I took off three days last week to visit relatives and friends I haven’t seen in years. Reading the latest news about offsite construction when I got back to work, it was like I had been gone for a year. I read about people changing jobs, new projects being announced, several factories breaking ground, innovations being promoted and companies expanding into new areas of construction.
Things are happening so fast today that, just to keep up, I should clone myself. I’m sure other industries are having the same rapid growth, but offsite construction seems to be especially attractive to people who like shiny, new things.
Recently, I had a conversation with an environmental building consultant about what she is doing in offsite. An hour later I had to ask her to stop talking, as I simply couldn’t keep up with all the Net Zero things she is working on. A little later that day, I got a call from a pioneer in hemp processing for building systems. Once again, I had to ask her to stop as I was losing my way. I needed to leave a breadcrumb trail to find my way home.
And let’s not forget all the information that comes at us every day concerning automation and robotics, building science, affordable housing, BIM and a myriad of other really interesting things.
New processes are being tried in modular and other offsite factories. Watching an older factory adding automation to help offset their labor problems is quite interesting, especially today when information is shared openly about it on social media, at conferences and with Dave Cooper on his live video sessions. No matter what part of our industry you look at, there’s change and innovation taking place.
Miss a month or so of not following these changes and you’ll have a lot of catching up to do. I know the volume of reading I’m doing these days far surpasses what I needed to do in the past. However, our goal at Offsite Builder is to keep you abreast of as much news as possible.
Now that we appear to be putting the pandemic in the rearview mirror, have you noticed the number of in-person events being scheduled for 2022-2023? It seems every housing and construction association in the world wants you to attend their event. Maybe someday there will be a Star Trek “Beam Me Up” phone app that allows you to be in London for an in-person morning conference and in Las Vegas for an afternoon one. I would certainly download it!
We are living in interesting times despite the labor and building material shortages and escalating prices of materials, fuel and labor as well as the ever-increasing demand for offsite construction modules and components. You gotta love what’s happening in offsite construction. Have fun keeping up with it.
