BRE is part of consortium awarded a £22m grant from the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) to look at advanced manufacturing in the construction supply chain.
The funding comes under the BIS Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative (AMSCI) which aims to accelerate the delivery of homes, buildings and infrastructure across the UK at a time of huge demand in the sector.
Led by global engineering and construction company Laing O’Rourke, the consortium* comprises twenty two partners. The project work streams will not only address research into modular design and manufacturing, but will also cover structured training initiatives, providing the existing workforce and new recruits with skills around digital engineering, the manufacturing process and installation. It also aims to create 600 new jobs across the UK.
BRE is one of three partners in the consortium who will support research and development. It has been tasked with creating an industry standard for factory manufactured housing pods and will also devise and deliver training programmes around digital engineering and BIM, sustainability and building regulations.
Heading up the BRE participation is Julie Bregulla Director of Building Technology Group at the BRE building science centre who said: "We are very pleased to be a part of this programme of work which aims to drive innovation in the supply chain so the industry can deliver more volume and better quality homes for people. Having the right standards and training in place will reduce risk and ensure the new housing technologies are assembled and installed in the right way and that their long term performance can be assured."
"The investment is potentially great news for our ability to help address the UK’s housing capacity gap of some 60,000 to 100,000 homes annually, with advanced off-site manufacturing and digital engineering speeding up the provision of affordable, high quality accommodation," said Stephen Trusler, Laing O’Rourke’s Accommodation Sector Leader.
