Donaldson Timber Systems

REPRESENTATIVES from some of the housing industry’s biggest names have been announced as speakers at one of the Midlands’ leading construction events.

Speakers from Cundall, Barratt Developments, Stewart Milne Group and the Welsh government will present at June’s CE Midlands Housing Summit, organised by Constructing Excellence Midlands.

The summit’s keynote presentation will be delivered by Colette McCann, Birmingham City Council’s acting assistant director of housing development, who will detail the city’s 2040 plan for affordable housing, as well as introducing how attendees can get themselves involved in the programme.

Also leading the lineup is Cundall’s Richard Twinn, who will detail how Future Homes Standards will affect those involved in the provision of housing going forward.

Stewart Dalgarno, Stewart Milne Timber Systems’ Director of Product Development will be talking about the innovative AIMCH project (Advanced Industrialised Methods for the Construction of Homes) where we are a lead partner.

The event – which takes place virtually on Wednesday, June 23 – gives attendees chance to get further insight into some of the key issues facing the industry, such as the Future Homes Standard, carbon net zero and the growing role of modern methods of construction and modular homes.

Andrew Carpenter, chief executive of Constructing Excellence Midlands, said: “We’re delighted to have secured such a stellar lineup for this year’s Housing Summit, which promises to provide a real insight into how both the public and private sector are working to tackle the UK’s housing crisis.

Constructing Excellence Midlands is working in partnership with Birmingham City Council in helping them achieve their ambitious housing targets.

Colette McCann, acting assistant director of housing development at Birmingham City Council said: “CE Midlands provides a unique opportunity and platform that brings together a wide range of members within the construction industry.

“I am very much looking forward to attending the CE Midlands Housing Summit to discuss innovative ideas and solutions to the challenges our sector faces, particularly in the delivery of affordable housing.”

Andrew Carpenter continued: “As we come out of the other side of the pandemic, housing has to be one of the critical areas of the construction industry. With house prices continuing to rise, affordable, sustainable housing is coming to the fore more than ever before, and we have pulled together a speaker lineup that reflects this.”

To register to attend the CE Midlands Housing Summit, click here

Annual house price growth rose to 10.9 per cent in May, the highest level in nearly seven years.

Prices shot up 1.8 per cent month-on-month, following a 2.3 per cent rise in April, according to new Nationwide data. The new record average house price is £243k, up by almost £24k over the past twelve months.

A year ago, activity collapsed in the wake of the first lockdown with housing transactions falling to a record low of 42k in April 2020. However, activity surged towards the end of last year and into 2021, reaching a record high of 183k in March.

Manufacturing activity expanded at an unprecedented rate in May according to the closely watched IHS Markit/CIPS Purchasing Managers’ Index. The sector saw an index reading of 65.6 in May, a record high for the month-on-month measure. That topped April’s 60.9 and July 1994’s 61.0, the previous peak. An index reading of 50 indicates no change from the previous month.

Production was up at one of the highest rates since records began, while new export orders rose at a survey-record pace. Stronger demand came from the EU, US and China with growth boosted by the unlocking of economies from Covid restrictions and ongoing vaccination programmes.

This all sounds very positive but a shortage of raw materials and some supply-chain disruption has inevitably pushed up purchasing costs again by a record high. This is a particular challenge across the new build sector:

• Housebuilders have currently sold many houses, but construction hasn’t started, meaning they can’t recover cost price inflation
• Manufacturers and suppliers are contracted for fixed price periods and can’t recover cost price inflation until these end

The likely outcome is that house price inflation will continue and allow housebuilders to recover their profitability on the next batch of houses released.

More worrying is whether smaller manufacturers and suppliers tied to fixed term pricing can survive the losses and stay in business.

As the price increases are demand driven, any easing requires a portion of the market to say enough is enough and slow down or stop. This is the worst outcome for everyone, even the opportunistic raw material suppliers. Every bubble bursts if it is over-inflated. It would be better to take the long-term view and allow it to float along happily at a reasonable level.

For those that have been in and around the timber industry for many years, the drive for sustainability isn’t a new thing. The inherent properties of using timber from well managed forests has always felt like a good space to be in and creates a sense of doing the right thing for the planet. As the interest and demand in behaving this way quite rightly increases, the hardest bit can be keeping up with the latest terminology!

Firstly, we start with the obvious need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and halt global warming. In amongst the bigger subject of sustainability we have gone through terms such as carbon footprint, embodied carbon (the same thing – embodied carbon is the carbon footprint of a material), sequestered carbon and now zero carbon and net zero carbon. All are terms with carbon in them but with differences either nuanced or radical, none with international or even national definitions, formulae or algorithms.

The best way forward, and what a number of companies and organisations have done, is to define the terms internally so they are understood and can set improvement targets appropriately.

The carbon agenda is heavily related to energy efficiency and in that context zero carbon and net zero carbon become useful terms within a green energy programme and electricity generation. Zero carbon is the ultimate goal; energy generated without the need for carbon emissions, easily defined through wind, solar, wave and hydro power. Net zero carbon introduces the concept of offsetting but also the generation of electricity from burning biomass, on the basis that specific amounts of carbon released into the atmosphere is offset and absorbed with the planting of replacement biomass fuel stocks.

Each organisation will settle on what they believe is the right solution until inevitably the world will settle on some standardisation of terms. In the meantime, with our knowledge of sustainable forestry, responsible procurement processes and efficient design engineering, our path is focussed on a net zero carbon goal, in which the likes of biomass and offsetting play a significant role in our success.  Our sustainability strategy focuses on the future challenges facing our business and the actions we are taking to ensure a positive effect on our people, our planet and our product.

The language may follow but our role is to lead and do our bit for the greater good.

IFS’s Cloud ERP solution to help award-winning UK construction systems manufacturer digitize value chain and increase efficiency

London, April 8, 2021 – With the construction industry’s increasing focus on reducing both carbon footprints and build times, UK offsite timber frame manufacturer Stewart Milne Timber Systems decided to replace its legacy business system, which could no longer support its project-based business, with an industry-specific enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution from IFS.

To build greener, faster, and more cost effectively, the global construction industry is increasingly turning to offsite and modular construction methods. In England alone, it is estimated that 345,000 new homes are needed annually to keep up with demand. This is driving the need for innovative building systems brought to the market by manufacturers like Stewart Milne Timber Systems.

The company was running a legacy business software solution that could not fully support its long-term operational ambitions. Still highly reliant on paper-based, manual business processes and a multitude of data standards, Stewart Milne Timber Systems consulted several different sources to aid its decision-making.

With a goal to automate a considerable number of business processes and consolidate all data into a single source, we identified that a key ask for us would be a solution that offered a combination of robust industry-specific capabilities, such as project management, manufacturing, and a fully integrated finance and human capital management (HCM) solution, to support growth. Following a competitive evaluation process, the company chose IFS over solutions from other providers.

Craig Thornhill, Finance Director at Stewart Milne Timber Systems, said, “We chose IFS because of the team’s and the product’s deep industry expertise and capabilities. IFS Cloud ERP will help us increase efficiency, stay on quality and reduce the lead-time, downtime and processing time associated with the manufacturing and installation of offsite systems. IFS is a central pillar in our digital transformation journey, which will help us work smarter, quicker, and greener.”

Alan Laing, Managing Director, IFS UK and Ireland, added, “We are excited to be partnering with Stewart Milne Timber Systems providing them with our leading industry capabilities. These have been tested and fine-tuned through close customer collaboration with some of the most renowned names in the global construction and manufacturing sectors. With IFS’s open architecture, Donaldson Timber Systems will be able to expand their footprint to include new automation and robotic technology. We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial partnership.”

Learn more about how IFS supports businesses in the manufacturing space at www.ifs.com/corp/industries/manufacturing/.

We are proud to have been awarded a certificate on the NHBC Accepted Systems listing for our Closed Panel Timber Frames system “Sigma® II with factory fitted windows”. You can view the details here:  https://www.nhbc.co.uk/builders/products-and-services/techzone/accepted-systems

NHBC Accepts is the comprehensive review service for innovative products and systems from the UK’s leading new homes warranty and insurance provider.  They have been helping improve build quality through NHBC standards since 1936, providing warranty and insurance for around 70-80% of the new homes built in the UK each year.  The NHBC Accepts logo indicates that the product or innovation has been rigorously assessed, giving confidence to developers, investors, lenders and homeowners.

Our Sigma® II closed panel system is a robust and effective, award-winning solution to achieving high levels of fabric performance.  With excellent thermal performance and air tightness, the Sigma® II Build System offers reduced material and labour costs by using conventional materials in a more innovative manner.

It has been announced today that in a wholly independent survey, Stewart Milne Timber Systems has been accredited with a “Gold Award” and “Outstanding Achievement” award for customer satisfaction. The awards, run by specialist market research company, In-house Research Ltd, https://inhouse.uk.net/awards  are based purely on our customer feedback.

In the survey year covering customers from 1^st January 2020 to 31^st December 2020, over 90% of customers said they would recommend Stewart Milne Timber Systems to their friends.

The outstanding award has been accredited to Stewart Milne Timber Systems for achieving a Net Promoter Score over 65 placing us in the top 10% of companies measured.

Tom Weston, Chief Executive at In-house Research comments, “We are extremely proud to be working with such a customer focused business.  The ‘Gold Award’ recognises those who put the customers at the heart of everything that they do.  The ‘Outstanding Award’ shows the commitment that Stewart Milne Timber Systems have to go above and beyond for their customers.  This special award places them alongside some of the best companies in the UK for customer service.  It’s only through delivering an exceptional service throughout the customer journey, combined with a meticulously designed and finished home that recommendation scores reach this level.  We are so pleased to recognise all the staff at Stewart Milne Timber Systems that have contributed to the achievement of both these awards”.

Advanced Industrialised Methods for the Construction of Homes (AIMCH), the innovation consortium set up to transform the housebuilding sector, has today published its second-year progress report showing encouraging results and key learnings for the sector.  AIMCH is a three-year research & development project aiming to help tackle the UK housing crisis by building new homes faster, to higher quality and more cost effectively than masonry methods using panelised MMC systems.

This latest report to be published by AIMCH highlights several key learnings for the industry across several important and innovative areas. One highlight is the ability to achieve a weather tight, insulated and secure superstructure in just one day. All advanced panelised MMC systems and lean construction solutions trialled so far have been successful and early analysis is recognising the benefits of these advanced panelised MMC systems with the hard data to back it up.

Other important outputs of the project in the last year include the completion of several studies and the publication of guides for industry:

• Design standardisation and the development of product families
• Guide to creating a BIM housing manual
• Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA)
• Designing a future factory

Stewart Dalgarno, AIMCH Project Director and Stewart Milne Group Director of Product Development, said: “Despite the challenges of Covid-19, the project team has worked hard to build momentum and has delivered some important outputs which confirm panelised modern methods of construction (MMC) as a very real and viable alternative to masonry, over the final year, we hope to take this to a new level.”

Mark Farmer, MMC expert and new AIMCH Chair, said: “Mainstreaming all categories of MMC is more important than ever.  In a post-Covid world the sector needs to transform productivity, improve quality as well as improving the welfare of its workforce.  We also need to find more sustainable ways of building in order to achieve a net zero-carbon built environment.

“The AIMCH project has already made great progress across a number of fronts which will better enable greater MMC adoption across all parts of industry including   SME’s. The work done on design standardisation, panelised and sub-assembly system applications, productivity and carbon measurement and manufacturing process optimisation are all rich sources of knowledge for others to learn from and use.”

A collaboration between Stewart Milne Group, Barratt Developments, L&Q, Forster Group, the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) and Construction Scotland Innovation Centre (CSIC), the project compares conventional and panelised MMC construction methods on actual building sites, and the impact scaling up panelised modern methods of construction (MMC) will have on the housebuilding industry.

The three-year AIMCH project, which has been live since early 2019, has been trialling new digital design tools, manufacturing advancements, and improved near-to-market offsite panelised MMC systems, using lean site processes on live housing projects over the past two years.

The project recognises the challenges of MMC manufacturing and through engagement with MTC, lead manufacturing partner, has conducted advanced manufacturing and digital business systems studies.  These include down selection process for a integrated ERP system for MMC manufacturing and installation, along with detailed proof of concept studies into specific manufacturing areas, where using robotics and advanced automation can improve MMC manufacturing output, productivity, quality and lower costs, including the design of future factories using mathematical models, dynamic simulation and 3D technology to improve investment decisions.

With decarbonisation of the built environment a priority, the project embarked on a study to measure and profile Embodied Carbon and Whole Life Costing in the use of MMC systems across four housing types to current and near zero carbon standards.  A strategy for a proof of concept, near zero carbon home trial was also developed with Barratt Developments.

The project also recognises the importance of SMEs and through the roofing specialist Forster Group it has helped accelerate their roofing technology, through collaborative learning and proof of concept trials with MTC and the AIMCH developers. Dissemination is important and provided by CSIC including presenting at several key industry events, a dedicated industry stakeholder group, project website and social media.

The goal of the project is to support the sector by delivering 120,000 homes for the same or less cost than traditional methods and built 30% quicker. The project has potential to impact on 35,000 homes being delivered by AIMCH partners across the UK each year.

In the project’s final year, a number of outputs and learnings for the sector will be completed and shared on the AIMCH website as well as at industry events, with final findings published in March 2022.

Hertfordshire’s leading organisations are committing to sustainable housebuilding, which will see the county use offsite manufacturing (OSM) and modern methods of construction (MMC), to accelerate the delivery of sustainable homes.
An informal consortium of nearly 20 housing providers, led by Watford Community Housing and supported by Herts Innovation Quarter, Hertfordshire Growth Board and Hertfordshire LEP, has committed to scale up its use of OSM methods to speed up the progress of the county’s target to build 100,000 new homes by 2036, and enable the county to meet its net zero carbon targets.
The Hertfordshire Offsite Manufacturing Programme is streamlining the operational route to delivery by adapting planning policies, procurement routes and operational approaches to support the use of OSM to deliver sustainable growth for Hertfordshire. Standardisation is also being put in place, to help the consortium members achieve economies of scale, as well as optimising good design and place-making principles.

OSM market leaders Stewart Milne Timber Systems and Elements Europe are working in partnership with the programme, to help embed the foundations for accelerated delivery, building expertise and capacity within local delivery teams.

Hertfordshire is also encouraging the use of MMC and OSM through Herts IQ  www.herts-iq.co.uk , the county’s Enterprise Zone with its innovation partner BRE, and global leader in the built environment and founding partner of the UK’s Construction Innovation Hub. Herts IQ is attracting a cluster of smart construction and clean tech companies on prime commercial sites near J8 of the M1.

The Hertfordshire OSM programme is expected to deliver a raft of benefits for both housing providers, home owners and tenants, including reduced carbon, higher levels of sustainability, less construction waste and lower total development cost, due to lower whole life costs and lower costs in use.

MMC and OSM can achieve around 37% better thermal performance than Building Regulations, meaning lower energy consumption and energy bills. It also offers higher standards of fit and finish at handover, without time consuming snagging helping housing providers secure earlier rental income and less neighbourhood disruption.

Patsy Dell, Director of Growth, Hertfordshire Growth Board said: “Hertfordshire is heralding a new era of housebuilding by embracing offsite to deliver homes at scale to meet our future needs.

“Thanks to the OSM programme, we can not only accelerate housing delivery but ensure that it is underpinned by best practice in design and sustainability, creating homes fit for the future that will support generations to come.”

Tina Barnard, Chief Executive, Watford Community Housing said: “We’re proud to be leading this consortium to help drive the supply of sustainable homes for Hertfordshire.

“We plan to utilise offsite construction methods for at least 50% of the homes built by Watford Community Housing and our J-V partners over the next four years, to deliver environmentally-friendly, cost-effective and energy-efficient homes for our customers.”

“In doing so, we’ll also support Homes England in its goal to ensure that at least a quarter of the homes delivered through its funding programmes make use of offsite construction.

We are already well underway with our Northcotts development in Watford, which is due for completion in summer 2022 and will deliver 18 new homes built using modular construction methods.”

Richard Whitehead, Board member at Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership and Chair of Herts IQ said: “We’re committed to supporting the use of offsite methods of construction in Hertfordshire because it delivers many benefits to both housing providers and residents.

“With Herts IQ, we’re creating the right conditions for offsite manufacturers and supply chains to innovate, collaborate and thrive in Hertfordshire and we look forward to welcoming more forward thinking, sustainable companies to join our growing business community.”

Hertfordshire IQ is an Enterprise Zone 30 minutes from London in Hemel Hempstead on J8 of the M1 offering tax breaks and innovation support. Hertfordshire IQ is run by seven partners all committed to its long term success and creating a great place to live and work: Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership, BRE Group, Rothamsted Research and the University of Hertfordshire, St Albans City and District Council, Dacorum Borough Council, and Hertfordshire County Council.

www.herts-iq.co.uk

About Hertfordshire Growth Board

The Hertfordshire Growth Board is made up of Hertfordshire’s 10 district and borough councils, Hertfordshire County Council and Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership. Together they are committed to working together to deliver an ambitious growth agenda to support a thriving economy, with affordable housing, a sustainable transport network, excellent schools and healthcare facilities.

https://www.hertfordshiregrowthboard.com

@hertsgoodgrowth

Media contact

Katy Newman katy.newman@hertfordshirelep.co.uk

07770 635305

Stewart Milne Timber Systems continues to develop its market-leading position in the offsite manufacturing sector after reporting significant growth with a strong current forward order book of over £200million.

The business has announced their accounts for a 16-month period from July 2018 to October 2019, following a change to its financial year end. During this period the business reported a significant growth in turnover to £120 million with an operating profit of £9 million. This growth is due to the further development of a number of significant client relationships and the associated product innovation to meet demand across the UK for offsite construction.

While the disruption caused by the pandemic will inevitably show an impact on trading in the financial year to October 2020, Stewart Milne Timber Systems continued to perform well, with monthly trading and profit recovering to pre-lockdown levels from late summer.

Rod Allan, Managing Director, said: “The demand for modern methods of construction continues to rise as the need for us to build in a more sustainable, carbon conscious way becomes ever more crucial. “Our innovation and increased capacity, combined with our focus on building high value, high growth, long term partnerships with our housebuilder customers means we are very well-placed to provide highly efficient solutions to meet the challenges. We look forward with confidence to executing the next phase of our investment plans.”