Collaboration Drives Industrialised Construction
For too long, our industry has struggled to create the kind of collaborative environment that industrialised construction truly needs. We’ve often looked outward—towards government initiatives or external drivers—to spark ambition and innovation, even as investment from the manufacturing sector has declined. And when we try to take the challenge on ourselves, familiar habits can pull us back into siloed thinking and business‑as‑usual behaviours. These patterns have become the status quo, and breaking them is the real opportunity in front of us.
Industry History
Learning from the Past
We’ve been here before. Our industry has launched bold collaborative programmes — Constructing the Team, Rethinking Construction, Accelerating Change — each backed by real commitment, investment, and momentum. They pointed us toward a more integrated, modern way of working. What many didn’t realise at the time is that we were already laying the groundwork for what we now acutely recognise as Industrialised Construction.
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A Fundamental Shift towards
Industrialised Construction Best Practice
Delivering the homes the UK needs demands a decisive shift toward smarter, more integrated delivery models. By drawing on the strengths of automotive and other advanced DfMA sectors. Applying the insights from the OSHA project—we can unlock the innovation, efficiency, and quality that modern housing requires. Ottersbrook believes that 4 core engagement elements for a model to take form, are essential for a dynamic Industrialised Construction process, to succeed.
1. Client & Design Team
Creating the Industrialised Solution at the Front End
In an Industrialised Construction process, clients and designers must operate as a unified front—setting shared objectives, defining performance requirements early, and shaping solutions collaboratively from the outset. When clients articulate clear outcomes and designers translate these into coordinated, MMC‑ready design intent, the entire system gains clarity, efficiency, and certainty. This early alignment ensures that manufacturing, compliance, and project delivery teams all work from the same foundation, enabling a seamless, predictable, and scalable IC process.
2. Manufacturing
The Engine of Innovation
Manufacturers play a vital role as the innovators within an Industrialised Construction system. Their expertise in MMC, product development, and DfMA thinking brings the disruptive capability the sector needs. But manufacturing alone cannot transform housing delivery—it is one essential part of a wider, integrated model.
3. Compliance Management Ensuring Quality, Assurance, and System Integrity
A successful IC process depends on robust compliance management that keeps the entire system aligned, safe, and accountable. This includes the standards, assurance frameworks, and regulatory alignment that ensure MMC is deployed consistently and confidently across the housing system. It is the mechanism that protects quality and builds trust.
4. Project Management Coordinating Delivery and Driving System Performance
Housebuilders and main contractors bring the project management expertise that turns MMC and manufacturing capability into real‑world delivery. Their coordination, sequencing, and risk management ensure that industrialised construction performs as intended—integrated, efficient, and scalable. They are central to making the whole system work.
Housing Delivery 1949 - 2022
We Can Do Better Than This Graph Demonstrates For Sure.
Working together to drive better collaborative engagement is the key. We have not delivered the required number of critical homes in the UK, since the 1960's and 1970's.
This effort was significantly supported by local authority deployment. Interestingly, heavily influenced by MMC technologies that were being used at the time.
Industrialised Construction succeeds when manufacturing innovation, rigorous compliance, and expert project management work in sync—guided by clients and designers who align early to shape a clear, coordinated, MMC‑ready solution.
Ottersbrook Consulting Limited
Industrialised Construction can be defined by the application of standard, repeatable manufacturing and assembly processes to the delivery of building and infrastructure projects.
Construction Leadership Council
