While you take a moment to let that sink in, brush aside any assumptions the speed of construction skimps on quality. Sean says due to the company’s lean manufacturing system, focusing on optimising every step of the process, in addition to its quality assurance practices, the manufactured panels are extremely precise and fit together with millimetre accuracy.
‘Every single thing that we produce is checked before we ship it, ensuring you don’t have anything missing and it all fits together better onsite as well,’ he says. ‘There are well-known instances where things are missed onsite for whatever reason [but] here they’re fully checked. You immediately get a higher energy star rating and the building just performs better.’
Such accuracy and efficiency is made possible by computer-numerical-controlled (CNC) technology. The entire factory is set up with high-powered equipment from German multinational, WEINMANN, owned by HIA member, the HOMAG Group.
‘We’ve been extremely happy with the machinery, its efficiency and reliability. We haven’t had any issues since we started operating,’ Sean says. ‘We use SEMA software which drives our machinery, and it integrates quite well with WEINMANN machinery.’
Everything is adapted into a 3D design where all the connections can be seen: ‘you can basically overlay the architectuals with the engineering, and build in the layers that you’re going to manufacture.’
Every single panel is shop-drawn through the system and pushed out to manufacturing.
‘After it’s taken off the line and shipped to site, it’s a manual process of putting it together. [But] the full end-to-end process is extremely efficient and we’ve been very happy with the way it works. Our focus has been to improve our processes to take further advantage of what the machinery can offer.’