Lecture: Strategies for Efficient Modular and Offsite Construction Practice

Lecture by Mohamed Al-Hussein, Professor, Construction Engineering, Faculty of Engineering - Civil and Environmental Engineering Deptartment, University of Alberta, Canada

Hosted by the Urban Energy Institute
Date: Wednesday 21 April 2021
Time: 4-5pm CET
Moderator: Henk Visscher

• Click here to look back at the recording
• Click here to download the CO2 emissions report by Alberta University

From the early dawn of the industrial revolution, efficiency has always been an important motivational element which allowed engineers to invent new processes or improve existing ones by means of new managerial approaches. In this respect, the quest for efficiency in the field of building construction has led to the emergence of modularization which in turn catalyzed the expansion of off-site construction. The latter improved quality, scheduling and enabled better safety standards to be implemented since work is performed within a controlled environment. The above enumerated benefits have created different challenges the most important of which is probably the necessity to rely on better design and drafting for manufacturing (k.a. BIM) and automation or semi-automation. In North America, the culture among construction professionals insofar as: a) BIM is concerned revolves around primitive CAD tools; and b) as automation is concerned the current practice is conventional construction under a roof. This presentation aims at examining the practice or “culture” considering: 1) Offsite prefabrication and industrialization of construction practice in North America; 2) Technological Innovations in prefabrication of construction: the move from conventional construction under a roof to a true manufacturing; and 3) Prefabricated systems and manufacturing technologies: products and components.

About the Speaker

Dr. Mohamed Al-Hussein is a professor in Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering Hole School of Construction Engineering at the University of Alberta. He is also NSERC Industrial Research Chair in the Industrialization of Building Construction and a member of Nasseri School of Building Science and Engineering; he is a highly sought researcher in the areas of Modular and offsite construction, Lean Manufacturing, construction process optimization, and Building Information Modeling (BIM). Dr. Al-Hussein research has been published in over 300 scientific journal articles and conference proceedings.

Register here. We'll share a link to join the meeting before the lecture.