The Scottish Government seeks to maximise value for money achieved through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme and is keen to understand how greater use of offsite manufacturing, or adoption of more advanced systems, might assist in that aim. Scotland already delivers more than 80% of its new homes using offsite systems. However, the majority of these are quite simple, open frame timber panel systems rather than more advanced closed panel, modular or volumetric systems. To date Scottish evidence from these more advanced systems has been limited and the experience of these projects has sometimes been challenging.

In order to inform future policy in this area, the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise and Construction Scotland Innovation Centre have commissioned this research so that future policy consideration can be based on good quality evidence. Although much has been reported about offsite manufacturing, there is currently no easily accessible evidence relating to affordable housing. It is hoped that if effective policy can be developed and implemented in the field of affordable housing, then the wider housing market will also benefit from that experience. This work is therefore a potentially significant contribution to the modernisation of the Scottish construction industry. The main aims of this report are therefore:

• To provide a good evidence base of the relevant experience of offsite manufacturing across the world;
• To assess the current nature and scale of the Scottish offsite housing manufacturing sector and its likely future shape, and;
• To consider whether the core housing development and construction processes – developed to support traditional approaches – need to be changed in order to better support offsite approaches.