Most offsite factory owners, upper management teams, and
boards don’t lose momentum because business is bad. They lose it because
business becomes comfortable. The phones ring. Homes ship. Margins
aren’t embarrassing. Backlogs look decent. And suddenly, without a meeting or a
vote, the organization shifts from building a future to protecting
the present.
That shift usually happens quietly between years four and
seven. The startup chaos is gone. The existential fear has faded. What
replaces it is a subtle belief that today’s systems—no matter how
inefficient—are “good enough.” Instead of asking what could break the company,
leadership starts worrying about what might disrupt it. Risk avoidance replaces
curiosity, and innovation gets postponed “until next year.”
Complacency really takes hold when workarounds become
culture. Design problems are patched instead of solved. Scheduling conflicts
are accepted as normal. Supply chain fragility is shrugged off as unavoidable.
When someone suggests real change—automation, new product lines, different
markets—the first response isn’t interest, it’s concern. What if it messes
up what we already have?
Boards often accelerate this stall without realizing it.
When success is measured only in short-term EBITDA, innovation becomes a cost
instead of a strategy. Expansion proposals are forced to defend themselves with
immediate ROI while the cost of doing nothing goes unchallenged. Too often,
boards protect yesterday’s win rather than invest in tomorrow’s relevance.
The clearest warning sign appears when a factory stops
looking outside its own bubble. When leadership benchmarks only against nearby
competitors, dismisses new ideas as “not proven in modular,” and treats labor
shortages and code friction as permanent facts of life, stagnation is already
underway. The visible decline usually follows 12 to 24 months later. By the
time everyone agrees there’s a problem, options are limited.
The factories that last don’t avoid risk—they schedule
discomfort. They force process reviews. They pilot ideas that might fail.
They bring in voices that challenge sacred cows. They reward leaders for
retiring outdated systems, not defending them.
Most offsite factories don’t fail because they made the
wrong bet. They fail because, at some point, they stopped making any meaningful
bets at all.
If this sounds uncomfortably familiar, that may be the most
useful insight of the week.
Gary Fleisher—known throughout the industry as The
Modcoach—has been immersed in offsite and modular construction for over three
decades. Beyond writing, he advises companies across the offsite ecosystem,
offering practical marketing insight and strategic guidance grounded in
real-world factory, builder, and market experience.
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