The appetite is growing for offsite design, manufacturing and installation. Is the collaboration between Arcadis and Caledonian the future for off-site manufacturing? It certainly has benefits as this collaboration between consultants and off-site manufacturers recognises the importance of crossover intelligence between typical construction design and off site fabrication/manufacturing.

There is no doubt that this collaborative partnership will provide a product for the housing market and the education market. The challenge will be how this collaborative partnership will be procured by either the Public Sector clients or Private Sector clients/developers. Each of these clients will have different evaluation criteria - Public Sector will require OJEU compliant including all necessary credit and PQQ checks, together with justifying Value For Money outcomes; the Private Sector would be driving for programme and cost improvements over the typical delivery approaches.

None of these challenges will be unsurmountable but will require maintained volume/programme of works to achieve the efficiencies of savings through component design and manufacturer.

This is all positive small steps to improving construction outputs.