Opportunities for Innovation

First off, by “capacity” we mean both production capacity of IC components as well as developing the IC workforce needed to manage and run these facilities. Although we aren’t going to address the workforce in this article, it should be noted the opportunity to innovate in this space is tremendous considering over the next few decades, we will need to train millions of new IC-based construction workers to engineer, design, procure, manufacture, operate and assemble the future IC economy - blue ocean opportunities.

The factory is where a significant portion of the industrialization efficiency happens in the construction industry - the other areas are up-front product engineering and the onsite building assembly. A common mistake I see with investors and existing factories is wanting to first invest in a facility, or even worse, a highly automated facility, without first perfecting the building systems and securing a stable pipeline (demand aggregation). Today there are enormous inefficiencies of capital in current offsite factories. Value creation and manufacturing economies of scale are usually only occurring in a small portion of a factory considering most operations are basically site-building under a roof (and calling it manufacturing) or manufacturing building products that were designed for on-site use (vs. off-site use).

Only after the product and demand have been sufficiently resolved is it time to to design, optimize, then automate the manufacturing-to-site assembly process. Again, most people want to go right to automation, but this is the LAST step.

One innovative area to consider when trying to both design and manufacture more effectively, is fasteners. The auto industry learned many years ago that to accelerate production they needed to eliminate expensive and heavy rivets and screws. The secret to quickly assembling stronger, lighter cars lies in how they are assembled. Heavy fastening systems were required in the past. Today very high bond tapes and super glues, and quick connect engineered plastic and velcro fasteners, have replaced heavier mechanical fasteners. Modern fasteners provide speed, better performance, and result in total assembly cost savings. While mechanical fasteners concentrate stress at their connection points, tape spreads out this stress over a much larger area, mitigating stress fractures and failures.
Even better, is utilizing fewer components to assemble. The Tesla giga press was invented to cast the entire rear underbody of its Model Y vehicle into one part. Redesigning this part down to a one-step process eliminated around 370 other parts and massively reduced the time to assemble, weld and/or fasten.

We are starting to see building materials that are designed with IC in mind. Larger format products such as Cross Laminated Timber (CLT), Mass Plywood Panels, precast concrete elements, SIPs, and advanced insulation materials (VIPs, aerogel insulation) … much of these IC technologies cost more than their competition’s basic building material products, but when full production and installation cost are considered, the IC-based products win out every time.

The construction industry stands at a crossroads. By embracing the principles of industrialized construction, learning from other industries, and harnessing digital technologies, the industry can tackle its major challenges head-on. This transformation promises a future of increased productivity, improved quality, cost control, and a more sustainable, affordable and resilient built environment.