In Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), a technology company claims to be in the process of doing something that’s being called “revolutionary.”
According to the Khaleej Times, Technology Company KEF Holdings expects to make their debut in the UAE in under a year, with a 40,000 square metres (131,000 square feet), fully automated, integrated offsite manufacturing facility, which would be the first of its kind in the world, using robots to manufacture prefab buildings.
“When Tesla came into the industry as a disruptive innovator with its robotics manufacturing process, I began to study their process and adapted many of these into our offsite manufacturing and pre-fab facilities,” said Faizal Kottikollon, founder and chairman, KEF Holdings, also an ardent fan of the world renowned inventor Elon Musk, co-founder of Tesla Motors.
Kottikollon believes that robotics will revolutionize offsite building manufacturing as it has other industries. The company expects to roll out the Middle East’s first batch of factory-manufactured homes from its plant beginning in 2018.
Prefab homes are a relatively new concept in the Middle East, even though in both Europe and Scandinavia, the technology is common, with Sweden saying that up to 90 percent of new home construction is prefab in nature.
Kottikollon, along with other middle east housing experts, say that the reason for the slow adoption is that homebuyers in the region would not accept the perceived inferior quality, materials, and technologies associated with field construction.
“Our factory in the UAE will be the first fully automated integrated offsite manufacturing facility in the world, moving the conventional construction and delivery model into a more efficient and controlled factory environment with all pre-testing and commissioning taking place before the modules are moved to the site,” said Kottikollon.
Being built at an investment of Dh360 million ($98 million USD), the KEF “Infra Dubai home-production plant” will feature state of the art robotics and auto guided vehicles for product transfer systems, and will have the capacity to fully fabricate eight villas and townhouses each day.
“I strongly believe that as we stand at the cusp of the fourth industrial revolution, this type of automation and robotics-driven approach to construction will soon become the norm. This approach reduces the utilization of manpower and materials, while additionally cutting down on the margin of error through automation,” said Kottikollon.
“The forward-looking policies in the UAE also mean that the scope for developing industrial-scale manufacturing of buildings is set to grow, and grow phenomenally.”
Are Emerging Building Technologies Poised to Supplant Manufactured Housing?
As the Daily Business News recently covered, companies and projects like the one from RPA/Ecocor present a “looking glass” moment for the manufactured housing industry, as new technologies could possibly result in more competition.
While this particular system isn’t one that competes in price with manufactured housing today, there are others we are tracking that in just a few years could prove to be a direct challenger.
Consultant and trade publisher, L. A. “Tony” Kovach has periodically warned the industry about the possible threats that are a direct result of low-volume sales.
The Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) has also spoken to the opportunity that exists for the manufactured housing industry, saying in part “the MH industry must take advantage of the Trump administration’s opportunities to attain the goal of producing hundreds of thousands of HUD code homes annually.” More from MHARR, at this link here.
You can find more on the topic of items that Titus Dare, SVP of Eagle One Financial, notes are barriers for doing more manufactured home business at this link here. ##
(Image credits are as shown above.)
Submitted by RC Williams to the Daily Business News for MHProNews.
