New Training Centre For Prefabricated Housing To Transform Industry

The prefabricated housing industry in Australia is set to get a major boost with plans for a new training centre in Melbourne announced this week.

The University of Melbourne has been awarded $4,000,000 to establish

The Australian Research Council (ARC) Training Centre for Advanced Manufacturing of Prefabricated Housing.

It will be lead by Professor Priyan Mendis and Dr Tuan Ngo from the Department of Infrastructure Engineering and will be funded for four years including support for six post-doctoral fellow positions and 14 PhDs.

“This emerging highly trained workforce driven by the needs of the customer will identify innovations in the use of advanced materials, design for manufacturing and assembly," Professor Mendis said.

Professor Mark Hargreaves, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research Partnerships and External Relations) said the University of Melbourne was proud to lead the delivery of innovation and excellence through the ARC.

“The Centre will secure the Australian industry’s competitive advantage leading to local employment growth and increased exports of prefabricated products and services,” he said.

“Through this program, we will train emerging industry professionals, enable industry with world-leading research capability to develop and apply new materials, processes and technologies that will create products, processes and business models,” he said.

The ARC Training Centre for Advanced Manufacturing of Prefabricated Housing is a collaboration between The University of Melbourne, The University of Sydney, Curtin University of Technology and Monash University) and nine partner organisations (mostly companies).

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