Prefabricated home construction is twice as fast as a stick-built house. Thanks to smarter use of technology, materials, manpower, and closed construction site, times are shorter and quality is higher.
Many people are still wondering why does prefab house construction is so fast, and the answer is very simple, it is just an industrialized efficient process. This means that new technologies have been implemented into the building process, production line disciplines have been used to make the process as efficient as possible, and the ability to work at any time of the year without any unexpected delays makes the process fast and incomparable to the traditional site-built homes.
In addition, prefab homes are being sold as pre-planned homes with little to non changes being available for the customers. This way the factory can run at full speed and be highly efficient. This process is very similar to the car production method, where the customers order everything they wish to have from a “catalog” and the factory can manufacture the product within a very accurate time frame.
Let’s see how the process is faster by understanding its parts from planning, marketing and selling process, all the way to the production, and lastly the delivery and compilation on site.
Faster Prefab Construction Due To Better Planning
The first piece of the puzzle that makes prefab home construction to be so fast is the planning phase. In this phase, the company is developing its vision, the R&D team will determine the price goal, local materials to be used, imports that will be required, levels of finishing, and the general approach for the products to be sold.
Now that the company knows its limitations the architects can work and design the houses with the customer’s needs in mind. Developing cool, functional, sustainable, and high-quality homes are their goals.
When the development phase has been concluded the company can move to the production stage. But, before we focus on production let’s understand the advantages of having pre-planned houses for potential clients to choose from.
Choosing from a catalog makes both sides understand what to expect and makes the deal easier overall, just like buying a new car or TV for that matter, all of them are factory produced and both sides understand what is required by each.
But the real advantage of constructing a house in a factory is that the production process of each model sold by the factory has its construction sequence which results in speedy delivery and high quality, just like the car industry does so well for decades.
Having a small range of pre-planned products to manufacture makes the factory to be highly specialized and efficient in designing the production floor, work station, and even shifts, which by that keeping everything under control and pushes the production times to be way faster than any site-built homes could ever dream of.
The Differences between stick built houses and prefab are just starting here if you wish to know more about this topic see our other post on that matter.
Prefab Construction Process Is Faster In A Factory
Producing a certain type of product in a factory, hand made or machine produced, is by far faster than having it produced on a temporary site such as a stick building home site.
Thanks to modern technology we are able to set many processes one by another in a specific sequence to complete the construction of a house inside a factory. That comes in the form of new indoor cranes, robots, hand tools, computing power, and safety equipment.
This use of technology alongside standardization in the production process benefits us with faster assembled and higher quality prefabricated homes.
This is what happens with factory prefabricated homes these days, the companies have implemented many techniques from other fields, like having a production line with stations for each stage of the construction process, just like the original production line from the beginning of the industrial revolution, but just a bit better.
Having the factory floor divided into certain areas that are designated for completing a certain task improves the productivity of the workers which makes the process faster.
For example, with this production method, the tools for each stage do not have to move and can stay in a designated spot to the convenience of the workers at that station.
Additionally, the workers are much more productive as they know what their exact job is at each station, no need for explanations each and every day, and no need for preparation time like in stick-built homes.
Another good example of technological use for prefab construction is the ability to use cranes and robots to do the heavy lifting as the homes are assembled piece by piece. Moreover, the use of CNC machines for cutting windows, doors, and other necessary openings is much faster than human handwork thanks to computers.
These are just small examples of why constructing a prefab house in a factory is way faster thanks to the higher level of comfort thanks to technology and industrial manufacturing process methods. Thus, constructing prefabs is fast due to the fact that everything during this process is highly situated towards its outcome – having a livable high-quality home in the most efficient and cost-effective way (read about the 100k home you could build here).
Constructing A Prefab House Has No Weather Delays
Unlike stick-built homes constructing a prefab house can be faster as it isn’t exposed to the elements of nature during its construction. This means that building a prefab house could continue its building through the coldest winter days or through the hottest summer months, it just keeps on going no matter what.
Having a factory to construct prefab homes is like building a house inside a bubble, it is protected from storms and droughts, and the workers have a high-quality work environment. Those factors contribute a lot to the productivity of the workforce which in turn speeds up the time for the completion of prefabricated homes.
In addition, prefab homes factories can have a protected storage area both for the raw materials and the completed sections of the homes. Having this advantage makes purchasing raw materials in large bulks very safe as it can be stored safely and be ready to use without the concern of bad weather harming any of them.
Moreover, making sure completed sections of the prefab house are safely stored until delivery is also a huge benefit for speed of production as there is less concern whether those walls or modules could be harmed by nature.
As the construction environment of prefab homes is being monitored and controlled the impact it has on the timeline is highly beneficial for shortening the construction period.
Fast Construction Speed Through High Productivity
Productivity, in a nutshell, is the sum of various measures of the efficiency of production. In our case, we look at how well and fast the construction of a prefab house is completed.
As mentioned above there are many factors that contribute to the speed of construction, however, the main factor that makes a huge contribution is the productivity of the workers.
The factory floor is organized in a way that improves productivity, it starts with climate control, good lighting, the right tools for each task, a steady raw materials supply chain, and ends with controlling human error rate by controlling each task of the process, setting guidelines, and assessing quality along the whole construction process.
Productivity is also improved by setting work shifts that are reasonable considering the tasks and experience of the team. If the factory is overwhelmed by orders it can even continue its production at night, think of how much this could push the productivity even higher.
Additionally, having a clear goal for each worker is by far easier to set on the production floor, and is part of the industrialization of the process. The workers understand perfectly what is being required of them and the job is completed in a high degree of quality and speed.
All those factors that are part of the construction process of prefab homes and boost their productivity to the sky are by no means achievable at a site built home which makes such a huge difference to the time each can be completed.
On Site Speedy Assembly Of Prefab Homes
Once the parts or modules are ready in the factory they are being sent to the designated lot to be assembled. This phase is fairly easy as in most cases it is just like assembling a Lego house, all the parts are market and there is a specific plan to follow.
In many cases, this stage will take anywhere from several hours to a couple of days until the house is ready to be furnished and considered livable. Local utilities connections are also done on the spot (needs to arrange in advance) like other local things that need to be handled in advance which we elaborate about in another post.
But generally speaking this stage for most prefab homes is so short that it does not really add any significant time to the whole construction process.
Prefab Construction Is So Fast Compared With Other Methods
In conclusion, prefabricating a home in a factory has lots of advantages for the buyers, from high-quality raw materials to the low price high value product they will receive. But, by far the biggest advantage is that they could have a home in a record speed time compared to any other method.
The speed at which prefab homes are being constructed is just a dream to the construction market. Moreover, it is doing wonders for our ability to lower our impact on the environment with more than ever sustainable houses.
This sustainability is especially being felt throughout the construction process as the impact on the environment is lower by as much as 50% compared with stick built homes.
The impact is lower also thanks to the shorter construction time of the houses, which is thanks to the innovation of what many consider to be a low-tech market by bringing new and improved production methods, controlled environment, better work environment, computers and robotics, and lastly, planning and assessing each part of the process to create a cool, well-engineered, useful and eco-friendly product – your new prefab home.
Until next time
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