Study Shows Prefabrication Reduces Site Hazards By 20%

Brief 

A study of two timber frame building systems has shown, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the less activity done on site, the lower the risk of an accident on site.

Insight

The study, commissioned by Stewart Milne Group for the Advanced Industrialised Methods for the Construction of Homes (AIMCH) research project, found that crane-lift panelised building methods provide 20% less exposure to health and safety risks on site than open panel timber frame construction using a forklift.

The £6.5m AIMCH research project, backed by Barratt and L&Q, seeks to industrialise housing production by making panelised methods mainstream. Previous AIMCH research has demonstrated how panelised systems result in homes being built faster, more cost effectively, to a high quality and with a lower carbon footprint. This latest study finds they are also safer (for site workers, at least).

Panelised systems are increasingly used to build houses that have progressively more manufactured components such as prefabricated floor cassettes, ready fitted windows, and pre-insulated closed walls. These systems require a crane to offload and position the components on site.

The study, Health and Safety Risk Profiling of MMC Solutions, prepared by Stewart Milne Group, with support from Limberger Associates, assessed the difference in risk exposure between two timber frame systems: one built on site using manual assembly techniques with the aid of a forklift (GEN1), also typical of masonry-built homes; the other a more advanced system (GEN3), using higher levels of prefabrication, requiring the use of a crane on site.

Stewart Dalgarno, AIMCH project director and director of innovation & sustainability at Stewart Milne Group, said:

“This is the first study we have undertaken to compare the health and safety risk exposure of both construction methods and it is gratifying to see that the crane-erect panelised MMC methods championed by AIMCH reduce safety risks and hazard exposure by 20% on site, where the injury rate per 100,000 workers is 42% higher than in manufacturing, and where 50% of deaths are attributed to falls from height, compared with 16% in manufacturing.”