PDIS Update: Offsite construction solutions in a challenging market
As the housing market is evolving, due to changing demand drivers, supply constraints and more volatile input costs, many lumber companies are pivoting to providing a service versus selling a commodity.
At the 2021 ProDealer Industry Summit, held virtually last week, a panel of experts weighed in on the merits of offsite solutions, including increased cost controls and value, while reducing improvisations at the job site that lead to waste and risk.
Gerald McCaughey, CEO, chairman and co-founder of Entekra, said he has dedicated his career to off-site construction. McCaughey noted that Entekra, recently completed a four-story residential project in San Francisco that would have typically required 60 days using traditional framing techniques. According to McCaughey, Entekra completed the job in just 12 days.
"We are significantly cutting overhead costs for the builder," McGaughey explained.
And with much of the work predesigned and engineered in the factory, Entekra is reducing labor and waste while producing a cleaner, safer job site.
"The one who is holding back the industry from moving forward is the framer," McGaughey said while noting that the country that put a man on moon and birthed Tesla also has declining construction productivity rates.
Drew Whitcomb from Builders FirstSource discussed BMC's Ready Frame system. The building solution provides better, faster, safer, and greener framing through pre-cut and smart bundled packages, which are engineered, pre-cut and labeled. The process makes assembling a new home construction efficient with less waste, resulting in a cleaner, safer jobsite.
Whitcomb noted that many of Ready Frame's customers are framers with housing packages quickly assembled on the job site like a Lego package.
Despite jobsite efficiency, labor is a problem that looms and growing larger by the day.
Dean Rana, president of TruFab companies, handles work in the Phoenix market. But he noted that framing in Arizona's high heat does nothing to attract the next generation of framers.
"For every five workers that leaves the U.S. construction industry, one enters," McGaughey said. "If we think we have a labor problem now, this is only the tip of the iceberg for what we will see in the next five to 10 years."
