A $26-million sophisticated factory which will produce a revolutionary streamlined building system is expected start operations by the end of March, according to Abdulla Essa Al Kobaisi, the brains behind the system and managing director of Al Kobaisi Group, a veteran Bahrain-based contracting company.

The Al Kobaisi building system, as it is known, offers the ability to build houses faster and cheaper while maintaining the quality of construction, says Al Kobaisi, who joined hands with German equipment manufacturer Nuspl to come up with the innovative solution.

The technique, patented in 2008, forms the basis of the Al Kobaisi system, which automates much of the construction process that involves using traditional materials such as cement and concrete blocks and the latest technology.  The factory, built in the Hidd Industrial Estate over an area of 11,000 sq m, essentially brings several factories within the Al Kobaisi Group umbrella under one roof to produce the building system.

Building a housing unit with the new system will need two months, according to Al Kobaisi, who explains: “The average cost per sq m with the new system is BD100 ($265) according to the present building materials cost in Bahrain, which would mean the cost of a 300 sq m unit will be BD30,000 ($79,576).  But the cost will vary from country to country.  The production capacity of the plant is five to 10 units of 300-sq-m houses per day.”

“At the factory, houses will be built using blocks and cement in the traditional way, but using machines, thus ensuring superior quality of construction.

“While walls are constructed vertically on site, at the factory they will be built on a horizontal bed, where blocks and reinforcement are placed and cemented – which ensures cement is distributed evenly. The wall is then placed in a special furnace for curing. This process also ensures that the construction is not hampered by the exposure to weather conditions. The windows and doors are then installed on another production line.”

At the new facility, Al Kobaisi’s satellite factories for blocks, readymix concrete, glass and aluminium windows will feed the main building system’s production line via conveyor belts.

By keeping the workforce and time taken on a project down by as much as 80 per cent, the automated system will slash the cost of building a home by as much as 40 per cent compared to traditional methods while maintaining quality of construction, he adds.

Under the technique, key building components – footings, wall panels and roofs – will be manufactured on a production line, drastically reducing the time taken to transport various materials to the site. Using the system also means that the number of trucks plying Bahrain’s roads with construction materials is reduced, quicker returns on investment, lower maintenance requirements and reduced expatriate labour costs, he says.

The semi-finished building units are then transported to the site and assembled – requiring about 20 per cent of construction works to be done on site.

He said that the factory will launch its products in the local market and will also consider exports to neighbouring countries.