Publications / 2006 Proceedings of the 23rd ISARC, Tokyo, Japan

How Have CAD-CAM Systems Changed Japanese Conventional Wooden Construction in These Three Decades?

Shuichi Matsumura
Pages 357-360 (2006 Proceedings of the 23rd ISARC, Tokyo, Japan, ISBN 9784990271718, ISSN 2413-5844)
Abstract:

The new house-building market in Japan can be divided into two parts. A half is occupied with detached houses built by large prefabricated house manufacturers as well as rather small local builders. The composition of the detached house-building market is: A little less than 20 % occupied with prefabricated house manufacturers, a little less than 10 % with North American platform construction builders ,a little less than 70% with conventional wooden house builders and the rest with other kinds.

While order-made houses are mainly built in each of these three categories, prefabrication and industrialization have been advanced in each category so far. In this paper the state-of-the-art of such prefabrication and industrialization especially in the field of conventional wooden house-building is made clear.

The major means of industrialization of conventional wooden house-building have been the application of CAD-CAM systems for processing wooden posts and beams. In this paper, the application of CAD-CAM in such a conventional field and its effects are clarified after a historical review on its technological development and its diffusion process.

Keywords: conventional wooden house-building, industrialization, CAD-CAM, precut