A 1996 quote from Steve Jobs offers an important lesson for any industry, including ours. “Good artists copy; great artists steal,” he said. “And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”
Of course, Apple has never been shy about suing anyone who tries to steal its intellectual property, but that’s not what Jobs meant. In the context of his talk, Jobs was equating copying with plagiarism, while he saw stealing as the taking of inspiration from another’s ideas and using them to make something unique and better.
This raises an important question. How do we collectively learn from each other’s offsite construction projects in ways that benefit everyone? The answer is that we need to pay attention to success stories, such as the many that are regularly told in this magazine. Then we need to take the lessons from those stories and improve on them for use in our own operations. That’s how we move the industry forward.
We can learn lessons from designs, from materials used and from the many other things that successful (and maybe some not so successful) projects have discovered. As an example, consider the need to simultaneously manage the manufacturing process and the complementary work that’s taking place on-site.
One oft-cited benefit of offsite construction is speed, but speeding up the production process places demands on everyone involved. It’s like that famous episode of the 1950’s television series, I Love Lucy, in which Lucy and Ethel take jobs wrapping chocolate candy on a conveyor line. Once the line starts you have to keep up with it. The candy just keeps coming.
It’s the same with the factory production of housing. What we’re talking about here is “load balancing,” a term that originated in the computer world and refers to distributing a set of tasks over the resources needed to complete those tasks, including, in modular’s case, having the necessary tools and workers at every stop a module makes along the production line without having to slow the line down.
But load balancing isn’t just a factory concern, it’s also a project concern. That’s because, with offsite construction, the foundation is placed on the site at the same time the modules are being manufactured in the factory. Before the modules are delivered, the foundation must be complete, and the resources must be ready to do the on-site finishing and to connect the home to on-site utilities such as water, sewer and electrical. The machine of factory production is part of a larger machine — the continuous delivery of projects.
A lot of builders are unfamiliar with how to manage this accelerated simultaneous process, but the good news is that many builders and developers are successfully managing it. We can learn from them, and we can tailor what we’ve learned to our own operations.
Network with other builders and developers. Join offsite construction associations such as NAHB’s Building Systems Councils and the Modular Home Builders Association. Follow offsite leaders on LinkedIn and subscribe to offsite channels on YouTube. Read the company profiles and other stories published in this magazine.
Take a closer look at the good things others are doing in this industry. Then add to that body of knowledge to pave more of the road for the people behind you!
If you liked this article, you can follow Ken Semler on LinkedIn, where he offers daily insights and commentary about offsite construction.
