Progress of Industry Transformation Map for Construction Industry

Dr Teo Ho Pin asked the Minister for National Development what has been the progress of the industry transformation map for the construction industry.

The Construction Industry Transformation Map (ITM) was launched in September 2017 to transform the construction industry into an advanced and integrated sector with widespread adoption of leading technologies. We are making good progress in the three key transformation areas, namely: (i) Design for Manufacturing and Assembly, or DfMA; (ii) Integrated Digital Delivery, or IDD; and (iii) Green Buildings.

DfMA moves traditional on-site work into a controlled factory environment off-site, and facilitates designing upfront for ease of manufacturing and assembly to improve construction quality and productivity. The adoption rate for DfMA was about 22% in 2018. BCA is exploring additional measures to reach the targeted DfMA adoption rate of 40% by 2020.

IDD leverages Building Information Modelling technology to integrate and reap time and costs savings across the entire building life cycle. BCA launched the IDD Implementation Plan last year, and has identified 26 IDD demonstration projects to date. We are aiming to meet the ITM target of having 40 to 60 IDD projects by 2020.

For Green Buildings, we have greened close to 40% of our gross floor area in buildings, and are aiming to meet the target of 80% by 2030. In September last year, BCA launched the Super Low Energy Programme to push for even greater energy efficiency in buildings. The programme was jointly developed with the industry and academia, and will encourage buildings to achieve 60% energy efficiency improvements over 2005 levels.

The construction ITM creates good jobs for Singaporeans in the transformation areas. Together with the industry, BCA offers funding support and training to upskill workers in the construction sector. In addition, through the iBuildSG Tripartite Committee, BCA is working with the Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) to update their curricula to better equip undergraduates with the competencies to support industry transformation. As of March this year, about 40,000 persons have been trained in the transformation areas, and we are on track to meet our ITM target of 47,000 trained persons by 2020.

Taken together, we have achieved a cumulative site productivity improvement of about 15%, and BCA aims to achieve our ITM target of 20% site productivity improvement by 2020, with the completion of more DfMA projects.