Autodesk, in conversation with.
Lean construction in practice: a virtuous circle of benefits.All of these factors combine to deliver cost and material savings, while using fewer people and increasing productivity.
We’re already seeing evidence that it’s possible to build a superstructure with half the number of people in half the time, representing a four-fold increase in productivity, as well as a 25% reduction in overall material and a 20% reduction in embodied carbon.And there are other benefits, such as the ability to minimise tolerances.In our work with Crossrail we designed to zero tolerance with very good success.
This unlocks vast potential in terms of manufacturing a better quality of building - structures which are more air- and weather-tight, energy efficient and overall better performing.Further, standardisation allows us to do a better job of integrating our mechanical and electrical engineering systems, which then has the knock-on effect of reducing the overall volume of a building by 30-40%.
As the building gets smaller, so does the air handling plant.
This creates a reduction in running costs - heating and lighting.Our Platforms approach to Design for Manufacture and Assembly (P-DfMA) bakes value into the process by bringing the benefits of manufacturing to the design and construction process.
This combined approach can be applied to any building type, but we have seen huge benefits when the buildings we design are particularly complex, or house particularly complex systems and processes..The benefits of a Platform approach to design and construction: time, cost, quality.
A Platforms approach to Design for Manufacture and Assembly (P-DfMA) delivers significant benefits to a project, including: reduced costs, reduced programme time, reduced carbon, reduced numbers of workers required to build, increased health and safety, increased quality, increased flexibility and adaptability.. And we can deliver all of this with no compromise on the aesthetic quality of the building.The beauty of Circle Birmingham hospital – including the spectacular cantilever we achieved over the main entrance – bears witness to that last point.