Altruism – the aim should be to maximise the value to the client, understanding the underlying purpose.
Allow for standard products as well as compatible enhancements.Facilitate use of a range of configurators via API’s or plug-ins.
Provide instant pricing for the most standard items, with other orders priced in hours.Ensure data security while also capturing appropriate data to fuel the application (in time) of machine learning and AI to help with pricing and pipeline prediction.. Obviously, this is a complex challenge.It raises a whole range of issues that would need resolving regarding insurances, warranties, IP, etc.
And there is the big question of who would own the marketplace?Ideally, this would be a neutral broker, such as Government.
And there is even a partial precedent here in the UK in the form of G-Cloud, the UK Government’s Digital Marketplace for cloud technology and specialist digital services..
Creating a digital marketplace for construction procurement would have benefits that far outweigh the challenges.There are many construction innovations that can be considered MMC.
The UK’s Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) recently established a Joint Industry Working Group on MMC which proposed the following categorisation: 3D primary structural systems, 2D primary structural systems, Non-system components, Additive Manufacturing, Assemblies and sub-assemblies, Material and Product Innovations and Site Process Innovations.This categorisation is quite diverse and includes a range of pre-manufactured and pre-assembled systems but also non-system components, site-based material innovations and process innovations..
There is no fixed list of MMC methods in each category.There is great scope for the construction industry to innovate and develop new MMC methods to expand the toolkit and enhance the DfMA designer’s ability to achieve benefits on future construction projects..