What you need to know

- This course is about taking elements of a construction project and moving their construction off-site to a manufacturing facility. Some people will call this off-site construction. Some will describe it as modular construction. And others will use the term industrialized construction. All of these are good terms, but all of them can also be used to describe something entirely different than what I'm going to discuss in this course. So let's get that cleared up right now. This course is not about things like modular homes that can be wheeled out to a piece of property. It's not about temporary structures. It's about finding ways to take the structures we already build, office buildings, hotels, schools, hospitals, and finding elements of those structures that can be created more efficiently in a manufacturing type of setting. Now, I'll discuss how this method of offsite construction interfaces with the historically more typical onsite and in-place type of construction, where everything is delivered in pieces and assembled by hand out on the job site. Different people have different ideas about what it means to modularize a building or to manufacture part or all of it off-site. In many ways, this concept is really still in its infancy. Yet there are some companies out there that already have a proven track record of success. When we're building a permanent structure on a piece of land, there will always be elements of the building phase that have to be done in place for a variety of reasons. Utilities, site work, landscaping and foundations, those are all common examples. A permanent structure's also subject to local zoning ordinances and other requirements that jurisdictions having authority put in place to control the look and feel of an area or an entire community. This all means that it's really difficult to attempt to completely separate this modular work from the traditional construction process. In fact, I don't even think that's a good idea. So with all this in mind, what I'll really be discussing here is what I think everyone in the architecture, engineering and construction industries needs to know about incorporating this method of building things into their construction projects and activities. Now make no mistake, this is different than the way that most projects have been built, probably for centuries, so to be successful is going to require some new ways of thinking. Alternatives to the traditional design, bid, build approach to construction project delivery have to be considered, and technology like building information modeling plays a key role in the success of this type of construction. Now, I'm going to dive right in to what makes this type of construction unique, and I'm going to lay out the things I see as both advantages and challenges. If you feel like you would first benefit from some discussion on the overall construction process from design through build, you might want to check out one of my other courses called "Construction Management Foundations." If you want to explore even more, I'll give you some additional resources at the end of this course.