Something has been bothering me lately about the offsite construction industry.
We are seeing more innovative ideas reach the market than at almost any other time I can remember. New products, services, software platforms, building systems, automation tools and manufacturing processes seem to appear every week.
Each one arrives with an impressive collection of promises.
The innovation will save the factory money. It will increase production, reduce waste, solve labor problems, attract new customers and improve profitability. Some claim it will even let a factory produce more homes with fewer workers.
Then the marketing machine takes over.
Industry “experts” begin talking about the innovation on LinkedIn and other social media platforms. The founders appear on podcasts and participate in video interviews. They present at conferences and seminars. Professionally designed websites explain what the product does, who should use it, and when companies should begin thinking about adopting it.
Those presentations usually answer many of the who, what, and when questions.
What they often fail to explain are the two questions that matter most: Why should this work in my factory, and how are my people supposed to make it work?
The Crème-Filled Donut Problem
Buying some innovations is like buying a crème-filled donut and discovering that you must make and add the filling yourself.
The donut maker may give you most of the ingredients. There may be instructions, online demonstrations, and a customer-support number. However, nobody fully explains why you must make the filling yourself, who is supposed to prepare it or how to put it inside the donut without making a mess.
Technically, you received what you purchased. Practically, you did not receive what you thought you were buying.
That is what happens when an offsite factory buys an innovation without the education, training, and ongoing support needed to turn it into an operating system.
The factory may receive the equipment, software, components or licensing agreement. Management may receive an introductory presentation, and employees may watch a demonstration. Then the innovator leaves, and the factory is expected to figure out how to integrate the product into a real production environment.
That is often when excitement begins to turn into frustration.
The Missing Part of the Business Model
The reason many innovators do not provide enough of the why and how is complicated. In some cases, the innovator understands the technology but has limited experience operating an offsite factory. In others, the company is under financial pressure to sell the product and move on to the next customer.
Training, education, and ongoing follow-up require people, time, and money. They are also harder to promote than a dramatic video showing a machine, software program, or building system performing under ideal conditions.
The original thought process that created the innovation may never have included a complete plan for educating the people expected to use it.
That omission can become a serious problem.
Can the innovation scale beyond a demonstration project? Has it been tested under actual factory conditions? Does the innovator understand how production workers, supervisors, engineers, purchasing departments and sales teams will interact with it?
Who inside the factory will be responsible for implementation? Who will train that person? What happens when the employee who received the original training leaves the company? Who answers questions six months after installation when production conditions change?
Those are not minor implementation details. They may determine whether the innovation becomes part of the factory’s future or another expensive idea gathering dust in a corner.
Factories Do Not Operate Like Demonstration Rooms
An innovation can work perfectly during a scheduled demonstration and still fail on a factory floor.
Factories have production schedules, material shortages, engineering revisions, absenteeism, damaged components, inexperienced workers and customers who change their minds. One department’s improvement can create another department’s bottleneck.
A new process that reduces labor at one station may require more engineering before production begins. A piece of automated equipment may increase output but create a demand for materials that purchasing cannot consistently meet. A software platform may provide tremendous amounts of information, but nobody may be assigned to review it and act on it.
The question is not simply whether an innovation works. The real question is whether it works inside the complicated, imperfect, and constantly changing environment of an offsite factory.
That is why education cannot be treated as an optional service added after the sale. It must be part of the innovation itself.
Tough Questions Are Not Attacks
The offsite construction industry needs more opportunities for innovators to face the people who may actually buy and use their products.
Imagine a room filled with factory owners, production managers, builders, developers, and industry influencers. Instead of sitting quietly through another sales presentation, they are encouraged to ask direct questions.
What problem does this solve better than the system we already use?
How much will implementation really cost?
What changes must be made to our engineering, purchasing, and production processes?
Who trains our employees?
How long before we see measurable results?
Can you show us where this is already working in a factory similar to ours?
What happens when it does not work as expected?
Will you still be available a year from now?
These questions may make innovators uncomfortable. They may reveal weaknesses in a product, gaps in an implementation plan, or assumptions that do not survive contact with actual factory operations.
That is not a reason to avoid the questions. That is why they must be asked.
A credible innovator should welcome the opportunity to explain the why and how. If the answers are not yet complete, the questions can help improve the product, strengthen the training program, and clarify what customers actually need.
Even if an innovator leaves the room with their tail tucked between their legs, they will have learned something extremely valuable. They will have heard directly from potential customers why the innovation may not be ready for adoption and what must change before it is.
That type of education is priceless.
A Different Kind of Industry Meeting
Can you imagine bringing together offsite factory people, builders, developers, and industry influencers for that kind of honest conversation?
Imagine innovators presenting their ideas face to face, in front of a room full of industry peers, then answering the difficult questions that rarely come up during a podcast or promotional interview.
Imagine factory owners comparing what they hear with the experiences of other factory owners. Imagine production people asking questions that a corporate purchasing department might never consider. Imagine builders and developers explaining what they need from factories, while innovators listen to the problems their products are supposed to solve.
You will not have to imagine it much longer.
Jorie Wisnefski and I are launching the first in a series of Offsite Factory Roundtables across the United States. The first will take place in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, on October 28.
This will not be another event where attendees sit quietly, listen to polished presentations, and leave with a folder of promotional material. The purpose is to create an honest exchange between the people developing innovations and the people expected to invest in them, implement them and live with the results.
More details will be announced in the next few days.
If you own, manage, supply or work with an offsite factory on the East Coast—or if you are a builder or developer depending on those factories—this is a conversation you should not miss.
Gary’s Observation
The offsite construction industry does not suffer from a shortage of ideas. It suffers from too many promising ideas being introduced without enough thought about implementation, education, and continuing support.
Innovation does not succeed because it receives thousands of LinkedIn impressions, appears on a podcast or earns applause at a seminar. It succeeds when real people understand why it matters, know how to use it and receive the support needed to make it part of their daily work.
The who, what and when may attract attention and generate the first sale.
The why and how determine whether there will ever be a second one.
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