ManuBuild - Open Building Manufactoring

Industry-led collaborative research project on Industrialised Construction involving 25 partners from 10 countries across Europe. The ManuBuild vision is of a future where customers will be able to purchase high quality manufactured buildings having a high degree of design flexibility at low cost compared to today. ManuBuild targets a radical breakthrough from the current ‘craft and resource-based construction’ to ‘Open Building Manufacturing’, combining ultra-efficient (Ambient) manufacturing in factories and on sites with an open system for products and components offering diversity of supply in the market. Enabling business processes, ICT systems, new materials and technologies and smart components etc. underpin this.

Open building manufacturing is an attempt to bring some of the salient features of efficient manufacturing to the construction sector. This should allow for significant savings in construction and maintenance cost, fewer errors and reworks, more choices and value to the customer, new products and services that can be configured and assembled in mobile factories at construction sites, etc. Research targets:

• Methods for the design and specification of open building manufacturing
• Products for open building manufacturing
• Business models and processes for open building manufacturing
• Manufacturing methods and techniques for open building manufacturing
• IT system architecture and tools for open building manufacturing
• Training solutions for open building manufacturing
• Open building manufacturing demonstrators

Publications:

The Integrated Project ManuBuild of the EU. - In: 23rd ISARC International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction 2006, Tokyo, October 3-5, 2006

Bock, Thomas; Unser, Ron; Clausen, Thomas; Meiwald, Thomas; Rackensperger, Daniel,
Crossover Design - Multidisciplinary design and construction process. Vol. Conference Papers. Niederlande: ManuBuild, 2007.

Bock, Thomas; Unser, Ron
Congress Keynote: Assembly Simulation for Re-Design of Plug and Play Modular Buildings. - In: I2CTI (International Institute for Construction Technology Information) Board Meeting 2007 and Symposium (State of the Art Computer Simulation and Construction), Tokyo, Japan, 29.-30.11.2007.

Bock, Thomas; Unser, Ron
3D Loom - Automated Design and Manufacturing of Tailor-Made High-Tech Fabrics. - In: ISARC 2007 International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction, Kochi, Kerala, Indien, 19.-21.09.2007. - Ed.: International Association for Automation and Robotics in Construction, I.A.A.R.C. Kochi, Kerala, Indien, 2007.

Bock, Thomas
Congress keynote lecture speaker: The Use and Development of Construction Robots in Central Europe and Japan. In: The VIII Innovation Day for Construction in Northern Finland, University of Oulu, Finland, 28.02.2008.

Bock, Thomas
Construction Automation and Robotics. Ed.: InTech Education and Publishing "Robotics and Automation in Construction", Editors: Carlos Balaguer and Mohamed Abderrahim, Publisher: International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, Wien, Österreich, ISBN 978-953-7619-13-8, Seiten 021-042, Oktober 2008