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Daily Commercial News and Construction Record, 44, 182 & 187, pp. 3-8,
1967-10-01
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Industrialized building South African and Canadian views
Webb, T. L.; Legget, R. F.
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Ben
rHL
N21t2
no. 259
e . 2
BI,DG
NATIONAL RESEARCH
CONSEIT NATIONAL DE
COUNCIL OF
RECHERCHES
EANADA
IJU CANADA
3SA4fi
INDUSTRIALTZED
BUILDING
SOUTH AFRICAN
AND CANADIAN
VIEWS
by
T. L. Webb, Director,
The National Building Iiesearch Institute of
South Africa
and
R. F. Legget, Director,
Division of Building Research, National Research
Council of Canada
A l : A L Y r . : D
Reprinted from
DAILY COMMER,CIAL NEWS 20 AND 27 SEPTEMBER, 1967 VOL. XLIV, NOS. 182 AND 18?
TECHNICAL PAPER NO. 259
of the
DIVISION OF BUILDING R,ESEARCH
OTTAWA
October L967
NRC 9826"i'?ffnT,fi?T*
iAilJ I U60
N A T I o N A L R F c r ^ - . ^ . . - L d c o " a r . lPrice 25 Cents
APERCUS SUD - AFRICAINS ET CANADIENS SUR
I'INDUSTRIATISATION DE I,A CONSTRUCTION
SOMMAIRE
Le pr6sent expos6 a 6t6 pr6-par6 conjointement par MM. T. L. Webb,
d'Afrique du Sud, et R. F. Legget, du Canada, tous deux directeurs des
organismes de recherche en construction dans leur pays respectif. Il
se compose d'extraits d'un article de M. Webb exposant les vues
sud-africaines sur I'industrialisation de la construction, publi6 dans le South
African Builder, et des commentaires de M. Legget sur les id6es exprim6es
dans cet article et sur leur importance dans le contexte canadien.
On ddfinit l'industrialisation de la construction comme une m6thode
g€n6rale de construction selon laquelle les 6l6ments d'un bdtiment sont
fabriqu6s en usine puis assembl6s sur le chantier de construction. Les
auteurs en 6tudient les aspects suivants: emploi des 6l6ments de logement,
planification des travaux, 16glementation de la construction,
main-d'oeuvre, mdcanisation, questions et perspectives dconomiques. Les deux
auteurs s'accordent pour d.ire que I'industrialisation de la construction est
vitale pour I'industrie du bdtiment, les bureaux d'6tudes connexes et
l'dconomie de leur pays respectif. L'inndustralisation de la construction
n6cessitera
une surveillance plus etroite et plus technique des travaux et
le resserrement des contacts existant entre propri6taires, architectes,
ing6nieurs et constructeurs. Bien que les m6thodes d'industrialisation
de la construction soient susceptibles de jouer un r6le de plus en plus
important pour r6sourdre les probldmes
de logement, ce sont leur rendement
technique, Ieur cotrt total, et le niveau d'acceptation de la part des
logements qui d6termineront I'importance de leur substitution aux m6thodes
traditionnelles de construction.
INDUSTRIALIZED
AND
BUILDING :
CANADIAN
SOUTH AFRICAN
VIEWS
T. L. Webb and R,. F. Legget are the Directors, respectively, of The National Building Research Institute of South Africa and The Division of Building Research, National Research Council of Canada. This is a joint paper, prepared especially for the Daily Commercial News, consisting of the main part of a paper by Dr. Webb to which have been added comments from the Canadian point of view by R. F. L. The introductory paragraphs are the latter's.
Industrialized building is a term that is often heard in current discussions in construction circles in Canada. It means, however, different things to different people. To some it indicates a great "break-through" by the application of industrial nrethods to the so-called "backward" construction industry. To others, more cynical, it is just a new wr.rrd to describe Prefabricated Building, with all the connotations that this term now carries. The term is most accu-rately used to describe something that is midway between these two extreme views.
It is no new thing, certainly no "break-through," but rather a very healthy development of the steadily increasing efficiency of the construction industry, representing an extension of earlier pre-fabrication techniques with all the wild hopes eliminated and ob-jectionable features removed or improved. It is a natural and desire-able development at this time of rapid expansion in the volume of construction throughout Canada and in view of the still further expansion that can even now be foretold for the years immediately ahead.
In keeping with its service to for a whole year's stay in Great
the consiruction industry, DBR/ Britain with the specific objective
NRC has been following the appli- of studying in depth the best of
cation of industrialization meth- European industrialized methods,
ods to building ever since the against the background of the
Di-start of its work. In more recent vision's general knowledge of these years, special study has been made developments. The Division has
re-of the widely publicized "in- ceived a number of requests to
dustrialization" of building in publish a general review of
in-Europe. As research officers of the dustrialized building techniques
Division have attended official and this it is planned to do after
meetings in different European Mr. Platt's return to Canada later
countries, they have carefully ex- this year.
amined many of the better meth- Interest in this vast subiect is
o d s n o w i n u s e o n E u r o p e a n n a t u r a l l y n o t c o n f i n e d t o C a n a d a
building sites. The extensive use of or even to North America and
large factory-fabricated units, and Europe. It is of international
con-even of complete apartments, in cern, as was clearly shown by the
the USSR, has been included in devotion of the whole Third
Con-these overseas studies. They have gress of CIB (the International
culminated in the assignment of Building Flesearch Council) to the
one research officer (R,. E. Platts) subject of TOWARDS
INDUS-TRIALIZED BUILDING. This is the title of the 507-page volume that contains all the papers pre-sented to this great meeting from countries all'round the world, held in Copenhagen in August 1965. The volume is published by Else-vier Publishing Company Inc., the sale price in North America being $41 U.S. It is commended to all who wish to have available some of the wealth of information, in-c I u d i n g ein-conomiin-c in-comparisons,
which is now internationally
available.
At the private five-yearly meet-ings of the Building Research Directors of the English-speaking world the same interest has natu-rally been found. It was therefore known to the two Directors con-cerned that similar thoughts about industrialized building were cur-rent in South Africa and Canada, despite differences between the two countries and their economies. This was made very clear when a paper on the subject by Dr. W'ebb
(of South Africa) was presented at a recent annual Congress of that country's National Federa-tion of Building Trades Employers, and later published in The South African Builder, the official jour-nal of the Federation. The views there expressed are so close to those held within DBR,TNRC that permission was solicited, and most graciously granted by Dr. Webb and the Federation, to republish the paper in Canada for the bene-PAGE THREE
fit of the construction industry of this country.
From the way in which this joint presentation is printed, it will be clear to all readers which is the part contributed by Dr. Webb and which are the eom-ments, almost footnotes, contri-buled from the Canadian stand-point. Readers are reminded that South Africa is, in technological matters, in quite an isolated loca-tion. South African architects, en-gineers, and builders cannot, as can their Canadian counterparts, fly down in an hour or two, to great technical meetings in the USA. They have to do their own thinking about technological de-velopment against the unusual problems presented by their social milieu and their country's eco-nomy. The fact that, despite this, their views on industrialized building are so relevant to the Canadian scene is both a tribute to Dr. Webb's excellent paper, and a reflection of the fact that this featuie of modern building is common to all countries. Here, then, is Dr. Webb of South Africa -introduced to Canadian readers
lrith great pleasure by his close tiend and Canadian counterpart vho will intrude as little as lossible, adding Canadian foot-rotes only when this appears lesirable.
* * * DR,. WEBB:
"The siiuation in regard to the future, and even the pre-sent, of industrialized building in South Africa, where the techniques have only been de-veloping for two or three years, is far from clear, and even in Europe, where they have been used for over 20 years, there is still considerable uncertainty. Care must also be exercised in applying European approaches and experience to entirely dif-ferent conditions such as those prevailing in South Africa. This applies particularly io factors such as costs, labor, accepta-bility by the population and even some of the purely techni-cal aspects.
"Notwithstanding this uncer-tainty in regard to future trends, there is no doubt that indus-trialized building is vitally im-portant, not only to the build-ing industry and the associated professions such as architecture and engineering, but also to the entire national economy, and in the final analysis to everyone in
the country from the top policy-makers to anyone who might live or work in a building.
"What is Industrializetl Building? - Before the matter of preconstructed or in-dustrialized building can be dis-cussed at all, it is necessary to give some defiintion of what is meant by industrialized louild-ing. This is not easy as it covers a very wide spectrum of activi-ties but it is perhaps best to define it in general terms and then give some idea of what this definition does irr. fact cover. Broadly speaking, industrialized building can be described as a process whereby rhe compo-nents of a building are manu-factured in a factcry and subse-qrrently assembled on the build-ing site.
"It is also convenient to sub-divide industrialized building into four forms - firstly, ra-tionalized traditional building which is essentially the use of larger than normal units manu-factured in a factory and as-sembled on the building site using traditional methods and skills.
"Secondly, there are open in-dustrialized building systems in which dimensionally co-ordinat-ed components or elements are manufactured ancl assembled on the site generally by relatively unskilled labor and usually in accordance with some patented system. Systems of this type are characterized by considerable flexibility in that they allow normal design principles to be applied. They permit variations in floor-plan and facade and, if intelligently used, facilitate and widen the activity of the de-signer rather than circumscribe it.
"The third cafegory, that of closed systems in which the en-tire process is integrated and pre-designed, and consequently Iimited in terms of floor plans, f a c a d e s , w a l l t h i c k n e s s a n d materials, is much more restric-tive in terms of design but at the same time is more amen-able to mass production con-sfruction aird erection. This is the approach which is probably most useful for multi - storey, relatively low-cost, housing and certain types of industrial build-rngs.
"The fourth category involves the construction of a complete house in the factory. It need
PAGE F'OUR
only be dealt with in passing as it is unlikely to gain widespread acceptance in this country. It is widely used in industrialized building in Russia and other Iron-Curtain countries where, for instance whole rooms and even a complete building such as a four-room dwelling is constructed in a factory. Such dwellings are complete to the extent that win-dows are glazed, light bulbs are placed in the fittings and wall-paper is applied.
"AIl of these techniques of in-d u s t r i a l i z e in-d b u i l d i n g c a n b e further sub-divided into two basic types - lightweight or heavyweight, depending on whether the wall materials are, for instance (in the case of heavyweight construction), con-crete or masonry panels and (for the lightweight techniques) timber, plastic-filled metal or asbestos cement panels."
+ * * R F L :
Not a word of the definition or of the analysis of types of indus-trialized building suggested by Dr. Webb need be changed for direct application to the Canadian scene. Correspondingly, his view on Soviet experimental work with completely factory-made rein. forced concrete apartments would be the sober Canadian apprecia. tion of this most interesting work in the USSR. Soviet engineers have emphasized in recent dis-cussions that, despite all the pub-licity that these units have been given, they represent but a minor part of Soviet residential con-struction. A recent figure was that over 65 per cent of all Soviet hous-ing is still built with "small" units, including brick or concrete block. The uniformity that the factory-made units necessarily imposes, even if they could be developed so as to be economical, makes them a very distant prospect in-deed for Canada.
* * * DR. WEBts:
"At this stage, it is neces-sary to indicate one extermely important difference between ntodern industrialized building iechniques and the less sophis-ticated older prefabricated building methods. Prefalorica-tion has become an unpalatable word and is associated with the type of building forced by ex-pediency on many communities immediately after the last war. Regrettably, it has come to be
&s$*iat€d with any kind of pre-constructed building and it is appropriate to dispel any illu-sions on this point. There is no
d o u b t t h a t m o d e r n , p r o p e r l y
designed industrialized build-ings, if intelligently planned, provide housing and other forms of building which are, in terms of their performance, at least as good as conventional build-ing and under specialized con-ditions where proper attention , can be given to design or con-I structional details, may even be better. It must, however, be stressed that most of the met-hods that have so far been used in South Africa are not indus-trialized methods in the full meaning of the term as they have required considerably more site labor, especially for finish-ing, than would be the case in a fully industrialized method.
"While the above remarks do not apply to the aesthetics of these buildings, and it might even be presumptuous to at-tempt to deal with aesthetics, it would seem that such indus-trialized building methods can give buildings which, in terms of their appearance, are cer-t a i n l y n o w o r s e cer-t h a n m a n y buildings erected by traditional techniques.
"While a mucil fuller discus-sion of the various types of in-dustrialized building would be both interesting and desirable for even a reasonably complete consideration of its potential and development, the scope of this paper does not allow this. However, a general discussion of some of the characteristics of preconstructed building, and its relationships to and likely
ef-f e c t s o n b u i l d i n g p o l i c y , t h e
building and construction indus-try and the professions, is both desirable and useful. It is inter-esting to consider what types of industrialized building are likely to become most commonly used. A l t h o u g h o v e r 3 0 0 d i f f e r e n t types of precons'r,ructed build-ing have been developed and are being promoted overseas, it is clear that in a small country such as South Africa it is neces-sary to be very selective in en-c o u r a g i n g o n l y t h o s e s y s t e m s t h a t b e a r v e r y r e a l p r o m i s e of acceptable performance and cos[s.
"Use of Heavy and Light EIe-ments-As has already been men-tioned, all methods of
precon-structed building can basically be divided into two broad groups, namely, those based on heavy construction methods, such as prefabricated concrete panels or brick panels, and lightweight me-thods of construction, such as those based on timber or metal frames, or lightweight structural panels. While heavy concrete panel construction appears to be one of the most popular overseas, it has become apparent that its use in South Africa will only be economic on large contracts of, say, 500 or more dwelling units per year for a period of at least five years within a radius of about 50 miles of a central factory. "From the point of view of performance, such methods of construction are attractive, par-ticularly in the Transvaal high-veld or in other extreme clim-ates, and it is likely that they will find their most advan-tageous application in the more densely populated areas of the country. Overseas they have found their main application in multi-storey structures but local experience to date suggests that, providing the demand is large enough, they may prove com-petitive for single-storey one-family houses. It nevertheless remains probable that heavy-w e i g h t industrialized building methods are more suitable for multi-storey construction than for single - storey construction, and a good deal more develop-ment and research is required before it can be effectively used in single-storey construction.
"For both singie and multi-storey construction, however, a minimum demand is necessary. This implies a need for the co-ordination of requirements by different agencies in order to obtain the minimum economic size of project, a factor which
i s s p e c i a l l y i m p o r t a n t in a
country of low population den-sity and long distances such as South Africa and is more likely
t o p r o v e i m p o r t a n t f o r t h e
heavyweight methods than for lightweight methods.
"Many lightweight methods of construction, on the other hand, generally speaking, do not give entirely satisfactory perform-ance under the more extreme climatic conditions, as for in-stance in the Transvaal high-veld, but appear to be
satis-f a c t o r y in t e m p e r a t e c o a s t a l
climates. Because of their lighter
weight the given factory can
s e r v e a m u c h l a r g e r r a d i u s
economically and they should prove suitable for small or iso-lated schemes."
* * t
RFL:
It is of some significance to note that, despite the differences in housing demand, and in climatic conditions, the general conclusions regarding the use of heavy con-crete elements apply equally to South Africa and Canada. They point in the direction of broad-s c a l e p l a n n i n g b u t broad-s i n c e b o t h South Africa and Canada have
free-enterprise economies, this one
fact places a severe limitation upon the possibility of planning for that large - scale production upon which the ultimate economy
o f i n d u s t r i a l i z e d b u i l d i n g s '
largely depends. * * * DR. WEBB:
"Planning Industrialized
building is not a panacea for the country's building problems, nor is it, in fact, a radically new concept but rather an evolu-tionary development in con-struction. Like any other de-velopment, it will be affected bY top-level decisions and plan-ning and building policy on a national and regionai scale witrl profoundly influence the form
a n d e x t e n t o f i n d u s t r i a l i z e d
building and if it is to be wideiy u s e d, large - scale production must be actively encouraged. Planning must proceed in close collaboration with the indnstry and should be flexible enough to enable the industry to modify
or adapt designs and plans, and methods and materials of con-struction to their objective.
"Poiicy will have to encourage
t h e d e v e l o n m e n t o f o n l y a
Iimited number of construction methods and must also be such a s t o f a v o r o n l y t h e b e s t
m e t h o d s . P r o v i s i o n m u s t b e
made and time must be allowed for a thorough investigation of all promising new melhods and a valid comparison, both tech-nically and in terms of cost, with both traditional and non-traditional alternatives. Such planning will have to go much further than merely laying down the details of the construction methods. Attention will have to b e g i v e n t o t h e p l a n n i n g o f s e r v i c e s a n d t h e c o n c e p t o f housing development as a whole.
"It is also apparent t h a t traditional methods of planning, administering and executing building must be drastically re-viewed if preeonstructed build-ing is to be fully exploited. It will also imply changes in con-tractual procedures and in this connection selectjve tendering and negotiated contracts are more likely to prove appropriate than the classic managed, or packaged, deal type of contract. This will involve a, complete re-vision of the building industry, particularly in terms of man-agement and there is no doubt that the rnost important single factor in determining the suc-cess or failure of industrialized building is the skill of manage-ment used in its implemanage-mentation. It is, in fact, probably more important than nrost technical considerations. The c o m m e n t made by Sir Ben Lockspeiser to the effect that most large-scale industries are complicated and the difference between large in-dustries lies not in the degree of their complexity but in the organizational measures they bring to bear on them can be borne in mind with advantage. "Furthermore, it is necessary in South Africa to develop
satis-factory and dependable methods of predicting the nature and extent of housing and building requirements well in advance of the planning work required. Be-cause preconstructed building implies a need for longer term a n d m o r e a c c u r a t e p l a n n i n g , special attention to the neces-sary detailed estimates is need-ed, and the basic data to permit such planning will have to be collected, processed and above all, used effectively.
"Building Regulations - The advent of industrialized build-ing brbuild-ings with it the need for suitable and in so far as possible uniform b u i I d i n g legislation, based on up-to-date functional requirements and machinery for its application to industrialized building. Any legal or entrench-ed snags which militate against industrialized methods of build-ing will have to be dealt with a n d b u i l d i n g l e g i s l a t i o n w i l l have to be applied sympatheti-cally and intelligently.
"There is a growing awareness of and sympathy for precon-structed methods of building in the attitude and policy of many central and local authorities. A
very real problem, however, and one which we share with many overseas countries, is the lack of adequate means for the rapid and valid assessment and evalu-a t i o n o f n e w evalu-a n d u n o r t h o d o x methods of construction.
"Closely connected with the problem of assessing the per-formance and suitability of pre-constructed building is the mat-ter of research, and building re-search will unquestionably play an important role in the de-velopment and, indeed, in the success or failure of any given method of preconstructed build-ing. The development of new methods and the improvement or adaptation of existing meth-ods, techniques a,nd materials all require investigation, and because of quite basic differ-ences in the performance of some types of preconstructed buildings it will be necessary to develop new, and in some cases quite different, methods for as-sessing the performance of non-traditional materials or methods.
"The determination of mini-mum standards and optimini-mum requirements for new methods of building can also only be based on research. Extensive in-vestigations on the structural adequacy, durability, c o m f o r t conditions, partieularly as far as the thermal properties are con-cerned, fire hazard, rain pene-tration and the acoustics of buildings will have to be taken into account, often on a radi-cally new basis, in the light of local climatic and other condi-tions and taking full account of the living habits of the occu-pants. Research will also be necessary to permit the optimum u t i I i zatio n of industrialized building as far as the choice of techniques and materials, labor conservation, provision of ser-vices, town and site planning and costs and contract pro-cedures are conrcerned." RFL:
The National Building Code of Canada will, fortunately be no impediment to the gradual ex-tension of industrialized building techniques in Canada. It is the continuing policy of the Associate Committee on the National Build-ing Code that the Code shall be so written that it applies equally to factory produced and built in -place structures. There should be no difference in requirements
de-pendent upon where a building is c o n s t r u c t e d p r o v i d e r l t h a t t h e finished product meets the per-formance required of it. In the case of house construction, this has meant an extensive study of t h e r a t i o n a l e o f c o n v e n t i o n a l house design, a rnajor research study of DBR/NRC that still con-tinues. The Code also contains w h a t i s c o m m o n l y c a l l e d a n "escape clause' which gives the a u t h o r i t y h a v i n g j u r i s d i c t i o n power to accept alternatives to what the Code suggests if it can be shown that the alternatives will give the same performance.
This leads to the second of the i m p o r t a n t p o i n t s m a d e b y D r . 'Webb
in this part of his paper -the need for adequate means of assessing performance of building components, and even of complete buildings. This can only be done on the basis of sound standard test methods that. are available f o r g e n e r a l u s e . T h e A m e r i c a n Society for Testing and Materials has made a start at the develop-ment of such standard test meth-ods, but many more than are now available will be essential when industrialized building techniques come to be more widely accepted. This points to the need, in both countries, for accelerated building research since only upon a solid basis of research can standard test methods be confidently de-veloped. The work of DBR/NRC on the performance of windows provides a useful example - re-search work the results of which were passed on to ASTM where, together with simiiar information f r o m o t h e r o r g a n i z a t i o n s , t h e y provided the basis for the ASTM Test Methods for Windows that are now becoming available.
* * * DR,. WEBB:
" T h e u s e o f i n d u s t r i a l i z e d b u i l d i n g i s l i k e l y t o i m p l y changes in the industry's labor pattern. It will involve less site labor, but require from labor, and especially from skilled labor, a g r e a t e r r a n g e o f a c t i v i t i e s than is generally understood in the present - day definition of p a r t i c u l a r trades. It will also imply a change of emphasis from the skill of the individual artisan to the co-ordinating ability of the crganizer and supervisor, and so make more demands on management skills. It can even be said with con-fidence that if industrialized building becomes widely used, PAGE SIX
the most serious Iabor shortage is likely to develop in the man-agerial field rather than in the artisan field.
"Unskilled factory - type re-petitive ]abor and the need for very good site organization also became important. Furthermore, because it involves the use of unskilled labor in a factory, it permits the valid use of much unskilled labor which today is not being fully exploited in the building and construction in-dustry. A further aspect of the labor situation is that the cost of unskilled labor is unlikely to rise as rapidly or as much, in terms of productivity, as is the cost of skilled labor.
"Another consequence as far as labor is concerned is that, because industrialized building e s s e n t i a l l y t a k e s p l a c e i n t h e factory, it will result in a con-siderable improvement of work-ing conditions, both by makwork-ing the conditions more pleasant and technically by eliminating or reducing many of the diffi-culties implicit in normal site working.
"Economic Aspects--An aspect of preconstructed building which is of vital concern to the policy-makers of the country, the pro-tessions and the building indus-bry and, ultimately, to the man-in the street, is its economics. In the light of presently avail-able data (both locally and over-seas) there is unlikely to be any immediate cost saving associ-ated with the use of industrial-ized building. Its main advan-tages lie in the facts that, firstly, it reduces the skilled labor con-tent relative to traditional build-ing methods and so permits the same total labor force to erect more buildings and, secondly, it enables buildings to be erected more rapidly.
"During a period of intensive d e m a n d f o r b u i t d i n g s , t h e s e advantages may well outweigh higher costs, but in the long term the most valid approach to the economics of any build-ing method must take full ac-count of its cost over the useful life of the building, taking into consideration both its original cost and maintenance and run-ing costs.
"In the case of preconstructed building, two cardinal economic principles apply. The first of
t h e s e i s t h e n e e d t o s e l e c t systems that are well adapted to contracts of the size and type involved. Secondly, a situation where too many systems are chasing too few contracts must be avoided.
"It will also be necessary to take into account the need for continuity of successive con-tracts to permit the effective exploitation of the very large capital investment involved in many methods. Hand in hand with preconstructed building goes the concept of planning to permit bulk purchases. Efficient supervisory labor and good site and site/head office co-ordin-ation are also important factors. A further economic pitfall n'hich should be avoided is the risk of rushing into the use of systems using materials which may come into short supply or involving a type of skilled labor which may not be available."
* * * RFL:
ft is in connection with the eco-nomic aspects of industrialized building that the uninitiated find the greatest surprise. Such heavy capital costs are involved for even the most modest factory produc-tion that, even with a steady de-mand. there will be little or no monetary saving in the actual in-place cost of buildings even with the most advanced industrializa-tion, as compared with the cost of what may be called traditional o n - s i t e c o n s t r u c t i o n m e t h o d s . F i g u r e s w e r e r e c e n t l y g i v e n i n answer to a question raised in the British House of Commons that showed that for British public housing (for which there is a s t e a d y d e m a n d ) t h e c o s t p e r square foot of finished houses for the first half of 1966 was 59/3r/2d when built in traditional manner
and 59/912d when industrialized methods were fully applied. The savings and advantages of the dustrialized approach may be in-direct rather than in-direct - the better working conditions, con-tinuity of employment, the possi-bility of repetitive work and con-sequent increased efficiency, all giving increased output per man-hour even with no saving in the c o s t o f t h e f i n i s h e d b u i l d i n g . Soviet experts make it quite clear that their emphasis on industrial-ization is in the interest of in-creasing production of the hous-ing they so badly need rather than for any possible savings in cost.
DR. WEBB:
"Mechanization - Over and above the various specific mat-ters already discussed, indus-trialized building is likely to have further consequences. It will lead to a demand for more uniform quality and more strin-gent specifications for building materials and components, par-t i c u l a r l y i n par-t e r m s o f t h e i r dimensions. It will bring with it the need for new or special m a t e r i a l s a n d t h e e q u i p m e n t and facilities for their produc-tion, distribution and handling. It will involve tighter schedul-ing, production and deliveries and will permit little, if any sub-sitution. By favoring the con-cept of highly-organized bulk purchasing, delivery and stor-age, it will also influence cur-rent building practice and its administration. Ultimately, it is likely, as it has already done o v e r s e a s , t o l e a d t o s p e c i a l manufacturing and transport facilities becoming available.
"It also implies e, vast increase in the degree of rnechanization used in the building industry. For instance, it is interesting to record that in Germany over the period 1950 to 1962 (the period d u r i n g w h i c h industrialized b u i l d i n g f i r s t d e v e l o p e d ) , t h e amount of machinery increased by 400%, while the labor force in the industry increased by only 63%.
"A more detailed breakdown of these figures shows that from 1950 to 1958 the building indus-try in Germany increased its capacity by increasing both m a n p o w e r a n d m a c h i n e r y , whereas in the period 1959-1962, when industrialized building be-came more commorl, the increase in capacity was achieved essen-tially by an increase in mechan-ization.
in mechanization.
"It must be appreciated that the real problem in implement-ing mechanization is, in fact, how to apply it.
"Machinery is expensive and doubly so when it is idle or im-properly used. The high degree of mechanization implicit in preconstructed building means more capital investment per worker and in order to reduce costs capital will have to be used very effectively. It also means that it is likely that the number of firms effectively par-ticipating will loe small and that most of them will be large firms. PAGE SEVEN
"Future Prospects-It is prob-able that industrialization in building in South Africa will in-crease slowly and in stages rather than overnight. This has been the pattern in most over-seas countries and all indica-tions to date suggest that this will also be true here. It will demand closer and more skilled supervision both of the unskilled and skilled labor used in the factory and in the actual erec-tion process. It must again be
stressed that ilr w!11.:lequire
closer contact between'owners, architects, engineers and
build-e r s t h a n g build-e n build-e r a l l y build-e x i s t s a t
present, and it is not an exag-geration to state that the com-plexity of industrialized build-ing and the serious economic
c o n s e q u e n c e s o f e r r o r s m a k e
this closer collaboration essential for its success,
"It is likely that. preconstruct-ed methods of building will for the next few years play essen-tially a supplementary and, in the long term, probably an in-creasing, role in providing hous-ing and other buildhous-ings, particu-larly for the lower and middle-income groups. It is, however,
l i k e l y t o b e a c o n s i d e r a b l e
period before they replace tradi-tional methods of construction to any considerable extent. The extent to which they do so and the speed of such a trend will depend very largely on three factors, namely, their technical performance, their overall cost
(including maintenance) over their entire life and the extent to which they are. considered to be acceptable by the occupants.
"As far as the.rbuilding-,and construction i n d u s t ry' is con-cerned, an impor{'ant factor is for it to achieve "the required higher standards of manage-ment in the progr4ming and organization of site work. Suit-able statistics and facilities for the necessary research and de-tailed development and assess-ment work must become or be made available.
" F i n a l l y , th e q u a l i t i e s o f
adaptability, competence and the principle of service to the
c o u n t r y w i l l b e n e c e s s a r y t o
ensure that industrialized build-ing is developed rationally and in the best interests of the whole industry and, more important even, the country."
RFL:
This is the South African view. It is very similar to the predictions
that can be made for the future of industrialized building in Can-a,da. Probably because there has already been more experience here with factory production of build-ing components, and even of com-plete houses, there should not be much doubt about the accepta-ability in Canada of industrially produeed buildings that have been carefully designed.
, :On the pther hand, there will 'almost certainly be the added im-perative for an acceleration of industrialization provided by the over=all-increase in the demand in Canada for buildings of all kinds.
Coming on top of a demand that is already high by any stan-Card, the further increase in the volume of Canadian construction within the next decade that can even now be predicted will need, for its implementation, that extra increase in production efficiency that factory located work can pro-vide even, possibly, at some in-crease in cost.
But the change will be gradual, as have been all the other ad-vances in construciion that have brought this greatest of Canadian industries to the excellent state in which it is today.
