COVID-19 CRISIS FROM THE MODULAR BUILDING INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE
Three Different Perspectives: Short, Mid and Long Term Solutions
Overview
Never in our generation, have we seen the most accurate living expression of a VUCA context (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity). Strategic leadership has been defining tools for understanding, managing, and mitigating risk but it seems that the COVID-19 crisis has overwhelmed countries and people to the same extent.
The real fact is that, as in the last three decades, no one was prepared for global events like the teardown of the Berlin Wall; the global spread of terrorism since 9/11; the Big Recession of 2008; but also for the devastating earthquake and tsunamis of Asia in 2004 and Japan in 2011; the immigration crisis in Europe; and, last but not least, the global threat of climate change.
In this case, there is no difference in terms of what we know about the enemy. The new thing in this crisis is the unprecedented impact on human beings’ personal life and behavior and the consequences in the global economy, our industries, and businesses.
With the aim to understanding the capabilities of the offsite industry to tackle this particular Pandemic crisis and with the objective to collaborate with peers, a thinktank has developed an initiative called Modular Task Force (www.modulartaskfore.com) with the idea of analyzing the different construction systems, designs and aggregate production capacity at a global level. The main idea is to use the knowledge and understanding gained from the effects of the pandemic on the most severely hit countries like China, Italy, and the USA. In this essay, I am reporting the findings we have collected in the last very intense weeks.
From the perspective of the modular industry, we must be prepared to act not only to respond to the outbreak, for example by enlarging healthcare capacity and supporting logistic and services to the agencies involved but also, and more importantly, to deliver the building solutions that people will need as a consequence of the crisis, which involves new kinds of healthcare buildings, affordable housing, new housing configurations, new buildings or neighborhoods for elderly people, among others.
Emergency Management
In any kind of disaster, it is possible to recognize five different stages of emergency management according to FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency of the USA). These different stages are traditionally
- Mitigation, which refers to activities that are designed to reduce or eliminate risks to persons or property, or lessen the actual or potential effects or consequences of an incident;
- Prevention which means actions taken to avoid an incident or to intervene to stop an incident from occurring;
- Preparedness, defined as the range of deliberate, critical tasks and activities necessary to build, sustain and improve operational capability to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from domestic incidents;
- The response phase, which begins when an emergency event is imminent or immediately after an event occurs and encompasses the activities that address the short-term, direct effects of an incident; and
- The Recovery Phase, which means to return the community’s systems and activities to normal. Recovery begins right after the emergency and it is the development, coordination, and execution of service and site restoration plans. Long-term recovery includes restoring economic activity and rebuilding community facilities and housing.
The modular construction industry should offer a different solution for each phase of an emergency crisis, and each phase needs different infrastructure in order to deal with a potential or actual disaster. In general, the response and recovery phase is bound to be solved with the quickest solution available, and that totally validates the modular industry.
Preparedness Phase — Preparing for an Emergency
As could be seen during the first few days of the outbreak many countries faced difficulties in the administrative field: there were difficulties understand the need and then quickly find solutions, mainly because of bureaucratic barriers in terms of awarding and celebrating contracts or even defining which companies or activities should be considered essential work.
For future events, one would highly recommend typifying resources that are meant to enhance emergency readiness and response at all levels of government that allows jurisdictions to augment their response resources during an incident.
Another useful tool should be to establish standby contracts where the supplier agrees to provide an established quantity of an item at the unit cost in effect since the day “before” the emergency occurs. Standby contracts are a good way for local governments to meet their resource supply requirements without incurring the costs of stockpiling and not paying the rapidly increasing prices that often follow an emergency. Apart from that, a reasonable level of stored unites at a national level before the crisis could speed up the possibilities of response.
Response and Recovery Phase — Understanding, Acting, and Recovering
Once understood the magnitude of a crisis and the possible future behavior of the agent (in this case COVID19) and after evaluating which is the real situation in terms of infrastructure, governments and emergency agencies started to request buildings for quick deployment and temporary solutions for the crisis.
During the initial phase of the outbreak, the most affected governments imposed tough restrictions and isolation measures and even companies supplying the governments suffer the impact on their supply chains, labor force availability, and restrictions related to transport.
In order to tackle the need for infrastructure, we can divide modular building solutions into different categories. Each one is based on different levels of standardization, from canned products to total customized solutions; it is based on the level of compliance of building and healthcare codes and based on the timeframe to have the solution already built on-site (shown in graphic No 1). Each category is meant to offer solutions for the short, mid and long response phase as well as for the recovery phase.
Three Different Perspectives
Short Term Modular Building Solutions
As seen in the first countries’ impact by the outbreak, the request for temporary buildings to enlarge the capacity of the existing health care systems was quite despaired and relatively moderate in developing countries. In this category, we can say that modular solutions based on flat-pack modules, industrialized modules, and modified shipping containers are the most common requests.
In an emergency scenario, as there is no time to design modular solutions from scratch, the general practice is through preexisting standardized modular building solutions which are mainly originally designed for military deployment, oil and gas, and workforce accommodation. The main benefit of this kind of buildings is that they are based on standardized modules and designs with ISO standard sizes for quick and efficient transportation indifferently by train, trucks, or ships.
While Temporary buildings have a great performance for delivering a quick and cost-effective solution to quickly enlarge the capacity, usually the main constraints are related to the limitations of design and finishings, and in some cases, the lack of total compliance with local building codes and healthcare building codes.
The General Construction process starts with a predesigned construction system with standard module sizes and general floor plans. With these elements, it is possible to adapt to a program request for a modular solution and establish engineering design for electrical, sanitary, HVAC, and other installations so companies are able to place a quotation.
After the celebration of the contract with the availability of stock of finished products or through quick manufacture, it is possible to deliver the buildings in a short period of time. Usually, the average delivery time of a full project from end to end could be from 30 to 90 days depending on the scale of the project and on the availability of stock and raw materials.
The principal utilization for this COVID-19 outbreak is to add logistics and support service infrastructure for temporary offices, sanitary, military or defense units, security and control units, and ISO 40`Containers for storage. Related to health care buildings, the major capabilities for this type of buildings are their use for temporary triage units, testing facilities, isolation ward facilities, and temporary or emergency hospitals.
Related to healthcare, one of the main limitations temporary building solutions systems have, is the discrepancy between desired designs and customized solutions, so it is difficult to match the proper use of the standards of best healthcare practices with regular building sizes. These systems are usually conceived for other purposes rather than being converted to healthcare buildings.
In many cases, another issue is the lack of compliance with local buildings and healthcare codes when considered to be used as permanent buildings. However, in countries with a general lack of infrastructure as is usual in Latin America, Africa part of the Middle East and some countries from South East Asia, this kind of temporary buildings are conceived also as a mid-term or even permanent solution and can generate an important benefit in terms of speed and cost-effectiveness.
Mid Term Building Solutions
With the benefits of time and hindsight of the magnitude and effect of a disaster, it is now possible to start to conceive building solutions that take more time to develop and deliver but are also more adequate in terms of design and code compliance.
In this category, there are still available customized elements or solutions from manufacturers to speed-up the design and manufacture processes but with the possibility to adapt them more efficiently to the special requirements of the desired building.
Also under this category, there is the additional possibility to conceive customized Relocatable Buildings that can be designed for a secondary purpose or relocation. The inclusion in this category is because there are special features in a relocatable building to be efficiently disassembled and relocated to another place.
The general use of Midterm Modular Building solutions for a COVID-19 crisis scenario should be Intensive and intermediate care units or facilities, testing facilities, isolation ward facilities, relocatable hospitals, laboratories, and temporary housing. In a crisis stabilization phase, there is the potential need for new kinds of healthcare buildings, adding new buildings to existing ones, or other kinds of buildings like testing or isolation buildings and social housing.
In terms of the construction process for this kind of buildings, within pre-existing modular elements or components that may vary according to the different manufactures, like standard structures, sizes, and components of the walls, floors or roofs, but there is a great possibility for special design and adaptation to any for the desired building. There is a stage of pre-design usually carried out together with the technical team of the client that could reshape a traditional building or program request into a modular solution.
After that, there through detailed engineering is it possible to place a Bid. As there is a more tailor-made building, the manufacturing process usually takes more time than other temporary solutions due to the need to produce the shop drawings for the manufacture plans and details; there is a waiting time to receive the supplies. After delivering the modules to their final destination, the assembly of the building takes more time due to a more complex building and the special installations. Usually, this kind of solution can have a delivery time from end to end in an average of 4 to 12 months depending on the size or complexity of the buildings.
Long term building solutions
Long term solutions are meant to solve the structural needs of permanent buildings in terms of adding infrastructure to serve the community after a disaster. The main goal is to bring the affected area back to some degree of normality and to solve a new need for infrastructure because of a change of behavior, prevention policy, or even to mitigate future disasters.
Related to the COVID-19 there is still uncertainty about the future behavior of the virus and the people, but the main hypothesis should be the focus on enlarging the existing capacity of Intensive and intermediate care units, redesigning hospitals in order to add facilities to tackle infectious diseases and other special buildings like laboratories and testing facilities so as to add diagnosis capacity. Another and one of the most important future needs after the economic effect of a crisis like this is the need for affordable housing and any kind of urban infrastructure for the people affected by the crisis.
For this particular phase of recovery, Modular Construction can achieve the best performance and express its full potential and benefits in terms of speed, quality, and sustainability.
The usual construction process starts with a conceptual design, a design phase with the full participation of the stakeholders involved in the project (Owner, General constructor, Manufacturer and Engineer, and Architecture Design firms). There is a different way of establishing the contract (design-bid-built, design-built, bid-design-build among others).
In general, there is a process of detail engineering, and placing a definitive quotation to be able to celebrate the contract. After that, a customized building usually has longer periods of preparation for manufacture; for purchasing materials; and for delivery and assembly. Due to the much higher complexity of the buildings, it takes more time than the other categories. On average the develop-design-manufacture and assembly of this kind of buildings could take between 6 months and 1.5 years. However, modular and scalable projects can be delivered in less time but in different phases.
Final remarks
Temporary and Permanent Modular Buildings solutions along with the Timeframe of Emergency Management are not only a solution for this outbreak, but should be the bases of the construction method not only to speed up the availability of housing and other kinds of buildings but also to achieve a sustainable way to tackle climate change, affordability, and lack of skilled labor force.
After this first 100 days since this crisis started, the general advice is to use modular construction systems and products according to each special situation. There would be a very negative impact if temporary solutions are used for permanent needs. The future of modular construction will rely on the proper use of each solution and the opportunity to build a huge industry will depend on how reliably, ethically, and professionally we perform. I believe that going modular will change the construction industry and this is more than a need, it is a moral obligation.
Along these lines, I believe that the most important opportunity that could arise from this crisis is the need to be better prepared from a global perspective for future events like this, and understanding that a novel virus, as well as a humanitarian crisis and climate change, are likely to affect the entire world population, without country boundaries and with no shelter. For that reason, it is a must to offer a solution from this kind of groundbreaking crisis from our stance and the future to come. We should take this situation as an early warning.
The work ahead is an amazing challenge and the most important task is to recover, reshape, and build the world with speed, quality, and Eco-efficiency. These days we are overwhelmed by this outbreak, but I still do believe that the climate change crisis will be even more important and difficult to recover from.
