Qualification & Quality Assurance Strategy for Homegrown Mass Timber Systems

 

The UK currently produces approximately 3.4 million m3 of sawn softwood per annum, 30% of which is used for construction – there is significant opportunity to increase this. Edinburgh Napier University’s (ENU) Centre for Offsite Construction + Innovative Structures (COCIS) has led the UK’s research and development effort to enhance the use of homegrown wood fibre in the built environment.

Transforming Timber project partner, ECOSystems Technologies, are an innovative PropTech company, led by experienced sector professionals and dedicated to digital transformation in the construction industry, applied innovation in timber technology and the democratisation of sustainable, healthy building solutions.

For the first time in the UK, the Transforming Timber project offered the opportunity to manufacture mass timber components from homegrown timber at a commercial scale. This enabled ECOSystems Technologies to partner with Construction Scotland Innovation Centre (CSIC) at their Innovation Factory in Hamilton to manufacture a two-storey, two bedroom home, for demonstration during COP26.

A set of operating procedures and document templates were developed by ENU-COCIS and implemented at the Innovation Factory. These were created to not only to ensure a safe manufacturing environment, but also to capture the most relevant information related to the quality assurance of homegrown mass timber products. The manufacturing process was overseen by ENU-COCIS researchers to ensure that the quality assurance measures were strictly followed during.

Principle Outputs

  • Development of qualification and quality assurance strategy for homegrown CLT and GLT components manufactured using a vacuum press

  • Inclusion of plant pre-qualification requirements

  • Evaluation of mechanical properties

  • Suite of factory production control operating procedures and template documents

Conclusion

Suppliers of construction products, such as mass timber systems, must be able to verify the properties of their products, so that buyers can be confident that the products will meet their requirements.

To ensure this, an increasing number of construction products are now certified. Certification of construction products means that they have been manufactured under controlled conditions and their properties have been verified.

Quality assurance forms an essential part of a robust factory production control system in the manufacture of mass timber products, in line with requirements contained in BS EN 16351:2015 and BS EN 14080:2013.

Manufacturers must draw up and keep up-to-date documents defining the factory production control. The documentation and procedures should be appropriate to the product and manufacturing process. The factory production control system should achieve an appropriate level of confidence in the constancy of performance of the product.

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  • Project Partners