Documentation, standardization and improvement of the construction process in house building

Abstract

There is growing interest in the industrialization of house building methods in the UK. Much of the focus has been on the use of manufactured structural components, which addresses the inherent problems of reliance on ‘wet trades’ but not of the quality and efficiency of the assembly and ‘fitting’ processes on site. The house building process has tended to develop more through custom and practice rather than formal analysis of methods. There is a lack of standards, and of mechanisms for process review or sharing knowledge and good practice. The result is significant process variability on site. Process documentation is a rigorous description of a process, procedure or policy to facilitate training, and development of consistency of operations and standards. The paper presents work on a process documentation system, and discusses the organizational changes needed to create the cultural environment for process standardization and improvement.

Keywords:

• house building
• build process
• information system
• change management

Acknowledgement

The work was part‐funded by EPSRC under the Innovative Manufacturing Initiative.