How UNB's Off-site Research Centre Is Bringing Modular Construction to Atlantic Canada (And the Financial Risks GCs Need to Know)

0:03All right, welcome back to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Today our guest is from UNB Off-site Construction Research Centre, and we have with us today Brandon Searle. Brandon's the Innovation Director at UNB Off-site Construction Research Centre — OCRC for short. Brandon's been there since May 2019, and since that time there were two staff; now there's six staff and 19 researchers. Brandon is a professional engineer. Brandon, thanks for being here today. Yeah, thanks for having me, Dan. Happy to join you, for sure. Maybe you

0:44could give us just a little bit of a background about yourself, Brandon — your journey in construction. I know you've been part of the CanBIM board and Modular Building Institute and different things. Maybe just take us through a bit of your personal journey in the industry. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, as you mentioned, I have an engineering background. I mean, I grew up around construction — grandfather was in the trades and construction, same with my dad. So I grew up with that, and

1:18then going through university, I attended University of New Brunswick doing civil engineering, worked for a couple of contractors doing road construction mostly, and then worked for the City of Moncton as a student, and went on after graduating to consulting with a company called Opus. So we were actually focused really on infrastructure management. I had a bit of construction background which allowed me to apply some theoretical stuff with infrastructure management to the real practical, hands-on knowledge that I was able to

2:00at a young age. And then Opus was acquired by WSP. Worked there — I think it was close to five years in total that I was there. And then UNB had started this Off-site Construction Research Centre, and that was really kind of started through discussions with OSCO Construction Group, who's one of the university's strategic partners. And over two years, discussions led to this research centre. And they hired — the way universities work, they hire a research chair, which is typically a professor, for

2:35each centre to lead the scientific research of it. And then recently they've been moving to hiring an innovation director, which does project management, industry, business development type stuff. So when they announced this centre — it was for September 2018 — two positions quickly opened up, so I joined in May 2019. Since then, just getting more and more involved in construction, mostly in buildings and in vertical infrastructure, I guess we'll call it. And had the opportunity to

3:12get nominated to the CanBIM board of directors. That was last winter — or sorry, winter 2020. So joined that in July 2020. That's been a really good experience. At the time, I think it was the first one in Atlantic Canada on the CanBIM board, so it was great to get some representation east of Quebec, type of thing. And we've had a CanBIM event in partnership with the university, and hoping to bring more back. So yeah, that's been great. And then with

3:48you mentioned Modular Building Institute — they're mostly American, or they've historically been American-focused, but they have a Canadian council which involves 20 or 30 Canadian construction industry professionals across the country, and I recently joined that council. So that's great stuff. Brandon, maybe just take us through UNB Off-site Construction and what it looks like on the campus. Obviously there's several staff there, you guys have a large area where you're doing this research and development, and you've got four themes I

4:27believe, with the areas of research that you're focused on: digital technologies, industry-driven research, constructability, and just the main mission of UNB Off-site Construction — where the goal is to drive forward the design for manufacturing and assembly, and kind of instead of constructing on-site, assembling off-site — and how that, you know, the main mission, the main goal of the organization. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, going back to the way it started, so in 2016 or so, OSCO Construction

5:07Group — you know, they're in precast concrete, fabricating steel, GCs, etc. — they came to the university. They wanted to kind of create a centre that, for the industry, very much industry-driven, would do applied research that helps Atlantic Canada. And so all our focus is really on doing what we call applied research — so that's industry-driven research. All our projects we do, we often have graduate students, so that'd be masters or PhD level students. But in addition to doing their research, they are working on a project

5:46with industry. And sometimes that research applies to the industry project and sometimes it doesn't, but it gives them some knowledge and hands-on experience. But really, going back to our whole mission and vision, it's really about innovation in the industry. And while our name is Off-site Construction, a lot of our focus has been around BIM, VDC, new technologies coming on, data collection, and to then improve quality and safety. And all of this, all the work we're doing around digital tech implementation and things

6:27is really in hopes to enable activities that are traditionally done on-site to be done off-site. And there are several benefits around moving things off-site into a manufacturing-type environment. Obviously it can't all be done off-site — there are just things that we do day-to-day in the industry that are best done on-site. But all our focus is around that. And when you mention our four themes: we have digital technology implementation, we have constructability and testing — and that's around new

7:04building materials, structural engineering research, connections — whether it's mechanical, electrical, plumbing connections or just innovating steel connections. And then lean construction — obviously lean is big in manufacturing and it can be applied to the construction industry more so. That's all about productivity improvement, whether it's on-site productivity or stuff in the plant. And then the industry-driven research is really around doing research that, like, you see McKinsey and Company or Build Force or these organizations that release market studies —

7:46so our research, when we say industry-driven, is really the work that those organizations would use in their publications — they would reference some of the work. So one thing we're doing is trying to figure out a way to measure maturity of an organization for implementing digital technologies. And you might have seen CCA came out with a study done by KPMG around maturity levels. And there's a ton of opportunity to implement new technologies in our industry, but really, how do you measure that? And

8:21what can you do to drive companies to invest in innovation and these new technologies? In the UK, the government came out 10 years ago and said every government-led project needed to be at BIM LOD 200. And there were some pros and cons to that approach. When you think about maturity of an organization — whether it's maturity in terms of doing off-site construction or maturity in terms of implementing digital technology —

8:56let's say the government comes in and says ten percent of your project has to be off-site construction. Well, how do you measure what ten percent is? And say that they include that in the procurement model — then we're doing research that will hopefully allow organizations and companies to kind of baseline where they're at in their maturity and create a roadmap. Is that something that you might see in tenders, or the government requiring that 10% is done off-site, whether it be for the

9:27carbon footprint or any number of reasons — and some contractors can't bid on that project because they're not set up to do so? Well, I don't know if we'll see that necessarily. I think it's too difficult to measure. Like, honestly, what is off-site? We can say — I mean, in Halifax especially, you see all these large apartment buildings and office, multi-family buildings going up. And a portion of those are off-site. There's fabrication of the structural steel done

10:00off-site, and windows and doors and things like that. So what we've seen — and I know in New Zealand, Prefab NZ, which is a lobbying-type company for prefabricated buildings, they're pushing for the government to implement that. But I don't know if we'll get there. I do think we'll get to a point where BIM will be included in procurement, where it's required to a certain level — more open sharing of BIM models — and that, I would think, should increase productivity and hopefully improve

10:40things. But if we learn anything from what our neighbours have done overseas — when they implemented that, the big players had the funds to buy the new technology and work in it and develop standards and so on. Whereas the smaller companies struggled, and they saw it as this black box that they didn't know where to start. And in the larger corporations it's an investment that would save money in the long run — it's just a matter

11:10of having the — yeah, exactly. And for our listeners, just to give some context — say someone who really doesn't know a lot about off-site construction or its implementation in the industry or the role it plays. You talked about Europe and different countries, and kind of where things are at in Atlantic Canada. So DFMA — designed for manufacturing and assembly — is kind of a common term in the automotive industry, aerospace — kind of like the Henry Ford assembly line type deal. And so that's really

11:48connected to the goal or the mission of UNB Off-site Construction. So maybe just kind of take us through how that — I mean, the goal is to manufacture as much off-site as possible, as opposed to constructing it on-site. Is that right? Yes, yeah, exactly. And again, that's a big kind of industry shift that we see potentially happening. And, again, I'll reference McKinsey or Dodge Analytics — they saw with Industry 4.0 and all these technologies coming out

12:21and the way that things are changing at the design phase, there's an opportunity for off-site construction — or they mostly use "modular" as their term in their reports. But yeah, DFMA is all around exactly what you said: designed for manufacturing and assembly. But there's a lot more involved in that. One of our researchers has a paper around DFX — and DFX is just a blank for whatever you put in — so there's design

12:56for logistics, designed for assembly, designed for erection, design for manufacturing. And it's important to take all of that into consideration. One thing that I think the industry is seeing — at least the off-site industry, which is relatively small in the grand scheme of things if you think of it as only modular or prefab — one thing we're seeing is that we have to bring, obviously, the owners and developers on board, but the architects and the designers, and

13:29the folks who just aren't familiar with that type of building or that type of assembly. And that's where there's a lot of education, I think, required. And that's where DFMA will play a role. And it's a lot more upfront costs for savings towards the end — during the construction phase of the project, right? And getting — yeah, sorry, I was just going to say — and then getting the trades involved earlier, the GCs, all the contractors

14:04involved throughout the supply chain earlier, so that when you are doing that design it's not 70% done when it gets to the GC and then they're adding their piece, and the mechanical folks need to add their piece, and so on and so forth. You want it all done in one shot, collaborating early on. And so UNB off-site construction centre — obviously, like you mentioned, you're using your masters

14:33students for some of the R&D stuff that happens in-house, and then you're integrated with the community in New Brunswick with some private partners and other partners. And so, for just a kind of an example — you're working on coming up with like a wall system that had mechanical, electrical kind of all integrated within, and that could be manufactured with a modelling system, with all the geometry and measurements, and

15:10that was needed for a certain project happening somewhere in New Brunswick or anywhere for that matter, and it's manufactured and then taken and craned into place. Like, would that be sort of an example — a little snapshot that sheds light on what you guys are working towards? Yeah, for sure. So I mean, I could dive into a few of our projects. That one that you just mentioned is

15:40you know, whether it's modular or panelized. And a lot of this stuff isn't new practice, right? Like, the Games in '88 — all those homes they built for the athletes were modular. But one kind of clear, obvious thing that we found was that a lot of the benefits to off-site construction is the shortened schedule. But what we're finding is there's still a bottleneck when you get to site and you have to have the trades come in and connect everything on-site. And what some

16:17of our industry partners have come to us and said is: what if we could move some of our trades inside the factory? So hypothetically, you have precast concrete who is now embedding the mechanical, plumbing, electrical right into their precast panels. They have access points along it. And to do that, there's a lot of structural research because your tolerances have to be spot on. So if you have your structural connections right, then in theory — again, it's all theoretical at

16:50this point — but in theory they would line up perfectly. You could quickly connect all your MEP connections and go from there. And that's a shift going from traditional construction to construction off-site. And there are a lot of companies in Atlantic Canada that do manufactured homes, let's say, but they're essentially doing it under a roof, which provides a lot of benefits as well. But now they're starting to move to an assembly-line type system, and that's really where you get

17:25into it. And then in the UK — I'll reference them because they seem to be about five to ten years ahead in some aspects — they're talking about companies coming out with new colleges that are training people to work anywhere on an assembly line for any building. You'd be trained to put your drywall up, you'd also be trained to run all the electrical lines, type of thing. It's a whole different process. If you go back to the Ford reference, the same

17:55thing — my great-uncles worked in Windsor, Ontario, on the Ford assembly line. One day they're helping install the motor, other days they were putting the hubcaps on the tires. You know what I mean? And they were trained across the whole line. So it's a different mindset altogether. What's the attitude of some of your partners? I mean, like you said, you can never eliminate a lot of the need for good quality tradespeople on site — I mean

18:22that's always going to be a given. But in some regards you want to take that down maybe 20 or 30%, to some of the basic parts of the construction process that are driving the project. And maybe not always skilled labour. So you still need people working on the assembly lines and constructing it off-site. But do you see any backlash, or any — I mean, obviously you guys are cutting

18:50edge. This is like — not everyone might have some barriers to seeing the value, or might be a little bit threatened in some ways. Can you speak on that a little bit? Yeah, I mean, for sure there's definitely some naysayers, let's say, or people who are reluctant. And I don't think — when I'm saying all this — I don't think this is going to happen tomorrow by any means. And I don't think it's going to happen across our whole industry. If you break

19:18it down into, say, heavy civil, institutional, commercial, residential — there's going to be some places where it makes sense and others where it doesn't. Most of the partners that are coming to us, they see off-site as a piece of their business future. So there's one, for example, where they do concrete, brick — they have a developer, and for their developing company essentially they also have a general contractor who builds apartments and stuff. This company's in Atlantic Canada,

19:55separate from that they also have a modular manufacturer. So what if they get to a point where they're developing multi-family homes and part of it is done modular and other parts are done traditionally, because the traditional way is causing a bottleneck in other developments and their modular plant is slow right now? So there are these hybrid kind of business models that are happening, for sure. Well, and I don't think it's one or the other by

20:28any means. I think there's a spot for both. And in terms of this movement — I think there's always going to be a need for electricians and plumbers. I just think that in some of the manufacturing plants, sometimes the ones who are red-seal plumbers, they're doing the plumbing — but if they're waiting on modules to get to them, they'll sometimes get involved in some of the carpentry work up front, right? Because

20:58that's just a natural thing that you do. So I don't think that will change overnight by any means. And we've definitely had some people not happy with the whole thought of off-site. And there has historically been a stigma around it, where people think manufactured homes. But now you're looking — there are modules being built in Poland and shipped to New York, and that's going to be a 40-plus story

21:33building, right? And you would never know that it's modular by looking at it. Yeah, but I like the term "hybrid" though. I mean, like you said, it's not like the goal of this sector is to 100% eliminate on-site — it's just another tool. And like you said, there's so much different research that happens within your organization, like even connections — if you can speed up connections or maybe make some

22:08connections possible off-site and make the assembly a little bit more streamlined on-site — just things like that, right? Exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly what you said. And then from a digital technology standpoint — that has been a real focus of ours. We have some augmented reality, virtual reality software and hardware that we're learning. And we're kind of like a test bed for some of our partners, where they're wanting to dabble in it but they're not sure where it could be used in their business, and

22:39they're not wanting to invest $20,000-$30,000 in the hardware and licenses right away to test it out. So that's another thing we're doing. I wanted to go back for a sec because you mentioned doing things for Atlantic Canada and the industry. And one, I think, driver for creating the Off-site Construction Research Centre was when our founding partner came to us — they saw the industry kind of on the brink of major innovation

23:12with Industry 4.0 and everything. And they looked at certain places around the world where — like in Germany, they're quite advanced in industrialized construction, and as a result there's a lot of machinery and things for precast that gets manufactured there. Or Ireland — I think there was a very niche kind of manufacturing industry there targeting it, and their customers were international. So one thing that is a driver for us too is to be able to

23:46do research to help companies produce new materials, innovative building — and also do research on producing new components. And really it's about making Atlantic Canada a hub for this type of product. And when you talk about building materials, does that mean you guys are doing testing on materials and then sort of involved in spec writing and that kind of thing? Yeah, well, spec writing — not as much at this point. But our centre falls under the civil engineering

24:21department, so within that department there's a structural lab, a geotechnical lab, a pavement lab, etc. So we work closely with one of the structural professors for that type of research. There's a ballistics and mechanical testing lab that he's the director of as well — that's shooting whatever you want at very high velocities, up to — I think it was like 9,000 metres per second — which would be research for outer space, for NASA or whatever. But then there's also research that can be done for hurricanes

24:55or tornadoes, where you're shooting a 2x4 up against a building wall panel, building envelope, and seeing how it reacts. So we are doing research in that area. We actually just applied for funding to build the building envelope research facility — so it's going to be like a 30-foot by 14-foot panel where we can do impact tests, structural tests, air pressure, leakage tests, etc. on different building products or materials. And really look at — going back to integrating the MEP — so

25:35integrating the full building envelope and testing that. Rather than the way it works now — windows and doors are pre-engineered, and that's why they're able to be mass-produced. But imagine being able to mass-produce a full wall panel with everything integrated and having those test results. So we're able to do those too, and we're building our capacity in that, hopefully in 2022. So are people able to come by UNB and see some of what happens within the confines of UNB Off-site

26:10Construction there on campus — whether it's testing or the robotics or anything that happens in your research? Yeah, absolutely. Like, most of our — going back to, we've only been a research centre for two years — and a lot of our research has been digital technology-focused, so we haven't had these big, nice, fancy equipment to show off for a tour. But we have the ballistics and mechanical testing lab that we've leveraged for some of our research. We do tours there, do tours in the structural lab,

26:45showcase some of the technology we have — whether it's the HoloLens or we have a very large smart board with software where we can pull in models and things like that. But yeah, we're welcome to having people come for a tour. The other thing is — I guess I should mention — a lot of people aren't familiar with doing R&D or some of the grant funding that's available. So that's one thing we do as well: we are recognized as one of the

27:18specialty research groups in Canada. There are four under the construction sector — the NRC IRAP construction sector. So that's National Research Council — Industrial Research Assistance Program. And as a result, they have some funding to bring industry companies under 500 employees to us to do research for them at a small project at no cost. And then beyond that, we have grant funding that we can help companies apply for — and at a minimum the grant funding

28:01will cover 50% — sometimes up to 80% — of any research project. So if there are organizations looking to just get into BIM, or develop standards in BIM, that's another thing I wanted to plug in there. Oh, absolutely — with academia, yeah. So Brandon, we talked a little bit about maybe the conflict of — you know, maybe some are more forward-thinking than others. And you mentioned the UK being 10 years

28:35ahead and just the off-site construction — maybe some hesitation toward it from certain people in the construction industry. And that's important. But talk about some of the advantages. Time saving, quality control is definitely increased — safety, sustainability, things like that. There's logistics and shipping. I think the list goes on. But maybe just talk about some of the obvious and maybe not-so-obvious advantages of having that hybrid model of more off-site construction happening. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, I mean, I think

29:14there's a ton of benefits, but they're not always easily quantified. And I also think there's a misconception that it's cheaper. I don't necessarily think it's always cheaper. And I would say, let's say your company was going to dive in and do a hotel all modular — I'd say the first three are going to be a learning experience, right? Because it's just a different way of managing. But in terms of benefits — Marriott, for example, they presented at the Modular Building

29:50Institute's world modular conference. And I think they referenced something like having a hotel done that was traditionally going to take two years — they had that done in 15 months. So you think, you can now — not in the last year and a half, but typically — have guests in hotels nine months earlier. And think about all the extra revenue. So in the commercial space where revenue is dependent on having those buildings up quicker, that's where you can see a lot of

30:19benefits. Well, I can just hear some hotel owners listening right now — they're gonna give me a call! So where was this hotel, this specific hotel that you're using as the example? Is this a specific hotel in Atlantic Canada or elsewhere? No, no, this one was in the U.S. So they had one of their executives — I can't recall her name right now — but it was one of the executives from Marriott talking about their strategy for how they're going to build hotels

30:45and they have three, four, or five-star hotels — different lines of hotels — and their strategy for using modular. And it really is, I think, depending on the geography, how close you are to a manufacturer, the manufacturer's capabilities, etc. Other benefits — you mentioned the quality of materials. I mean, there's an apartment building going up down the road from me and I saw them in February pouring concrete for the first floor walls and

31:20everything, and I was thinking, it's snowing, it's wet, it's unsafe for the workers — you're susceptible to the environment when you're out there. So it just seems obvious. How you quantify that, it will take some research comparing a building built off-site versus on-site. And then the safety side — one thing that came up to me which I didn't think about a ton was: obviously there are physical health benefits to likely working in a manufacturing-type environment. But

31:58the other thing is the mental health benefits. So, at the beginning we were talking about my background in construction — I referenced my grandfather who worked in road building for a long time, and he would leave at 5AM on a Monday and come back at 7PM on a Friday. But you think — we don't talk about mental health or physical health all the time, but you think if you're in a manufacturing plant where you have shift work, you have regular

32:27work — how that impacts the rest of your life. There are some benefits that aren't yet quantified but might be worth thinking about when we consider the benefits of off-site. Yeah, there are all kinds of other spin-offs too. I mean, even if you're a CM or a GC or a PM looking after a project and there's more off-site construction happening — anywhere from five to ten material deliveries happen in a week, or even in a day. Everything's coming in in one day or one

32:59week, and a lot less on the logistical side for handling that kind of complexity. So yeah, anything too on material waste — I mean, if you've been on a large job site, you'll know some stuff goes missing, it gets ruined sitting where it is, someone backs into it, whatever — causes delays and waste. So yeah, there are definitely some benefits there. Touching on the GC/CM thing — I was on a call a few weeks ago and we were talking

33:35about — obviously there's this Rapid Housing Initiative coming out from the feds, and I think in order to meet the demand that we're going to see, there's going to be a lot of funding, which is good for our industry. But in order to meet that demand, it's going to be a mixed approach — traditional construction, maybe a hybrid, and maybe 100% modular. And what I'm hearing is that there's a lot of uncertainty around payment structures and bonding and

34:08everything when it comes to hiring a manufacturer for CMs and GCs. I do think — for your listeners, it'll be something interesting — it's just better understanding how those will work from a financial perspective. Because there's a risk to the GC of a 50% down payment essentially for the modules, because a manufacturer could go under, for example. But at the same time, that manufacturer is carrying a lot of burden because they have all the

34:41material costs and labour and everything else. So I think that'll be an area that we hear more about as the off-site construction industry grows — the finance aspects. And also, obviously, insurance is a big piece. And you mentioned this hotel in the States — fully modular — just maybe for our listeners: what percentage of that structure, that building, was built off-site? So again, it was like a conference

35:16panel discussion, so I'm going off of that. But my understanding is the earthwork and everything was obviously done on-site, and then they trucked in all the modules. And what I've seen — there's another hotel built in Iqaluit. I think Stack Modular did it. You might have heard about that one. So they built the modules in — not China — shipped them through the Panama Canal, like 60-plus days. This was Bird and Stack —

35:48stacked up to Iqaluit, and had to barge them in and everything else. And what they do there — again, the earthwork is all done on-site, and then a lot of these modules coming in, they're finished. So, from what I've seen, the centrepoint is the hallway of a hotel, and then you have two rooms on either side — TVs on the wall, beds are made, toilets are in — everything's done before it even gets on the ship to go to Iqaluit. And in that case

36:20my understanding is everything was done off-site. And that was unique in a sense because skilled labour — there's less of it in northern Canada, and materials — there's less of it everywhere right now, but in northern Canada they have less material. And then the logistical constraints of just the geography. Yeah, yeah. So do you see anything like that happening in New Brunswick and Atlantic Canada in the near future — just for perspective? Do you think, in

36:55terms of hotels? Yeah, actually, yeah. So Florenceville-Bristol is a small community where McCain's headquarters are, if you know McCain french fries. They're about an hour and a half from Fredericton. They actually did a fully modular hotel just this past year. The GC is based out of Sussex, as is the manufacturer, and it's a convention centre and hotel — I think it's four floors. So the convention centre was built traditionally, the first floor and earthwork and everything was done

37:36traditionally, and then they shipped the second, third, and fourth floors from Sussex up Route 1 or Route 2 to Florenceville-Bristol. And we actually did a case study — we had a student go on-site and kind of monitor productivity of lifting on-site, placing them, and connecting them and everything. And the other student did a digital tech case study — the BIM aspects of the project. But yeah, I mean, it's something we have to

38:09communicate better from our research centre and get it out there, I think — because it's happening right here. And the same — Bird did an expansion of the Quality Inn on Bishop Drive in Fredericton. That would have been maybe a handful of years ago, and the expansion was all done modular as well. There were a lot of lessons learned there — I think there was additional material waste because the companies hadn't done that type of work before, so they had extra bracing and supports for the

38:38shipping and things like that. And there might have been some stairwell hurdles to overcome, I think. But yeah, it's happening here. And that Florenceville-Bristol project was really unique. Yeah, I think I recall — I think we had on our podcast maybe a couple of months ago a major home builder here, the Parks of West Bedford and stuff, and they were talking about some modular stuff from New Brunswick and some different avenues they were maybe considering taking for some of their

39:13construction practices. And we've had other large guests and industry leaders like Pomerleau and MARCO talking a lot about new technologies and how everything is kind of at a pivot point right now — where everything that those people in those companies have talked about is pointing in the direction of what UNB Off-site Construction Research Centre is designed to do. And it's kind of like that vehicle to push those initiatives forward, because we are really at a

39:46turning point. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. One other thing I want to mention — I know we might be getting close to time — but I want to mention too: even though we are New Brunswick-based, we have several industry partners in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia; met with someone from Newfoundland yesterday; a few in Ontario, Edmonton, BC. But we're actually trying to create a national research group with several universities and

40:22colleges, because we have a lot of things we can do and do well, but there are a lot of things we're not experts in. So we want to leverage our colleagues at other universities and colleges. And one thing I just wanted to bring up — knowing that you're in Halifax — is we've been in touch quite a bit with Dalhousie, specifically their architecture group and their industrial engineering group. We have construction management and off-site construction

40:53research, and they have industrial engineering and architecture — and it complements, we complement each other very well. So this can really be, at minimum, an Atlantic Canadian initiative. But we want to be the hub for R&D in Canada, with all the appropriate researchers and individuals across the country as our initiative grows with the research centre. So I hope your listeners, when they hear it, think of it as — it's not a New Brunswick thing, it's not just

41:27a solely Atlantic Canadian thing, although it is happening here. It's really to drive the whole industry across the country. For sure. And you mentioned — I don't know if all your partners are private, but maybe you can disclose or not disclose some of your partners. What avenue are your partners coming from? Are these contractors in the industry, other university campuses? Yeah, so it's a mix. We actually have a couple of public

41:59sector partners — I can mention the City of Edmonton, for example, helping them with a permitting-type project. And then we've had discussions with the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure locally here in New Brunswick. We hover around 15 projects with individual industry partners right now. They range from modular manufacturers to general contractors, CMs. And then we also have a partner in Nunavut who's building affordable homes — a startup company. They've done a pilot project and now we're doing a

42:43supply chain study — building a simulation of shipping modules from central Canada up north. And also their DFMA lifting points, all that stuff, and a material study for them — because they're facing minus 65°C at their coldest. So there aren't many materials that have been subject to that type of temperature. We're doing some work in that. So again, it's pretty much everyone in the supply chain that you can think of that we've worked with. And one

43:21unique one — a company out west — they're kind of what we'd call an integrator. So they're not quite like a GC/CM, but they get involved with the owner/developer right off the get-go and are very hands-on with pulling together the designers, manufacturers, GCs, and trades. And that's a unique business model that we're likely going to see more of as off-site construction grows — these integrators who are really about pulling organizations together, almost like consultants representing the owner

44:01developer, and at times doing some of the project management work too. It's funny you mentioned the weather — up in Iqaluit — and I think Atlantic Canada is anything but a landlocked area, so the moisture in the air, the winds, the changes in weather conditions — it's got to be one of the worst places to build a structure. Yeah, yeah. If you compare it to a human being,

44:29you want to put a jacket on that's going to last all year through all the different seasons for your building envelope. And that's funny — one of my colleagues is a researcher in concrete materials, and he's known internationally as one of the leaders in this. He has different test sites, one being in the bay — he has buried concrete, I forget the exact name, but it's in the Atlantic Ocean — and he has buried

44:59concrete cylinders, and it faces high and low tide twice — double the amount of time — so he can do durability testing over years. And it's funny because he was involved in this project with the company up in Nunavut. And what we face in Atlantic Canada may actually in a sense be more severe, because we go from — in January we'll have like a random 12°C day and then we're back down to minus 20, minus 30 the following week. And

45:32how that impacts the materials is quite interesting. So we're looking at doing more research in that area. And I should also mention our other research centres — we have the Wood Science and Technology Research Centre that we collaborate with, like the sister centre, except they've been around since — and we also have an additive manufacturing centre, like 3D printing metals, mostly for aerospace and shipbuilding. But yeah, that's the other thing — as UNB grows with these more centres and industry partnerships,

46:07we're able to collaborate and work across different sectors, which is pretty neat too. Yeah. Well, just before we wrap up, Brandon — do you want to mention anything about upcoming conferences in 2022, next year? I think you mentioned a couple of things about a student competition, or webinars, or even opportunities for people to connect with you guys and some funding that might be available for them. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, first thing I wanted to mention — I guess thank some of my colleagues. One of my

46:39colleagues Alex Caskey, and our marketing communications person Morgan Day — they helped organize the first Canadian off-site student poster competition this year. And so due to COVID, things obviously couldn't be done in person, but we had a competition where students from across Canada would submit a poster of an off-site construction project and a one-page paper on their project, focused on logistical aspects, connections, and so on. So we actually just notified the winners in the last week.

47:21We had 19 teams participate — 54 students — from Ontario, BC, Alberta, Quebec, and New Brunswick. And they're going to be presenting at the end of August. We've offered the top three to present their posters. So that might be something — it's free to everyone — it might be something interesting for the industry to attend. We have our webinar series that ran from May 5th and goes until August 18th. All those webinars will be posted in the fall online — so just an opportunity to learn and

47:54share. And they range from digital technology-focused to very specific on modular construction. And yeah, in 2022 we're in early talks of a specialty conference focused on reality capture technologies, augmented reality, and virtual reality — right here in New Brunswick. And then partnering with CanBIM — it'll likely be virtual in November — but there's a prefab, off-site, and virtual industry summit that would be called that. It's worth checking out. If it is virtual, I believe it'll be free

48:35to members and non-members. And then lastly, just — I should mention this too — we're collaborating with the University of Wolverhampton in the UK, and we're formalizing a partnership. One thing we did was host a roundtable discussion with some of our industry partners here and industry partners they have in the UK. We're looking to bring a cohort to the UK next year and host them here, for an opportunity for knowledge exchange and

49:16business opportunities, etc. And then just for the funding opportunities — if anyone's interested in learning more about that stuff, they can reach out to me. But just quickly: there's ENCIR/CIRC Alliance grants; there's Mitacs for internships, if you want students doing internships — Mitacs; NRC IRAP for companies under 500 employees — they have a lot of funding. And then for organizations in New Brunswick, the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation has been a strong supporter of us

49:56and they're great to leverage as well. And then ACOA has their funding that can help with digital technology implementation. For sure. Well, thanks so much, Brandon, for doing this. It's been great to talk with you and give our listeners — people in the industry and outside the industry — a chance to shed some light on what's happening at the Off-site Construction Research Centre at UNB and all the cutting-edge stuff that

50:27that's happening there. It's definitely something that's in line with the way the industry's headed, and it's very interesting and neat to see all the different things that are happening there. So thanks for your time in doing this — it's been great chatting with you. Yeah, and thanks for having me. Congratulations on getting the podcast started, and it's been very successful. I can't wait to watch and hear more of how this grows. Thank you very much. I

50:54appreciate the invite. Cheers! Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Be sure to follow us on any podcast platform you use. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Instagram: Atlantic Construction Podcast. Be sure to send us a comment or a review — we'd love to engage with you.