Applications of design for excellence in prefabricated building services systems

Abstract

Prefabrication is a sought after area in the AEC industry for manufacture of building components in an off-site controlled environment. Although, most of the structural element such as panels and modules are efficiently prefabricated and assembled onsite, prefabrication of complete mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) systems is not achieved in many cases. This is mainly due to the limitations during assembly of different systems, poor implementation of building information modelling (BIM) and lack of standards for offsite manufacturing. The research will introduce the concept of Design for Excellence (DFX) which is currently used efficiently in the automotive, aerospace and shipbuilding industries. Applications of the DFX concept for building services in residential buildings were studied. This paper presents the overall concept of holistic approach to arrive at an optimum solution for design integrated building services systems for prefabricated buildings.