Donaldson Timber Systems

With UK housing availability adversely affecting millions, we must adapt and evolve quickly to meet the UK housebuilding demand. Working with Advanced Industrialised Methods for the Construction of Homes (AIMCH), helps us to deliver vital data for better decision-making, whilst supporting change and investment within the industry to streamline the construction process.

The flagship three-year AIMCH housing innovation project was established in 2019, bringing together significant players within the sector to transform how homes are built with the intention of combatting the UK housing crisis. Current government statistics project that a further 120,000 homes are needed annually, with a specific focus on affordable homes – yet traditional construction methods alone aren’t enough.

Managed by Limberger Associates, Stewart Milne Group joined AIMCH alongside Barratt Developments PLC, London Quadrant Housing Trust Ltd, the Manufacturing Technology Centre, the Construction Scotland Innovation Centre and Forster Roofing Services Ltd.
Speed, quality and efficiency are all challenges faced by the sector. Not only are we trying to meet housing demand by producing more, and at scale, it’s also about a meaningful response to heightened demand for ecologically responsible practices – such as digital working, lean site assembly, and offsite construction.
Offsite construction is becoming more and more popular thanks to a combination of factors; from environmental considerations, to skills shortages in the industry and, of course, the heightened demand for homes. Offering a practical and efficient alternative to traditional building methods, it speeds up the construction process and lowers the project’s carbon footprint by reducing wastage. However, adaptations to on site methods cannot be ignored.

Here at Stewart Milne Timber Systems, we have trialled new smart construction methods along with Barratt Homes, at the Pewterspear site near Warrington. A commercial analysis is set to be completed with the wider AIMCH team, to help identify product development ideas that can be taken forward for our future strategy in construction.

At Pewterspear, the pre-tiled roofs of two plots were assembled at ground level on site, in a bid to increase health and safety by eliminating the need to work from height. Research such as this will be trialled on live housing projects throughout the next three years, with the aim being to commercialise successful new methods, bringing them to market in volume.

Not only does the AIMCH work deliver a new, more effective way for businesses of all sizes to use data insights to demonstrate the value of MMC, it also allows us to respond consistently to future demands. The £6.5 million research and development project has the potential to impact on up to 35,000 of the homes to be delivered by project partners across the UK annually. Its recent construction productivity report has the potential to deliver tangible benefits now to the wider construction industry and other sectors such as transport and infrastructure.

Stewart Milne Timber Systems already manufactures high-quality timber frames which are ready made, to be transported on-site and erected, but our collaboration within industry through projects like AIMCH will be critical in bridging the housing gap. It is expected the project will deliver new valuable digital design tools, manufacturing advancements and leading offsite systems which can be adopted by others within the housing sector to improve and increase housebuilding efficiency and quality.

The project provides a promising foundation to addressing challenges faced by the sector. Only through continued innovation such as AIMCH and government funding into housing via schemes such as the Home Building Fund, will we be able to create and sustain a long-term solution to meet housebuilding demands.

Stewart Milne Timber Systems (SMTS) has teamed up with Bromwich-based Giffords Recycling, in a move that sees waste timber product repurposed for community use.
At present, timber frame is the largest offsite construction sector with 70% of homes in Scotland currently built using this method, with the number continuously increasing south of the border in both England and Wales.

As the UK’s leading offsite timber frame manufacturer, SMTS’ construction process results in roughly 1.6 thousand tonnes of offcuts, a natural result of this manufacturing method. As a company, Stewart Milne Timber Systems has always had an environmental conscience and ensures that 100% of its waste is recycled. In this way, it contributes to the current government aim for the UK to become carbon neutral by 2050.

Giffords, which receives approximately 80 tonnes of timber per month from SMTS’ Witney manufacturing centre, recycles the material into a number of wood fibre products, such as wood chip, garden mulch, and animal bedding.
The repurposed material is also used for horse stable and arena footing, which has been purchased by equestrians such as Olympian and show jumping champion David Broome CBE; as well as ‘cushionfall’, a loose fill safety surface designed to make the ground in children’s play parks softer to prevent injury.
In addition, the timber is also recycled to make ‘enviromulch’, a landscaping and gardening product pioneered by Giffords to regulate soil temperature and help it retain moisture – saving on watering costs.
By donating timber offcuts to Giffords, SMTS succeed in extending the life cycle of the wood in a sustainable, environmentally friendly way, keeping landfill sites clear in the process.
Frank O’Reilly, Factory Manager at Stewart Milne Timber Systems, said: “With a sustainable and low-carbon ethos at the heart of what we do, recycling has always been important.
Given its many advantages, timber frame offsite construction can deliver home units quickly and provides the potential to manufacture approximately 10,000 homes or units a year – so we’re proud to say that 100% of our factory waste generated throughout this process is fully recycled.”
Rod Gifford, Managing Director at Giffords Recycling, said: “We believe that wood is too good to end up in the scrap heap, so we take real pride in our work. Through the material provided by Stewart Milne Timber Systems, we have been able to create tonnes of much-needed animal bedding – in July alone, we produced over 140 tonnes, which has since been shipped off to stables across the country.”

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Stewart Milne Timber Systems has continued to innovate by delivering a series of online training webinars and will soon be launching a new look website which aims to be more interactive, easier to navigate and mobile friendly.
As well as showcasing all of the latest company and industry news and developments, the new website will also feature a wide variety of video content, a virtual tour of the Witney factory and a live chat function, making it easier to contact and interact with SMTS.

The global pandemic will have a wide-reaching impact on us all.  It is difficult to see how any industry sector will come through this unscathed and without re-examining how to do things differently.  What will be important is that we emerge stronger and more resilient, and open to new innovative ways of working.

As the house building industry begins to return to work, sites re-open, and companies re-examine their business strategies and models, it will become even more important to embrace new technologies and processes to ensure the restart and future development of the sector is done in a way that it can thrive long term.

With most construction sites having been on pause, efficient delivery will be vital as the industry restarts and grows.  Particularly as the demand for more high quality, cost effective housing, that can be quickly and efficiently built, has never been more acute and will only build going forward.

During this global health crisis, our homes have provided a safe haven, a place to work and for many, a place of education. The need to deliver more homes, quickly and cost effectively will be essential in tackling the growing UK housing crisis, but it is vital that we are not simply back building, but instead building better homes.

Key to this will be to embrace modern methods of construction, such as panelised offsite construction systems and efficient construction, in a more integrated way capitalising on digital technologies and advanced manufacturing.

The Advanced Industrialised Methods for the Construction of Homes (AIMCH) project started 18 months ago to trial solutions that could help to tackle the UK housing crisis by mainstreaming the use of these methods and lean technologies.

At that time, the consortium set out to transform how the construction industry builds homes to meet current and future demands.  Today we are almost halfway through the three-year project, and more than ever, we are convinced that modern methods of construction, such as offsite panelised systems and digital working, offer unrivalled benefits, especially as we find our way through and out of this current crisis.

Getting back to work

The fast delivery of much-needed housing is critical.  However as the industry reopens, construction sites face operational restrictions.

With less labour resource onsite, the potential reduction in the supply of materials, coupled with the physical challenges of getting them onsite, and maintaining social distancing safety measures, it will be some time before productivity is at the level is was pre-lockdown, never mind the level it needs to be at to tackle the growing UK housing crisis.

Offsite panelised construction offers a way forward and a safe viable solution, which is less labour intensive, with fewer personnel on site, unlike traditional building methods.

As part of the AIMCH project pre COVID-19, partners have been undertaking productivity measurement studies, using time and motion and more innovative blue-tooth enabled tracking of operatives to monitor site efficiency or traditional and a variety of MMC systems. This technology has potential to monitor safe social distancing, providing useful data on worker compliance social distancing and site operating guidelines.

Bringing panelised offsite systems on to sites can also aid a quicker and more efficient delivery of homes. AIMCH has been assessing the benefits of standardisation. Through research studies, the partners are now developing a suite of standardised product families, that can be configured and used within future housing pattern books. Providing a digitally enabled efficient and cost effective home designs that can be built fast, to higher quality standards and with less labour input. Homes can be externally finished using conventional materials, to provide robust, durable and beautiful homes, to suit any planning or aesthetic requirement.

Modern methods of construction, such as offsite panelised building systems, helps business recover through securing a more integrated and robust supply chain, by adopting a manufacturing led approach, which can be scaled up quickly to meet demand.

The AIMCH project has utilised automotive learning from around the world, to develop advanced manufacturing approaches, such as simulation, to build a model of the ‘future offsite factory’ where digital technology and automation, such as robotics, drives productivity lowering production costs and increasing capacity. The mathematical model and simulation program under development, will enable robust assessment and validation of future MMC investments, which will be crucial as the industry, housebuilders and businesses reset, recover and re-plan the future, during these uncertain economic times post COVID-19.

Through industrialising housing, embracing modern methods of construction, AIMCH solution will help attract new talent with digital, logistics, engineering, design, robotics and project management skills, making the sector more appealing to a wider employee pool.  With more automation in a factory setting, digital working, integrated supply chains, lean construction assembly and with staff collaborating with onsite teams, the greater efficiencies achieved will support the construction of the additional 120,000 homes needed each year to address the UK housing shortage. That’s a challenge that the housebuilding sector simply can’t meet using traditional construction methods alone.

By offering integrated supply chain solutions, increased efficiencies, greater collaboration, increased productivity and commercially competitive mainstream offsite panelised construction methods, the AIMCH project has a significant role to play in the post-COVID recovery with offsite construction becoming the new normal in the sector.

The rising cost of running a home set against a backdrop of economic uncertainty is a growing issue, now more so than ever before, as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic. It is estimated that approximately 3.5 million households in the UK are classed as being in fuel poverty. While these figures from 2017 are the lowest since 2005-06, it is evident there is still more to be done. And with budgets likely to tighten even further over the coming months, it comes as no surprise that household running costs are a key consideration for homebuyers across the country.

Sustainable building used to be the exception rather than the rule, but the fact that buyer attitudes are shifting is forcing housebuilders to act. If they want to attract budget-conscious buyers, housebuilders now need to consider how to appeal to buyers who wish to reduce their overall living costs.

Offsite timber frame construction provides a building with a superior thermal envelope, requiring minimal maintenance and a “fit-and-forget” solution for the lifetime of the building. For a home to be energy efficient, it must be well insulated and as airtight as possible. With timber construction retaining and reducing heat demand, the resulting building contributes quite considerably to reducing fuel poverty as heating bills tend to be lower, and the house warmer.

Scotland is set to begin working with the construction sector to develop regulations which will ensure new homes consented from 2024, a year ahead of the rest of the UK, are required to use renewable or low carbon heat in a bid to further reduce fuel poverty, in line with the UK’s recent legislation to tackle the root causes of fuel poverty by 2040.

In the South of England, Milton Keynes and Stratford-upon-Avon, the Housing Association L&Q (London & Quadrant) are working with offsite manufacturer Stewart Milne Timber Systems to build efficiently-insulated homes for their homeowners and tenants using the award-winning Sigma® II timber frame build system.   Using this system means that building performance is improved with better heat retention and subsequently reduced energy demand, resulting in a fuel-efficient dwelling.  The Sigma® II system takes “whole life costing” into account as well as risk and home owner impact.

When building with timber frame, a home can be designed as one integrated system with a fabric-first approach and energy efficiency locked into the home’s core; reducing the need for renewables, or wider newer technologies to be added on at a later date. Ultimately, this will save the home-owners money and give them peace of mind in delivery of energy performance. Timber frame homes have a track record of superior energy efficiency and low embodied carbon. The homes are naturally warm in winter and yet  cool in the summer, allowing residents to enjoy significantly lower heating bills overall.

The introduction of the Future Homes Standard by 2025 will help ensure new build homes are future-proofed with low-carbon heat and power as well as world-leading levels of energy efficiency – thus, tying in with the Chancellor’s pledge to reduce the use of fossil fuel in homes by 2025

As we look to the future, building in timber frame, combined with a fabric-first approach, will be the most effective means of meeting major housebuilding and net-zero carbon targets sustainably. Not only is it affordable, but it also reduces long-term maintenance, while positively impacting the social agenda with more efficient homes, reducing energy bills for tenants and thereby contributing to housing associations drive to decrease fuel poverty.

Simon Horn, our Technical Development Manager has delivered three separate courses for Taylor Wimpey, averaging about 2 hours each, namely ‘An Introduction to Timber Frame and Stewart Milne Timber Systems’, ‘Timber Frame Construction’, and ‘Timber Frame Technical’.

Simon has also delivered ‘An Overview of Timber Frame, including Technical, Construction and Commercial’ for our client L&Q.

The webinars have been very well received, with feedback including:

• “As a site manager it highlighted a few things we don’t get to see, so many thanks”
• “Thank you Simon, I have spent a day at the factory, very interesting. Good presentation.”
• “Thanks for a thorough presentation Simon. Plenty of detail and most enjoyable.”
• “Thanks Simon, great presentation, look forward to the next!”

We have delivered these four webinars to a total of 139 participants and have more in the diary for Taylor Wimpey to be delivered in mid-May: ‘Timber Frame Construction’ and ‘Timber Frame Home-owner/Aftercare’.

Watch this space as we investigate the virtual world and further ways in which to bring our products to life online in 2020.