It’s worth stressing again that standardisation in construction is not a negative, and it’s not unique to platform design either.

As such, we see that it’s simultaneously an easy thing to do, and a very difficult one.Toyota, who are fantastic at lean manufacturing, welcome competitors to look at their processes.

They realise that it's not just about understanding the how, because what Toyota are doing requires a different mindset, a different set of ambitions.Without those things, understanding the process won’t help..The bottom line with respect to our current situation is that the world isn’t going to become any less uncertain, any time soon.

The pandemic has highlighted our ability to make large, successful shifts, and to do so very quickly.Rather than resisting change out of fear of uncertainty, we should embrace it.

Let’s use the uncertainty to fuel a change in our processes and find a better way of doing things.

Often it happens that opportunities have been with us all along, we were just too nervous to take them.This makes sure that the goals of quality, efficiency, suitability, productivity and sustainability inform every stage of the process.. By adopting a way of working that includes P-DfMA and a standard component design programme, we can achieve repeatable and consistent quality, and also facilitate operational and delivery excellence across projects.

This goal has been identified as a focus for the future of UK construction by The Construction Innovation Hub, and the application of a Platform approach is discussed within the.Construction Playbook.

Our DfMA journey.We began to use the term ‘Platforms’ (P-DfMA) while working with the UK Government Ministry of Justice (MOJ), the Infrastructure Projects Authority (IPA) and the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC).