Editing Prefabrication (section)

{{Short description|Manufacturing of components before assembly}}
{{Distinguish|Preproduction}}
{{Redirect|Prefab|other uses| }}
{{More citations needed|date=September 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2020|cs1-dates=23 March 2022}}
'''Prefabrication''' is the practice of assembling components of a [[structure]] in a [[factory]] or other [[manufacturing]] site, and [[transport]]ing complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the [[construction]] site where the structure is to be located. Some researchers refer it to “various materials joined together to form a component of the final installation procedure“. 

The most commonly cited definition is by Goodier and Gibb in 2007, which described the process of manufacturing and preassembly of a certain number of building components, modules, and elements before their shipment and installation on construction sites.<ref>(2022) Modularity clustering of economic development and ESG attributes in prefabricated building research. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 10. Retrieved from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2022.977887</ref>

The term ''prefabrication'' also applies to the manufacturing of things other than structures at a fixed site. It is frequently used when fabrication of a section of a machine or any movable structure is shifted from the main manufacturing site to another location, and the section is supplied assembled and ready to fit. It is not generally used to refer to electrical or electronic components of a machine, or mechanical parts such as pumps, gearboxes and compressors which are usually supplied as separate items, but to sections of the body of the machine which in the past were fabricated with the whole machine. Prefabricated parts of the body of the machine may be called 'sub-assemblies' to distinguish them from the other components.