Innovative approach to supplying building materials gets underway

Kicked off alongside materials suppliers and build partners, the trial involves Kāinga Ora directly purchasing and arranging the delivery of materials for a number of social housing developments.

This is expected to increase the amount of effective time on the tools, streamlining the workflow and allowing tradespeople to focus on the core mahi of building homes, says Matt Hulett, GM Delivery Transformation.

Kāinga Ora is trialling a mix of management and planning processes involved in materials supply. Each of these processes have been co-designed with programme partners Mitre 10 and Carters, along with TW Construction, Penny Homes, Kotahi Construction, Shaw Construction and Kahikatea Construction.

“This new way of working will be used in the delivery of more than 100 homes across 15 development sites in Rotorua over the next 18 months,” Matt says.

Ramping up delivery

In recent years, Kāinga Ora has significantly increased its capacity to deliver new state houses and to retrofit existing homes.

“To be able to scale up even more, we’ve gone through a process of improving how we work with the sector using our new Housing Delivery System,” he says.

“We’ve delved into the micro-processes that go into building a house. This includes itemising every bolt, nail and screw that goes into our standard house designs to enable more coordinated planning of logistics and workplans.

“Because we have that detailed visibility, we are now focussed on taking a more active role in materials supply.”

Right materials at the right time

“We are targeting a cost saving of more than 30% through the research programme. To achieve this, we need to do things differently.

A new materials research programme is expected to increase productivity and reduce costs.

“Kāinga Ora has contracted the five builders involved and their sub trades on a labour only basis.

“Build contracts that Kāinga Ora has typically used in the past have involved a fixed price for labour and materials and the builder has been responsible for getting materials where they need to be,” Matt says.

“Through the trial, we are aiming to ensure exactly the right materials are delivered to site when and where they’re needed. Therefore, the tradesperson won’t need to waste time waiting on a delivery, working around other tradespeople or driving to the store to buy a missing item.

“This means more time spent on the tools, essentially, speeding up delivery. We’ll be working closely with our partners to test and refine our processes as the research project progresses,” he says.

The first three home development recently got underway in Rotorua, alongside TW Construction and Mitre 10.

More information

• Kāinga Ora trialling new innovative model for build contracts