SMART BUILD SPOTLIGHT: Uniplan Group

⏱️ 3 min read

Welcome to another episode of SMART BUILD SPOTLIGHT, where we profile construction businesses that are using innovative building processes to build better buildings more efficiently. These companies are pushing the boundaries of industrialised construction and achieving some impressive results along the way.

In this episode we find out what has driven the success of Uniplan Group, a modular building manufacturer in Armidale, Australia. In just 25 years they have grown from a small family business with just three staff to a team of 86 today, with over 2,800 completed builds so far.

Back in 1999 Uniplan was founded by Howard, Ben and William Scott. They began manufacturing modular buildings with timber framing under a tarpaulin outdoors, just down the road from their current site. Along the way, with their focus always on innovation and excellence, they were aware that framing with timber was a constraint for them – the waste, the inaccuracies and the staff injuries. By 2021 they had made the decision to switch from timber framing to light gauge steel framing and they have never looked back.

They have scaled into a leading provider of quality modular buildings, including homes, libraries, holiday parks, wineries, lifestyle villages, and more.

The way they build may be different now, but their singular focus on family values and customer satisfaction never changed; the company’s stellar customer testimonials and online reviews are proof of that.

“Everyone's got everyone's back out there” 

We took a stroll through the Uniplan factory in Armidale, New South Wales and noticed immediately how happy and friendly the team were.

This is all down to the culture at Uniplan, built on a strong foundation of Scott family values and laid 25 years ago. Jerry Scott, Operations Manager, says maintaining this culture is priority number one:

“We hire and fire on culture … If somebody's got the right culture but hasn't got the skills, we teach them the skills. If somebody comes along, and has got wonderful skills but hasn't got the culture, it's very hard to change a person.” 

Nick Kelly, then Factory Manager at Uniplan, added “We've got a team where everyone wants to help everyone … Everyone's got everyone's back out there … People actually want to come and work here, which is awesome …”

The people are always the priority, but Jerry reckons there are massive business benefits to building a positive culture too: 

“You can't measure culture, like what's your culture score? But maybe it's your safety? Is it your quality of a product? It's a multitude of parts that come together.”

This family orientated culture extends out into the community of Armidale, which is a small regional centre with under 30,000 residents:

“We've got a really good relationship with the town as well. We're big on sponsorship programmes. We sponsor a lot of footy teams and soccer teams. And a lot of other stuff around the community,” says Nick.

“Every month there seems to be another school group coming through or an aged-care group,” adds Jerry.

This positive relationship with the town means that Uniplan gets plenty of students in for work experience, and they currently have 16 apprentices on the factory floor. The great team culture and willingness of the older generation to help guide the younger people makes it easy for the young ones in the team to learn the skills to succeed: 

“We love teaching people the skills, but also the work ethic that they need and the life skills that they're going to need to get through life,” says Jerry. 

Ultimately, this culture does not just attract new employees, it attracts clients who trust Uniplan to put a roof over their family’s heads or help ensure a return on investment for their commercial project. 

“Humans do business with people they know, like and trust. We are those people.”

- Attributed to Uniplan, 2021

The right tools for the job 

The outstanding culture at Uniplan is ultimately about providing an industry leading experience for their people and for their customers. When the business decided to investigate steel framing, the decision was made for the same reason.

Now they build faster and safer, with almost no waste.

“….we used to fill a full bin full of timber waste every day. Now that little bin we’ve got there, we change that out once a month [and it is] fully recycled,” said Nick.

There are almost no injuries now, and human error is nearly non-existent, unlike the timber framing days when people used to get hurt using nail guns and windows used to end up in the wrong places when plans were misread:

“It's the easiest job we've got out there now [framing]. Touch wood, we haven't had a window in the wrong spot, thanks to our drafting. And thanks to the Howick machine,” said Nick.

The benefits are clear and numerous, but early on the decision to switch to steel framing was not easy. When the team ultimately decided to make the change they visited several different providers and settled on Howick: 

“We like to do business with people we can trust. Howick came across strong … They didn't just promise us the world,” said Jerry.

Machine maintenance was another key factor in their decision. Ultimately the team are builders, not mechanics, so if something were to go wrong with the machine, they would need expert assistance right away. Any machine downtime would affect the entire operation and ultimately cause delivery delays.

The Uniplan team has nothing but good things to say about their machine, and their contact at Howick - Alan Mehrten, Regional Manager, Australia.

Nick was full of praise for Alan: “It’s a testament to you guys [Howick] to have him on board. The amount of help we’ve got from him when we do have a slight problem or question. He always answers the phone and always delivers.” 

“It [the Howick machine] has never let us down. We've never lost any production time through that machine in the last three years.”

“Looking back now, I'd say we were more scared to do the change [from timber to steel] than we should have been.”

21 days to completion 

Inside the factory, Uniplan runs a highly disciplined production process. Each module progresses through a 21 station production line, spending one day at each station. That means a module can be fully completed within 21 working days. With a five day working week, they are turning out one completed module per day, equating to approximately 260 homes per year. It is a model of consistent, repeatable excellence that helps them keep pace with growing demand.

The Uniplan Advantage

The Uniplan Advantage is a five point plan the team has developed to ensure the highest standards are consistently achieved for every single build, whether it be an individual home or a 50 unit holiday park:

• Project briefing
• Designing and planning
• Build ready
• Factory construction
• Final handover

One of the biggest perks of this, Jerry says, is that Uniplan can give clients complete certainty, unlike traditional builders:

“We’ll give you an exact day that that building is going to be on the site. So you can book your removalist, you can finish up if you are renting …”

This certainty of delivery has huge benefits for clients. Nick says one recent project was a 50 unit holiday park – the owner was so confident of Uniplan’s ability to deliver on time that they started taking bookings for their accommodation when the units were still on the factory floor.

As well as the usual council inspections, Uniplan completes 18 internal inspections to check every inch of the build and ensure the same high quality result every time.

"We want people to be able to have a home”

There is a real housing shortage throughout New South Wales, and volumetric modular needs to be part of the solution, according to Jerry.

“Next for us would be to make sure that ……volumetric modular which we’re doing here  … fits into everybody's thinking and dispel the myth that it's an inferior product, which it's definitely not.”

“There's a great opportunity, and as we were saying before, we've got space to grow here. We're not a stagnant company. We keep growing, expanding and filling people's needs. Putting keys in doors is the aim. We want people to be able to have a home.”