Prefabrication, Preassembly, Modularization, and Off-site Fabrication (PPMOF) - Instructor's Guide

This course focuses on early planning and decision making activities and factors that are critical to effective exploitation of the potential of PPMOF for some projects. The course reviews the drivers and impediments to PPMOF, presents a tool for PPMOF decision making that helps create project alignment, and encourages thorough analysis. The participants will use the decision tool and will work through case studies as small teams.

Research conducted by CII Project Team 171 (PPMOF) indicates that:

• Successful implementation of prefabrication, preassembly, modularization, and off-site fabrication (PPMOF), requires systematic analysis and early decision-making based on project factors.
• PPMOF can offer a substantial opportunity to improve project performance and has become more viable with recent advances in design and information technologies.
• The PPMOF decision framework and tool described and used in this module: (1) serves as a means to facilitate a decision process dialogue; (2) provides transparency in invoking decision-makers’ judgment on relative importance of decision factors; and (3) helps users sort out what factors drive or impede the use of PPMOF on the project under consideration.
• The beta testing of the prototype tool and its subsequent adoption by industry practitioners validate its usefulness. The tool has been found to help ensure a thorough assessment of the factors associated with PPMOF decisions. It also helps to highlight the items to emphasize in the execution strategy, and it helps to align a project team. The tool may also be used to train personnel less experienced in the application of PPMOF.