The President of the Chamber of Construction Industry Sri Lanka, Dr Surath Wickramasinghe, offered an insightful prediction into what we can expect from the island’s construction industry. He is one of Sri Lanka’s leading architects and according to him, the developers should plan long term. This is because the current growth of the Sri Lankan construction sector should continue to grow for the next 15 to 20 years.
Despite of the current challenges, the Sri Lankan construction sector will continue to boom with the increase of affordable housing, and major residential and commercial projects. In 2016 September, First Capital Equities claimed that the Construction & Building Material Sector on the Colombo’s Stock Exchange is expected to have a 46% average return (annualized 29%) over an 18-month period. This is well above the expected market return. (reference: MLD online article)
The construction challenges faced today by Sri Lanka can be addressed by the FRAMECAD technology
The ongoing difficulty is the industry’s lack of skilled labor, which causes significant delays for construction projects. As mentioned by Sri Lanka’s Access Engineering, the reasons for this are the increasing cost of labor and workers seeking higher salaries. In addition to that, construction workers are also faced with onsite safety risks on building sites.
The industry is also facing a challenge in obtaining the required construction elements like sand, metal and cement. As a result, providing consistent quality construction becomes harder to achieve. The need to use alternate substitutes with the support of technology is essential in order to cater to the prevailing construction boom. The growing demand for sustainability is also one of the main impediments the industry is facing right now. (reference: MLD online article)
A real opportunity for the FRAMECAD System
CFS construction methods like the FRAMECAD System are best placed to meet the demands of the emerging construction trends in the Sri Lankan construction industry.
The growth of the construction landscape in Sri Lanka lies in sustainable materials. This must be delivered using fast, modern methods such as a proven Cold Formed Steel solution which is available and used globally.
FRAMECAD has been providing CFS construction solutions around the world for over 30 years. Advanced CFS construction methods such as the FRAMECAD System can result in faster build times, lower overall costs, more versatile and scalable design solutions, and better building performance.
CFS is a practical solution to many of the challenges outlined in previously such as the reduced need for highly skilled labor or the support of technology to cater to the prevailing construction boom in Sri Lanka.
The rise in popularity of CFS construction can be attributed to:
- its ease of construction
- lightweight designs
- ‘pre-fabricated’ frames
- uniform quality
- quick and simple erection on-site using basic tools
All these factors reduce the need for highly skilled labor.
Design-led construction methodology supported by the FRAMECAD System enables companies to shift skills and expertise upstream and accelerates engineering and building authority approvals. This delivers outputs that allow for the premanufacture of construction components in CFS. Those components are shipped to the site for rapid assembly, reducing the need for skilled labor onsite.
The automation introduced by design-led construction processes offers design and build accuracy, and critically reduces delays in engineering processes as multiple phases of changes and revisions are no longer required. Design-led building also guarantees aspects every project manager is likely to appreciate: accuracy and predictability. Predictability of costs and predictability of timelines, making the goal of ‘on time, on budget’ achievable for every project.
More automation and more certainty throughout all aspects of the construction process means a significant competitive advantage, with fit-for-purpose buildings delivered faster. That means smoother and faster construction projects, higher quality buildings and improved return on investment.
To discuss how the FRAMECAD cold-formed steel and modern Design and Build methods can help in the Sri Lankan construction market, register for the "Emerging trends in construction - A New Zealand and Sri Lankan perspective?" seminar organised by NZTE, Sri Lanka, 3rd of April 2018.
