Prefabrication – High-Tech and Manual Production

Author: Christian Schittich, D–München

There are strong arguments for prefabrication: it takes place under workshop conditions, protected from the elements and with greater access to automatic machines than on site. Standardization also leads to higher quality in the execution and to lower costs. Greater flexibility is possible; working conditions and security are improved; and the construction period on site is reduced. Prefabrication does not automatically mean system building or serial production, however; and despite increased automation, construction has not
really become more economical. There is still a large manual input. Although it may be desirable to reduce the volume of this expensive form of work in some countries, the opposite may be the case for ecological reasons and also in developing nations, where the local workforce, know-how and responsibility will remain intact, and industry in distant cities will profit less from construction projects than small and medium-size regional concerns.