OSM: A Call to Action

 Community Housing Cymru, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Constructing Excellence in Wales, Welsh Procurement Alliance

The Off-Site Manufacturing (OSM) Industry is fast becoming an important sector within the construction market.

A workshop is being arranged for organisations in Wales (Housing Associations, Local Authorities, house builders and housing manufacturers) who are in a position to promote the development of the OSM industry.

Since the Farmer Review exhorted the UK construction industry to ‘modernise or die’, the off-site manufacture (OSM) of housing has emerged as an identifiable sector of the construction market with potential for significant growth and sustainable output.

Already Housing Associations, businesses and institutional investors are funding the development of factories across the UK and there is potential for Housing Associations and others in Wales to build on this by:

• Helping establish the base load of demand needed to support the expansion of OSM in Wales in ways that will ensure that it is competitive on price and quality
• Targeting future investment capacity on commercially viable operations that will enable the OSM industry to utilise local builders to enhance the economic impact of construction on the Welsh economy

The scale of developments in other parts of the UK suggest that Wales is already behind the curve in developing the OSM industry. The aim of the workshop is to identify ways in which we can scale up the fledgling OSM industry in Wales before developments elsewhere leave us with little option than to import manufactured panels and other fabricated units from the rest of the UK.

The workshop will seek to:

• Establish where we are now in Wales in terms of OSM
• Compare this with progress in England
• Identify where we need to be in three years’ time to avoid having to rely on importing solutions from outside of Wales
• Establish what institutional infrastructure we need to create NOW to achieve this goal and ensure that the OSM industry thrives in the four regions of Wales.

City Deals and Enterprise Zones offer the opportunity to work with local authorities and others to identify development projects and work with local builders to deliver fully serviced sites in parallel with the OSM of housing components and assemblies up to the scale of modular units.

The workshop will enable practitioners and researchers to introduce and lead discussion on the organisation needed to enable delivery of high quality products at scale and pace through targeted regeneration investment.

Please book your place via Eventbrite.

Maximum numbers for this event are 40, if you have booked a place you will be contacted by Friday January 19th to advise if your application has been successful.