Platform construction systems are designed to be flexible and customisable to avoid limiting design freedom and allow massing, form and aesthetic treatments to be considered on a plot-specific basis.. Driving value with MMC and P-DfMA.

In addition to conventional methods, alternatives have been developed that deploy prefabrication, pre-assembly, design standardisation and/or automation to some degree and these are collectively referred to as Modern Methods of Construction (MMC)..Exploring the MMC toolkit: from offsite construction to PPVC and beyond.

MMC is the collective term for the innovative construction methods that can be deployed by the DfMA designer.MMC can be considered as the DfMA designer’s “toolkit”.The DfMA designer finds the most suitable innovations in the MMC toolkit (or develops new innovations) to meet a project’s unique 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.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.Even the steps on the journey, as focus on interoperability, data standards and consistent specifications, would help accelerate the digital shift that is already underway.