There’s no scarcity of jobs in the construction industry, but there is a scarcity of skilled workers to fill those jobs. What the offsite and modular industry will have to do to find these workers will help define the industry itself over the next 10 years.
It has to do with the commercial applications of drones, laser scanners and robotics used on jobsites. For instance, most of today’s new hires aren’t interested in operating a machine on a site 100 miles away from home, but they like the idea of getting into a simulator and operating a machine 100 miles away.
We all know that we need to attract young workers if we want to keep this industry stable. But rather than giving them a shovel, we will get better results by putting a joystick in their hands.
Offsite and modular construction is in the midst of an exciting technological shift. Project teams are trading paper processes for iPad apps and drones are buzzing over construction sites collecting digital data.
Our factories, too, must embrace this technological shift; if we think tomorrow’s factories will look like they have for the past 50 years, we are in for a rude awakening. They need to begin shifting from labor-heavy production lines to incorporating more robotics and the products we build also need to be different.
Factories like Boxabl are expanding rapidly to meet the demand for a home the average family can afford. Auxiliary Housing Units (ADUs), small dwellings like container homes, tiny houses, and maybe even some type of home we haven’t even thought of yet, will help define single-home dwelling in 10 years. The traditional single-family home may be the ultimate luxury by then.
How we build them may also become unrecognizable. Eventually, robots and automated machinery will build components in factories and those components will be assembled on the jobsite by workers 1,000 miles away using simulators and drones. The labor force needed both in the factories and at the jobsites will come at a higher cost.
The construction industry is changing quickly, and that’s a good thing. If we want to build more with less and want to deliver better outcomes, the future of construction must be digital. You can count on the world’s next wave of construction jobs and projects to be high-tech and cloud-connected.
