Getting Started With Industrialized Construction
Date Posted: June 13, 2024
Posted In: Discussion,
From Offsite Builder: Founding and developing any construction venture is a complicated, multi-step process, but it’s especially so with an industrialized construction (IC) company, which could be defined as a vertically integrated, true manufacturing operation using modern methods of mass production. However, Colby Swanson — Executive in Residence at the advisory firm ADL Ventures (with six US locations) — says that, when looking at the big picture, the process can be broken down into three main stages.
One point he’s adamant about, a point that may surprise some builders, is that moving construction offsite to an indoor facility is not the best first step. “The dirty secret in the offsite construction industry is that we’re stick-building under a roof and calling it industrialization. And that’s not really what it’s about,” Swanson says. “Industrialization involves a different discipline: Manufacturing.”
In this article, we’ll describe the three steps Swanson recommends for setting up an IC company. Then we’ll look at the factors he thinks are holding offsite construction back, and the ways some companies have tried to overcome them. Finally, we’ll turn to his recommendations for what you can do if you’re already an offsite manufacturer constructing buildings in a factory and want to industrialize your business.
Step 1: Productization
The first step is productization. Although this could mean planning to repeatedly manufacture the exact same product every single time, it doesn’t have to mean that.
Productization can instead mean having a portfolio of products rather than repeatedly working on bespoke projects. Swanson says, “We’re talking about engineering a kit of parts — components that can be configured in a variety of different ways” to construct different types of buildings.
Designing a product for manufacturing and assembly (DfMA) means getting input on an initial design from people at all stages of creating a building. Architects and engineers should obviously have input, but so should manufacturing experts, general contractors, transportation and craning partners, developers, tradespeople and the building end-users (homeowners, apartment residents, hotel guests, patients, etc.)