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16-10-14, 12:34
http://www.straitstimes.com/archive/wednesday/premium/singapore/story/make-room-stack-get-productive-20141015
Make room, stack up, get productive
Rooms built off-site and put together in exec condo project in Sembawang
Published on Oct 15, 2014 1:38 AM
By Janice Heng
MORE cash is being pumped into the Construction Productivity and Capability Fund to lift efficiency in the building industry.
The $55 million injection will bring the fund's total to $335 million, of which more than two- thirds has been committed.
Companies can tap the fund to improve their workers' skills and adopt new technologies to help reduce the need for manpower and speed up construction.
One of the more effective processes - "prefabricated prefinished volumetric construction" or PPVC - involves rooms being built off-site and then stacked together as a building progresses.
A new executive condominium being built by City Developments in Canberra Drive in Sembawang will be the world's largest residential project to be constructed this way. The technique is expected to boost productivity by more than 40 per cent.
The Government aims to have 40 to 50 projects adopt this and other advanced technologies over the next five years.
Lifting productivity in the building trade has been difficult.
Construction worksite productivity has improved by only about 1.2 per cent each year from 2010 to 2013, below the Government's target of 2 to 3 per cent annually.
The Government announced earlier that it will require the use of advanced methods like PPVC in selected Government Land Sales sites this year but its productivity drive went up a gear yesterday.
Ms Grace Fu, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, yesterday set out three ways to improve productivity: More prefabrication, a higher-quality workforce and more integration across the construction value chain.
Ms Fu said at the launch of the Building and Construction Authority's (BCA) annual Singapore Construction Productivity Week that two new integrated construction and precast hubs will be built in Kaki Bukit.
The hubs, to be operational by the middle of next year and 2016, will allow firms to construct components and rooms off-site.
The BCA will also put up more precast hub sites for tender at Defu Industrial Estate while its academy will introduce two courses in construction productivity early next year - a five-month specialist diploma and a two-month advanced certificate.
By January 2016, BCA-registered contractors will need at least one full-time professional and technical employee who has completed one of the two courses.
The goal of greater integration is being tackled by Building Information Modelling (BIM), which is "a key enabler", said Ms Fu. This involves using data-heavy 3D computer models at various stages of the building process.
The BCA conferred inaugural BIM awards on 11 project teams yesterday that have made good use of the approach.
Ideas on Singapore's productivity drive were also put forward at the third International Panel of Experts meeting held here last week.
The 19 recommendations included one calling for a greater emphasis on manufacturing components off-site.
Not only is this more productive, but it also makes for a "shaded, sheltered and more ventilated" working environment that could attract locals, said panel member Pek Lian Guan, chief executive officer of Tiong Seng Holdings.
The panel also recommended incentives for technology adoption and more industry-led research and development.
These ideas will be looked at for the second Construction Productivity Roadmap to be unveiled next year, said BCA chief executive John Keung.
[email protected]
Make room, stack up, get productive
Rooms built off-site and put together in exec condo project in Sembawang
Published on Oct 15, 2014 1:38 AM
By Janice Heng
MORE cash is being pumped into the Construction Productivity and Capability Fund to lift efficiency in the building industry.
The $55 million injection will bring the fund's total to $335 million, of which more than two- thirds has been committed.
Companies can tap the fund to improve their workers' skills and adopt new technologies to help reduce the need for manpower and speed up construction.
One of the more effective processes - "prefabricated prefinished volumetric construction" or PPVC - involves rooms being built off-site and then stacked together as a building progresses.
A new executive condominium being built by City Developments in Canberra Drive in Sembawang will be the world's largest residential project to be constructed this way. The technique is expected to boost productivity by more than 40 per cent.
The Government aims to have 40 to 50 projects adopt this and other advanced technologies over the next five years.
Lifting productivity in the building trade has been difficult.
Construction worksite productivity has improved by only about 1.2 per cent each year from 2010 to 2013, below the Government's target of 2 to 3 per cent annually.
The Government announced earlier that it will require the use of advanced methods like PPVC in selected Government Land Sales sites this year but its productivity drive went up a gear yesterday.
Ms Grace Fu, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, yesterday set out three ways to improve productivity: More prefabrication, a higher-quality workforce and more integration across the construction value chain.
Ms Fu said at the launch of the Building and Construction Authority's (BCA) annual Singapore Construction Productivity Week that two new integrated construction and precast hubs will be built in Kaki Bukit.
The hubs, to be operational by the middle of next year and 2016, will allow firms to construct components and rooms off-site.
The BCA will also put up more precast hub sites for tender at Defu Industrial Estate while its academy will introduce two courses in construction productivity early next year - a five-month specialist diploma and a two-month advanced certificate.
By January 2016, BCA-registered contractors will need at least one full-time professional and technical employee who has completed one of the two courses.
The goal of greater integration is being tackled by Building Information Modelling (BIM), which is "a key enabler", said Ms Fu. This involves using data-heavy 3D computer models at various stages of the building process.
The BCA conferred inaugural BIM awards on 11 project teams yesterday that have made good use of the approach.
Ideas on Singapore's productivity drive were also put forward at the third International Panel of Experts meeting held here last week.
The 19 recommendations included one calling for a greater emphasis on manufacturing components off-site.
Not only is this more productive, but it also makes for a "shaded, sheltered and more ventilated" working environment that could attract locals, said panel member Pek Lian Guan, chief executive officer of Tiong Seng Holdings.
The panel also recommended incentives for technology adoption and more industry-led research and development.
These ideas will be looked at for the second Construction Productivity Roadmap to be unveiled next year, said BCA chief executive John Keung.
[email protected]