
Benefits of building with Precast Concrete Elements
Precast has many advantages over conventional building systems and the market is now very accepting of this new building technique. One of the most important benefits of using prefabricated precast elements is the fast, on-site installation time. The Indonesian government gives incentives like a 10% reduction in tax payments to real estate developers who can hand over a new house to the customer within 6 months.
It only takes 5-6 days to install a house made of precast elements (45 pcs precast panels for one house). So, all in all it takes about 75 days to build one house from foundation work to finishing, and the final handover to the real estate developer (5-8 days for foundation work, 6 days for installing the precast elements and the rest is usually planned for architectural work).
Besides the short building time, another benefit that advocates constructing with precast elements is the quality. Since the production of the elements is done in a plant with automated machinery, the quality is consistently high, and remains unaffected by weather conditions.
Says Hendy W.Budijanto, Operation Div.Head at PT. Modern Panel Indonesia, “The fast construction time, high product quality, safety, and environment-friendlier conditions are the huge benefits of precast construction – reasons why I am convinced that precast constructed houses have the most potential of becoming the future in the real estate industry.”

Earthquake-Safe Prefabricated Concrete Elements Benefit First Housing Project
The Jakarta Garden City (Cluster Shinano) in East Jakarta is the first housing project of PT. Modern Panel Indonesia, which has provided the prefabricated earthquake-safe elements for this huge project. 106 of the 120 units were sold within 3 months. The real estate agents bought immediately and so did their clients. For the 67m² per unit, they charged 1,5 B Rp (around 103.500 USD), which made it affordable for the middle class also. Due to their very central location, the houses did not need additional infrastructure like pools, retail shops etc in the complex, since the clubhouse as well as the periphery have facilities like shops, pools, gym etc.

What’s more, the houses have been tested in the laboratory for earthquake resistance. The approved tests were carried out in the Puskim, Bandung, where the strength of the earthquake touched more than 9 on the Richter scale, but the precast concrete elements passed the test!
The main customers of PT. Modern Panel Indonesia are the independent real estate developers for whom the company is not only delivering the elements but also setting up the house. At the Jakarta Garden City (Shinano) precast house project, for example, PT.Modern also handled the structural work besides the painting and finishing. The project is built with the full bearing wall system (walls, slabs, beams, and stairs) made of prefabricated precast concrete elements. The slab thickness is 12 cm while the walls are 10 cm thick.

With the support of the new mesh welding plant M-System BlueMesh and its facilitating of the production through automation, PT. Modern Panel Indonesia has also finished a hotel as well as a university and is currently finishing another hotel project. The hotels were supplied with the precast façade (ready to paint surface), while at the new housing project the company is undertaking all the work involving the precast structure, the architecture, the electrical plumbing etc up till the final completion stage.
To provide the top-notch materials, PT. Modern Panel Indonesia is working in two long shifts (shift 1 from 8 am to 8 pm and shift 2 from 8 pm to 8 am). It is producing precast as well as ready-mix at a capacity of 60 m³ per hour. Around 25 precast elements are produced on the pallets, per shift. The finished elements - mainly solid slabs and walls as well as beams and stairs - are shipped to the site during the day- and night-time and thereby enabling the quickest way of building.
Reinforcement automation ensures constantly high quality and safety
The modernized production processes are due to the fully automated plants sourced from German automation leader EBAWE Anlagentechnik in 2018. To enhance the automation in the factory, Modernland invested in a mesh welding plant from the reinforcement machinery expert progress Maschinen & Automation - both of which are PROGRESS GROUP companies. Both the times this was done in cooperation with local partner PT Detede.

The new M-System BlueMesh® is currently working one shift, using mainly wires of 6, 7 and 8-mm diameters. As the walls are only 10 to 12 mm thick, the bent mesh cannot be produced with wires of a higher diameter range. Since this is common across the entire Indonesian market, this has been specifically adjusted and installed to meet the requirements. Nevertheless, the walls have been tested successfully for earthquake-resistance despite being slim.

The earthquake tested and safe elements with the cut outs for doors and windows already implemented will be transported to the sites.
The mesh is mainly used for the needs of the factory itself. The new machine welds reinforcing steel from coil according to individual specifications, which leads to considerable reductions in labour costs and wastage. The M-System BlueMesh® is convincing not only because of its high technological level, but also because of being economical in terms of energy, usage, space requirements, use of steel as well as the costs of the personnel. Until now, reinforcement production still involved manual workstations. With the new M-System BlueMesh®, the mesh is automatically produced, just-in-time and with the corresponding cut-outs for the precast elements.

Future of Building: Precast Concrete Elements
With the automated plant operating at a high capacity, Modernland is already planning more projects. Currently, they are developing a plan for an 8-storey apartment complex, built with a full precast system (bearing wall system), and another housing project - the 24-storey Cleon Apartment is in the making for which a precast façade is being made. Modernland is geared up to create a new future of safe living using prefabricated concrete elements and is convinced that this construction method will be the future of building - not only in Indonesia but across the world.