"Alas Poor Fred, I knew him" Farewell Traditional methods, hello not so new MMC. Say it loud and proud
For those over 35, the image above will bring back fond memories of the Flintstones and the famous cry at the end of each shift in the quarry of "Yabba Dabba Do". This in my mind the image we give ourselves in probably the most constant sector in economies going back to Noah and his Ark.
However what if we shake off this image and embrace what we have been discussing for twenty years in small huddled groups or at Masonic meetings of our Industry, an acronym that frightens the boldest Industry leaders "MMC". Yes I did say industry leaders because ultimately they can and should drive innovation, change and education.
Henry Ford famously once said"Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success. At this turbulent time for all around the world we need as an industry to consider this approach and embrace the words and the genius that said them, after all he was the founder of the automated car industry. lessons can be learnt in this current crisis to start again with MMC, but this time more intelligently than before.
My own business has learnt from the near apocolyptic and Biblical events and opened up our supply chain to cover the UK more effectively than previous. Despite the current events we are moving forward preparing for the re-start in 6-12 weeks time. Clients are valuable and essential to our success, but equally so are we and at the moment without change we will fall even further behind when trying to achieve the Government targets.
So lets get ready and instead of avoiding change lets embrace it and spread the word, typically we tell clients that we can install foundations for 4>5 houses per day or 25 per week. We have just been informed and quite rightly that two schemes have been put on hold, but if you do the maths 150 units lost from production over two schemes. Could you possibly consider "Traditional"foundations when looking to pull the programme back in six weeks when considering the labour, plant and material required.
We are ready are you? Below is a section from a government document pushing MMC, which we should all read and think about the numbers involved to achieve these targets
Government’s homebuilding targets and the case for MMC
Government’s homebuilding targets and the case for MMC 1. We support the Government’s ambition to add one million additional homes to the housing stock by 2020 and increase annual output to 300,000 by the mid2020s; however, these volumes will not be achieved unless there is much wider adoption of MMC, alongside traditional building methods. Adopting higher levels of MMC would diversify the market and help to increase the numbers of new homes delivered, but capacity in off-site construction will have to increase rapidly and new entrants come into the market, if it is going to play a significant role in meeting the Government’s homebuilding targets.
To track how much the Ministry is spending on MMC specifically, it should report annually the total amount allocated to MMC developments across all its different funding streams, including generic schemes such as Help to Buy. It should implement a coordinated strategy across all relevant government departments to increase MMC homebuilding and monitor how many homes are built using MMC, in order to evaluate the impact of this strategy.