The linear saw and auto-jigging reduce plant labor but they don’t increase the selling price of components, like the Blueprint Robotics panelization does, in spades. And, as more plants automate, component sales dollars may actually be eroded by price-cutting in a flat housing market. Is it time for CM’s to differentiate themselves by adding value to components with the closed-panelization model? Clues to the success of this technology are found in the DC-Baltimore suburbs not far from the Blueprint facility.
Established home builders first began considering closed wall panels to counter the threat that large industrialized housing entities would displace their site-built methods. When the factory housing industry nearly collapsed in the severe mid-1970s recession, and the economy began to climb out of that recession, Ed Ryan and his brother Jim began experimenting in the rapidly growing metro-DC market. Ed’s company, Ryan Homes, had mastered fabrication of “open” wall panels and trusses in multiple plants in the East. Fabricating “closed” wall panels seemed the next logical step, and Ed set up a large factory in suburban Maryland called “Closed-Wall Thurmont” or CWT. Dick Marriott, current MiTek President, helped install the truss equipment there in 1980. Jim Ryan’s company, Ryland Homes, built an even larger modular housing plant about 25 miles from his brother’s. Joe Hikel, SBCA Past President, was assembling components nearby to Ryland, at the plant owned by his father, the late Dwight Hikel.
Yet, by the early 1990s, Ryan’s CWT plant, now NVR Building Products, and Ryland’s plant, now Universal Forest Products, had both reverted to open panels and trusses. Joe Hikel’s plant, Shelter Systems, no longer builds wall panels. Why did this wall technology fail? According to the late Fred Schenkel, former BFS Manufacturing VP, foundation problems defeated closed wall panels. When Fred worked for Ryland, he continually faced the daunting task of adjusting electrical wiring, plumbing, and finishes to compensate for foundation gaps.
In the late 1990s, Bill Pulte, chairman of the namesake company, created Pulte Home Sciences to discover factory alternatives to field labor. After 7 years of R&D in Detroit, he constructed a huge facility in DC’s Virginia suburbs in 2003. Inside this factory, concrete foundations were sectionalized and pre-cast. Wall sections were built with SIPS, Structural Insulated Panel Systems, and floor panels incorporated duct work. Yet this facility closed as housing spiraled downward in 2007.
Do housing’s ups and downs preclude building closed wall panels? Do we have enough housing growth to assure their feasibility? Our industry is currently operating in a nearly flat housing economy. The 2017’s projected 1.2 Million housing starts are barely half the levels which had stimulated the industrial housing industry of the 1970s and the closed-panelization of the 1980s. In spite of these drawbacks, jobsite labor shortages continue to create opportunities which may be better addressed in the factory. In addition to the Blueprint Robotics facility, a factory in Central Florida has begun employing European automation that may point to the future . . .
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Current Robotic Technology