We’re Teaching Machines to Think. Who’s Teaching Our People?

Somewhere right now, a company is explaining how artificial intelligence will transform the offsite construction industry. It will help schedule production, track materials, prepare estimates, answer customer questions, and perhaps eventually explain why the forklift is never where anyone left it.

Meanwhile, a new employee on a factory floor is trying to figure out which drawing to use. The one on the table looks different from the one attached to the wall, and the person who knows the answer is at lunch. He spent yesterday following someone around and was told this morning he should be getting the hang of it.

I’m interested in what AI can do for our industry. There are useful possibilities, and some deserve serious attention. But I keep coming back to a fairly ordinary question: Why do we spend so much time discussing how to make machines smarter and so little time discussing how to help people get better at their jobs?

Before You Build an ADU for Mom and Dad, Have the Conversation Nobody Puts in the Brochure

I’ve been around housing long enough to know that people enjoy talking about what they’re going to build. Show them a floor plan, an attractive kitchen, and a little porch, and the conversation practically starts itself. Before long, someone is choosing cabinets while someone else decides where the flower boxes should go.

But if you ask whether Dad expects to eat dinner at the main house every evening, everyone goes quiet. That conversation rarely makes it into the brochure, though it may matter more to the project's success than the cabinets ever will.

An accessory dwelling unit, usually called an ADU, is a separate living space on the same property as the main home. For families considering one for aging parents, the appeal is easy to understand. Mom and Dad can have their own home, their children can be nearby, and everyone can spend less time worrying about the distance between them.

I can see a lot of good in that arrangement. However, before anyone signs a construction contract, I think the family needs to sit around a table without a salesperson, a floor plan, or a cabinet sample and talk about what they are actually proposing. 

AI Can Help You Do More. Who Decides What Comes First?

Why prioritizing deserves more attention from offsite construction owners as artificial intelligence becomes part of everyday business.

I’ve been wondering whether one of the most basic responsibilities of owning an offsite construction business gets lost in the excitement around artificial intelligence. We hear about creating marketing campaigns in minutes, preparing proposals faster, analyzing information, and generating enough ideas to keep an entire management team occupied until retirement. We hear less about deciding which of those things actually deserves to be done first.

That responsibility used to be called setting priorities. It still is, although it doesn’t come with a software subscription or a particularly impressive demonstration. And as AI makes it easier to start more things, I believe deciding what matters most is becoming an even more important part of the owner’s job.

There is nothing wrong with using AI to accomplish more. The trouble begins when accomplishing more becomes the objective without much discussion about what all that additional activity is supposed to accomplish for the business.

Who’s Building Your “Good Idea”?

Fresh Eyes on Modular By Jorie Wisnefski

A great idea for a development is only the beginning.

A developer finds a property and starts imagining what it could become. Maybe it’s an apartment building, a hotel, or a new housing community. Modular construction seems like a promising way to bring that vision to life.

But I’m learning that choosing the right modular factory can take months of research, redesigns, and back-and-forth between developers and manufacturers.

By then, a promising idea may become much more complicated and expensive.

Max Quinn, Co-Founder & CEO @GroundUp

Max Quinn saw this challenge firsthand while working in modular real estate development. In his experience, developers came to the table with big ideas, but they didn’t always have the information needed to understand what was feasible before moving forward.

They would start by finding a property and envisioning its potential, but they didn’t always understand how that vision aligned with a modular factory’s capabilities.

Investing in a Factory Makes More Sense When You Bring the Projects With You

 

Propertize Ventures’ investment in Shell Pros raises an important question for offsite construction: What if the investor can bring both capital and customers?

Have you ever wondered why some investors become fascinated with the machinery inside an offsite factory before spending much time asking what will keep it running? The equipment is impressive, the production possibilities are exciting, and the housing shortage makes the opportunity sound almost irresistible. Somewhere in that enthusiasm, however, somebody needs to explain where the actual orders will come from.

A factory needs work that is ready to build, customers who can pay, and enough continuity to keep employees productive. Those requirements don’t photograph quite as well as a new automated production line, but they deserve a prominent place in the investment discussion.

That is why the recently reported investment by Propertize Ventures in Shell Pros caught my attention. The link between development activity and manufacturing deserves closer scrutiny.

Your Factory Cannot Manufacture Its Way Around an Unfunded Project

I’ve often wondered how many modular factory business plans begin with a description of America’s housing shortage. Near the front, usually before we get to payroll, an impressive explanation shows how many homes the country needs and how much faster a factory could build them. By the time you finish reading it, you might wonder why there isn’t a line of developers outside the factory door.

Then you talk to the person responsible for filling the production schedule. The developer is still working with the bank, another project is waiting for permits, and the customer who wanted forty homes has decided to start with four. Unfortunately, the electric company has shown very little interest in accepting national housing statistics as payment.

That is where the difference between needing housing and ordering housing becomes painfully clear. A factory can have the right product, capable employees and an efficient production line while the projects it expected to build remain financially unable to proceed.

Why Would Anyone Put Money Into a Modular Factory?

There are many good reasons. “The country needs more houses” isn’t enough.

I’ve been asking myself a question that probably won’t get me invited to every modular factory investment presentation: Why would private investors put their money into one? Before anyone takes away my offsite construction membership card, let me explain. I believe in modular construction and in the people who know how to build good homes inside a factory. What gives me pause is the assumption that putting those people inside a large building with expensive equipment automatically creates an attractive investment.

A factory can build a beautiful house and still lose money. Build enough houses that way, and you haven’t solved the problem. You’ve simply become more efficient at losing money. Yet sensible reasons to invest in modular manufacturing exist, and understanding them starts with looking past the ribbon-cutting ceremony and asking what happens on an ordinary Tuesday.

GroundUp: Helping Better Projects Find Their Way to Your Offsite Company

A familiar conversation in offsite construction often begins with, “I have some land, and I’m thinking about putting modular homes on it.” What follows can involve weeks of questions, preliminary drawings, pricing discussions, and explanations about what the factory can actually build. Sometimes that work produces a customer. Other times, everyone discovers the property, budget, and building system never matched.

That is the kind of early uncertainty GroundUp is designed to address. According to its website, the AI-supported platform helps evaluate development sites, create conceptual plans, and compare suitable factories, preliminary economics, and delivery considerations. It brings those pieces together before a developer makes a major commitment. For an offsite company, the potential benefit is a better-informed conversation much earlier in the process.