Ireland needs more housing, but the challenge doesn’t just come in terms of volume. The speed and cost of delivering more homes play a significant role in the construction sector’s struggles to keep up with demand.
That’s because the traditional approach to construction, like most sectors, has its natural vulnerabilities. It is labour intensive and susceptible to delays due to external factors like Ireland’s notoriously grouchy weather.
Rather than just sit back and accept the problems as they are, the industry has moved and evolved to try to mitigate or, indeed, overcome such challenges. Modern methods of construction (MMC) are designed to address some of the core challenges.
“Modern methods of construction can help address Ireland’s cost and delivery challenges by improving productivity and speeding up delivery, but only as part of a coordinated national infrastructure campaign and eco-system of reform,” says Alan Hore, co-founder and director of CitA, the Construction IT Alliance.
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To scale, MMC must align with standardised design, pipeline certainty, procurement reform, and integrated supply chains, he adds.
“Our focus is on a skills-led transition supported by Skillnet Ireland. The Skillnet MMC Accelerate national initiative is having a very positive impact. Our platform (skillnetmmcaccelerate.ie) is seeing strong engagement, with over 10,000 user sessions, more than 370 courses listed, and 12 events attracting over 700 attendees supporting upskilling across lean, green, digital and advanced manufacturing capabilities.”
From a housing perspective, Hore adds that “MMC can deliver real impact in housing, but only with systemic reform and sustained investment in skills. MMC represents a critical enabler of increased housing output, but it is not a standalone solution. Its effectiveness depends on systemic reform across the housing delivery ecosystem. When combined with standardisation, pipeline certainty, procurement reform, and skills transformation, MMC can play a central role in addressing supply challenges.”
MMC shifts enormous parts of the building process indoors, developing modular systems and using digital manufacturing processes to gain more control over the process.
“Rather than relying solely on traditional block-by-block construction, MMC incorporates approaches such as off-site manufacturing, modular construction, volumetric units, panelised systems, and digital project delivery including building information modelling (BIM) and construction technology,” says Cillian Kelly, group head of digital project delivery at John Sisk & Son.
The most visible change that MMC brings is where a lot of construction work is actually done off-site.
“In practice, building components or, in some cases, entire units are manufactured in factories, transported to the site and assembled efficiently on location,” says Kelly. “This approach can significantly accelerate construction programmes while also improving quality control and reducing material waste.”
That acceleration is enabled because there is greater certainty around delivery timelines due to the enhanced control.
“Factory-based production allows work to proceed regardless of weather conditions and enables parallel processes, where site preparation and component manufacturing take place simultaneously,” says Kelly.
It’s not just Sisk that has noticed the benefits of MMC. Research at Government level has found that MMC can have a significantly positive impact on the construction sector.
“Two major Government-commissioned reports – the National Economic and Social Council’s Boosting Ireland’s Housing Supply: MMC, and the Department of Housing’s Standardised Design Approaches study – offer the clearest evidence to date,” says Gary Greenan, senior client adviser of the housing delivery unit with Enterprise Ireland.
“Taken together, they give an insight on how MMC can deliver very substantial gains, but only when Ireland aligns design, procurement and regulation with industrialised construction.”
The research across these reports points to substantial gains from deploying MMC, with the potential to reduce the cost of construction projects by as much as 40 per cent while reducing timelines by as much as 60 per cent. While appealing, MMC’s gains tend to appear down the line when it comes to projects.
“MMC does not automatically translate into lower upfront construction costs. In many cases, the capital cost can be comparable to or higher than traditional construction methods,” says Kelly.
There is an element of scaling with gains, as the stronger financial benefits tend to come with larger developments.
“The strongest value proposition tends to emerge in large-scale, repeatable developments, where standardisation, economies of scale and faster delivery can offset higher manufacturing costs,” says Kelly. “As a result, the most significant gains from MMC in Ireland are likely to come from programme certainty, improved build quality, and the ability to deliver housing more quickly.”
From Sisk’s experience with MMC, timely decision making on design matters is crucial.
“One key lesson is that design decisions must be made earlier in the process. Because many components are manufactured in factory settings, projects need a higher level of design co-ordination before construction begins,” says Kelly. “The Construction Industry Federation’s MMC report highlights that early-stage design integration, often supported by digital tools such as BIM, is essential to ensure components can be manufactured and assembled efficiently.”
It’s not just the size of the project that matters with MMC. The ability to repeat processes at scale also matters.
“MMC delivers its strongest efficiencies in projects with a high degree of repetition, such as housing developments, hotels or student accommodation,” says Kelly. “Standardised systems allow manufacturers to improve productivity and achieve economies of scale, which is key to making MMC commercially viable.”
The investment required to enable off-site construction, including developing factories, getting equipment and acquiring skilled staff, all mean construction companies need to be confident there is an adequate pipeline to make the spending worthwhile.
Fortunately there are areas beyond housing construction where MMC has already been shown to offer benefits.
“Gains are already being achieved in other Irish sectors such as data centres, pharmaceuticals and education, where MMC is widely used,” says Greenan.
“Companies in those sectors report reduced delivery times, lower maintenance costs and higher-quality benefits, which can be directly transferable to housing.”
A lot of the expertise needed to develop MMC already exists in Ireland, with the likes of Enterprise Ireland playing a key role in fostering it.
“Through support for digital, lean, and off-site manufacturing technologies, the agency has cultivated a portfolio of Irish companies recognised as global experts in MMC, advanced panelised systems, modular construction, and precision off-site manufacturing,” says Greenan.
That breadth of expertise can also bridge gaps in understanding, particularly when it comes to the role of standardisation.
“MMC only reaches its full potential when designs are repeated using consistent structural spans, uniform building depths, standardised window and door configurations, and modular elemental design,” says Greenan.
A standardised approach enables efficiency within factories, reducing delays along the entire process.
“When standard designs are used, design sign-off times fall dramatically, component procurement becomes cheaper and more reliable, factory production lines can operate at full efficiency, and on-site installation becomes faster and more predictable,” says Greenan.
It all offers promise but there’s a lot of work to be done. For the housing sector to benefit from MMC, the sector itself will need to adapt. That will require changes to procurement models, approaches to collaboration and a rethinking of supply chains.
Yet, with a sustainable pipeline of projects and adequate policy support, all of this is achievable.
“In effect, Ireland already has an internationally competitive MMC industry; what is needed now is a housing ecosystem capable of harnessing it,” says Greenan.
