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Flying factories

The flying factories concept provides offsite lean manufacturing and industrialisation, using temporary and versatile factories.

Off-site manufacturing and industrialisation

Taking work traditionally completed onsite into a more secure and weather-proof environment, helps us to deliver higher quality workmanship, safer working environments and increased potential for sustainable solutions.

Other benefits include:

  • Faster onsite installation
  • Reduced quality defects and associated waste
  • Optimised transport solutions, reducing costs
  • Overall reduction in operational and embodied carbon
  • Safer working environments for personnel
  • Improved programme certainty and reduced commercial risk

Flying factories can be applied to any construction and engineering project with components and assemblies which are:

  • Repeatable, with standardised designs
  • Transportable mass manufactured

Flying factories can help the sector to meet the Government 2025 construction targets:

  • 33% lower costs
  • 50% faster delivery
  • 50% lower emissions
  • 50% improvements on exports

Case studies

Cost and time savings: For the phase one of the Battersea Power Station redevelopment project, 550 utility cupboards have been created to house all of the vital support mechanisms needed in each apartment, such as the boiler, fuse box and heat exchanger. It led to a 44% cost saving, 65% reduction in time and 75% fewer defects.

Faster project completion: The modern flying factories approach has been applied to assemble wall panels for Glenfrome School in Bristol. A school extension was built and finished in just six weeks, using panels constructed in a flying factory to ensure it was ready for the new school term.

Last updated: 23/01/2017