Collaborative knowledge-based DfMA approach to build cost-efficient, low-impact and high performance houses

“40年来，建筑实践几乎没有发展，生产力也没有发展。房屋作为一种产品一直被批评为成本低、无法满足市场需求。造成创新市场失灵的原因有：1)缺乏商业周期的连续性；2)学科竖井的存在；3)缺乏现代建设方法的循证基准；4)零碎的可用知识。拟议的项目由沃尔索尔住房集团的商业部门领导，由来自各个部门和学科的专家组成的联盟交付，试图通过采用创新的跨学科合作方法来设计、制造和组装经得起市场考验的、环保的、可扩展的经济适用房来满足需求，从而解决这些问题。**合作包括：1)开发技术；i)设计制造；Ii)装配设计；iii)高性能和低影响的设计；iv)生命周期成本和二氧化碳排放量最小的房屋设计（即DfMA房屋）；2)制造设计自动化潜力评价；3)为DfMA房屋制定基于证据的生产和生命周期基准；4)开发基于知识的工程工具来估算生命周期成本和碳排放**。项目中提出的DfMA住宅将直接有助于降低33%的生命周期成本，包括10%的建造成本，50%的设计和施工时间，30%的家庭能源消耗和50%的碳强度，并提高20%的建筑生产率。这将**影响并扩大集团到2021年的1,365套房屋交付计划，以及区域和国家计划**。该项目的预期经济效益包括：1)减少住户的能源费用；2)为供应商创造新的商机；3)降低区域建设成本，加快交付，实现目标完工；4)允许其他注册提供商通过与集团合作来复制业务模式，这将产生乘数效应；每户劳动力需求的减少将提高行业对劳动力短缺的适应能力——这是一个可能随着时间的推移而恶化的现有问题。其他社会影响包括：1)通过创造更多的可支配收入和更舒适的生活环境来提高生活质量；2)更快获得社会住房或经济适用房；3)为未来创造新的角色和技能；4)创造比传统现场生产更安全的生产工作环境。”

"Construction practice has hardly evolved in 40 years, and nor has productivity. Houses as a product have been criticised as cost-inefficient and failing to meet the market demand. Innovation market failures have been caused by 1) lack of continuity of business cycles, 2) presence of discipline silos, 3) lack of evidence-based benchmarks for modern construction methods and 4) fragmented available knowledge. The proposed project - to be led by the commercial arm of Walsall Housing Group and delivered by a consortium of experts from various sectors and disciplines - attempts to address these issues by adopting an innovative cross-disciplinary collaborative approach to design, manufacture and assemble market-proof, environmentally-friendly and scalable affordable houses to meet demand. **The collaboration includes 1) development of know-how for i) design for manufacture; ii) design for assembly; iii) design for high performance and low impact and iv) design for houses with minimal life cycle costs and CO2 emissions (i.e. DfMA houses); 2) evaluation of automation potential of design for manufacture; 3) development of evidence-based production and life-cycle benchmarks for DfMA houses; and 4) development of knowledge-based engineering tools to estimate life-cycle costs and carbon emissions**.DfMA houses proposed in the project will directly contribute to reducing 33% life-cycle costs including 10% build cost, 50% design and construction time, 30% household energy consumption and 50% carbon intensity, and increasing 20% construction productivity. This will **impact and expand the Group's 1,365 house delivery programme by 2021, as well as regional and national programmes**.The anticipated economic benefits for the project include: 1) reducing tenant householders' energy bills; 2) creating new business opportunity for suppliers; 3) reducing regional construction costs and speeding up delivery to meet the completions targeted; 4) allowing other registered providers to replicate the business model through partnerships with the Group, which will create a multiplier effect; 5) a reduced labour requirement per home will improve the industry resilience to labour shortage -- an existing problem likely to worsen over time.Other social impacts include: 1) improving quality of life by creating more disposable income and more comfortable living environment; 2) quicker access to social or affordable housing; 3) creating new roles and skills for the future; 4) creating a safer work environment for production than the traditional production onsite."