2nd last week of December

Today is the last class day of the DFMA class at BCA.
overall i really enjoyed actually, for me as i have very little practical/ site experience, alot of the assignments n some lecturer presentations came in really handy. One of the ones i really enjoyed was the explanation of hot-dip galvanised; in which one person explained it as a " dip dip dip dip" process. A takeaway was for M&E, horizontal or vertical joint connections..

Today's assignment presentation was on M&E, and i think the one with alot of experience is actually H, the one from my group. the slides they have are really detailed, method statement 3d sort of imagery. really impressive i have to say.

no regrets on doing this specialist diploma. in fact i rem signing up just 1 day after the application was close? or was it one day before..

work wise is going quite excitingly. tom a park upgrading presentation, followed by pp precinct upgrading in the afternoon and gift exchange later in the evening at bros place. will be going earlier to work on the presentation tom, prob leave the house at 6am..buy a hotdog bun..

this time last year, think i was preparing for my brazil trip. in a blink, and events have flown one by.

one of the moral i think for the year, is the one thing you can take with you is upgrading of your knowledge..

dfMA Lesson 3

Today i arrived 40mins late for class, and after seating, only to find that it was a new lecturer.
He spoke very clearly but it took me a period of adjusting drifting in and out of sleep before my brain adjusted. Quite a few slides were repeating the same points about dfMA, the ones that are not are as listed:

-ICPH: Integrated Construction and Prefabrication Hub
thoughts: Basically the prefab factory in sg, however, it seems for any of the other students i speak to all their projects prefab items are all done overseas..

-Value Stream mapping
elaboration: lean manufacturing approach of breaking down processes in order to reduce number of components and save time. Breaking down into what department and what activity
Input:combination of processes rather than process specific, considering impact on others

-Locally, when selecting concrete or steel
Concrete always seem to be the one to go to as cost wise it is cheaper. However, the lecturer pointed out that steel actually saves time in terms of construction, and is faster to assemble, hence needing less labour.

-LTA guideline max ht clearance is 4.5m
thoughts: from deck of trailer is 1m? so max height of module should be 3.5m
width: 3m or less escort and restricted delivery times not needed.

Overall: Felt that the 3 hours of class to basically hear about this 4 points is not so smart, and not even considering the price of the class fees.

DfMA Lesson 2

Today was the class by A.J.
Overall DfMA today meant that the end product was an increase in productivity in which the way to address it was through reducing waste. In fact for every $1 spent on a building, 50 cents go into waste. So this meant that when it came to value engineering, there were 2 solutions of cutting cost, one by reducing the quality of materials, and the others by reducing wastage.

what differentiated todays class was an introduction in DfMA but from a consultant point of view whereas the last one was more from a regulatory angle. The take away was really from a global worldview which emphasises that this approach of construction is not new but in fact has been around for a long time. This was followed by primitive examples of the first cast iron bridge in london prefabricated on site with 1700 components to prefab houses immediately post war to even that of the Empire State Building which had prebox materials for each floor; flooring, panelling and more.

Today's lecturer, Mr. J also highlighted that our contributions starting from the raw materials into the finished product is, in the assembly.

went for a health checkup as well today at Farrer Park Hospital.

First Day of Diploma Class

Today is probably one of the more memorable days of the past 2 months. Had an interview with one of the boutique dream company and when they offered me a job and needed an answer in 2 days, i actually said i ll need the week. so stupid of me. and another interview at St Andrews Center. The house i worked on, client developer used to be at that office. Even bumped in C in the mall where i was walking around to burn time between 12 and 2pm.

At BCA Academy, this course in design for assembly and manufacturing started off with tedious admin but got more interesting when we got to the start of the lesson. Thoughts overall are that it is a very very expensive course. For a 5 months course, at 8 sessions of 3 hours per month; total of 24 hours/month that would be 120 hours for $6000, that means an astonishing $500/ hour!

anyhow, lesson 1 started out with the director of building productivity unit. Mr M, very knowledgeable and seems to be the main person spear heading the drive in Singapore. He highlighted that The Wisteria Mixed development is the first project using steel PPVC and that the Clement Canopy Condo is currently the tallest residential project in the world at 40 storeys using PPVC concrete. i had a few questions after the presentation but didn't get around to asking him, will email him the questions tomorrow.

Note worthy points are also the current max. module size for transportation. Widest being 3.4mx12m.
And height being 3150mm, because the lorry platfrom height would be 900mm, and current max when travelling is 4500mm, underneath overhead bridges. Slab thickness as a result is 300mm instead of usual 200mm, and wall thickness is at 150-200mm. And that when googling the concept of PPVC, internationally the equivalent would be VMC = Volumetric Modular Construction. There is also a list that denotes what are the finishes internally, and the percentage in which it has to be done till, eg. wardrobe 100%. In sg however, a PPVC project is define as one in which 60% or more of it superstructure in modular, so there are still components which can be precast on site; even though that makes it less consistent.

1. What does it mean that when using a height of 3150mm, developers loses one floor at the top
2. Are all the 20 over projects currently using PPVC all contractor led? What is the percentage of Design and Build?
3. Because of the way modules are stacked up, does it mean only a float foundation can be used? Otherwise there may be differential settlement of the units?
4. What was Crown Hotel Extension reason for using lightweight concrete for the slab instead of reinforce concrete? What was worth the hassle of putting the extra fire rated board, resulting in a lower ceiling?

At Home, i bought horfun and L cooked a delicious soup of vegetables of broccoli and celery with meat balls!