Are we seeing the onset of a wave of CM automation or is this déjà vu all over again? Are other CMs following the startups chronicled earlier on these pages: Blueprint Robotics (May 2017) or Katerra (Feb 2018)? Big money is driving it, the big wigs are behind it, and high tech machines are available.
Twenty years ago, the last wave of automation was on display at BCMC in Cincinnati. On the plant tour, Western Home Center displayed a Makron Wall Panel machine imported from Finland. Most talked about was its “extruder” design, in which a single framer laid studs into position and engaged fixed nailers, similar to today’s Spida system. Soon after BCMC, other CMs ordered European Wall Panel lines, and Tommy Wood began driving the Makron lines with his Comsoft Wall Panel software. But today, few of the twenty systems that were installed back then are still running.
Yet the rest of the housing industry around the world embraces those machines, as evidenced by the Ligna Woodworking Show last month in Germany (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoSvn8MjDz8). Americans attending were amazed at the degree of automation demonstrated by Randek, Weinmann, and Hundegger, the same players who participated in the last wave. Complete production plants were running on the mammoth Show floor, a BCMC on steroids. Most of the CM-oriented machinery concerned panelization.
Today there are several factors that encourage importation of these machines:
- Plentiful capital – over a hundred U.S. component plants are owned by billion-dollar corporations.
- Perception that we’re in dark ages; Katerra CEO says current construction practices are “stupid.”
- Foreign investment flowing into the U.S. from Germany (Blueprint Robotics) and Japan.
To conquer the American market, European machinery must be capable of building economically:
- Short walls, really tall (balloon) walls, and rake walls.
- Sheathing extensions and hold-backs.
- Shear panels, portal walls, beam pockets, and blocking.
- Panel bundles sorted in order of erection (framer friendly).
To gain a reasonable return on investment using European technology requires manufacture of closed wall systems, with all services and insulation installed in-plant. While these work well in Germany, where home prices are more than triple ours, will they enable an affordable home here, with a reasonable degree of customization? So far this has been a formidable obstacle that won’t likely be scaled until a further wave of innovation sweeps over the jobsite itself.