Conventional design either has a presumption towards conventional construction or is agnostic regarding the construction method.

A price is calculated within seconds (for straightforward processes such as CNC machining) to a day or so for more complex requests.Xometry has a huge amount of pricing data from which it can generate instant quotes which can be validated or refined with vendors.

Once the price is agreed, the selected suppliers produce the components to set specifications and arrange delivery..This ‘manufacturing as a service’ could have significant benefits for a Platform approach to construction.What can we learn?.

Xometry uses a widely distributed network of suppliers who can respond to requests which suit their capabilities and capacity.This would be a positive outcome for construction, ensuring those suppliers who were local to a planned project could respond, reducing travel distance and therefore carbon, risk of delivery delays etc..

This distribution helps manufacturers to maximise their utilisation; downtime on equipment and operatives contributes to overhead, which is amortised across orders, raising prices and lowering productivity.

Having easy access to long term pipeline (as advocated in the Construction Playbook) will of course help ensure there is less downtime.Jaimie Johnston recognises that people are becoming bogged down in the granularity of the words, even with terms like ‘on-site’ and ‘off-site.’.

The important thing is to fully understand the outcomes clients are aiming to achieve, he says, be it speed, greatest flexibility, or lowest costs.That’s why Bryden Wood likes the term.

Design to Value.The goal here is to design things with lean construction principles: using the least amount of material, handled the fewest number of times, delivered quickly, with the right information, and without waste.. Aiming to realise these lean construction goals, regardless of whether that occurs on-site or off-site, is the real objective.