Wall Panel Technology, Part V: Whole House Evolution

The dream of having a single person model an entire structure was admirable, but developing the software to do that turned into a decade-long struggle. Five years ago, I chronicled the development saga in my series on Fifty Years of Truss Design, Parts XI – XV. As the story told, the result was workable software, but let’s consider some additional elements in the story not mentioned there. Did these advancements increase productivity in the design effort? Or, more importantly, did they increase sales of components? With the adoption of trusses being nearly universal, whole house software won’t grow truss sales noticeably. But, if viable, whole house software should grow wall panel sales, and the history of wall panel acceptance tells part of this story. [For all images, See PDF or View in Full Issue.]

1950 to 1980 – After the midpoint of the 20th century, whole house packages went into the construction of a considerable portion of home sales, especially in the Midwest. These were efficiently designed, well-built homes that were built offsite and shipped compactly by panelizers like National Homes and many dozens of others. Yet these companies didn’t survive past the 1980s and were displaced largely by onsite framing. In the aftermath, offsite panelization took a hit, except in certain pockets where component manufacturers supplied whole house components, four of which are shown in the image. The demise of panelizers in the period should dispel the notion that there is a sales advantage to supplying whole house packages.

1980 to present – Sinking lumber prices in the early 1980s also shrank the competitiveness of wall panels, as factory labor costs became a higher percentage of the sales price of panels. However, Lenny Sylk initiated a new strategy, emphasizing the value of componentizing the whole house, and underscored his approach by renaming his company from Material Fabrication to Shelter Systems. In 1985, he pioneered what came to be known as Framing the American Dream (FAD), gaining hard data on the cost savings of panelization by erecting a componentized house next to a stick-framed house. When the economy began its long march upward in the 1990s, Framing the American Dream was repeated at the International Builders Show for a national audience, encouraging CMs to pursue panelization and the software to support it.

In the mid-1990s, Tommy Wood, the panel software supplier of Lenny Sylk and others, propelled panels to a leading role in whole house design by rebranding his business as Intelligent Building Systems (IBS). Tommy astutely deployed the term “parametrics” to describe the ease of reworking panel layouts to accommodate design changes. This underscored one of the main differentiators between his software, which defined panels from reference lines, and the software from other suppliers. And having this capability enabled Tommy to combine with truss software supplier Truswal, which supplied many of his users. Combining IBS software with truss software was complicated by ITW’s acquisition of Truswal and Alpine software, each with unique capabilities. Likewise, MiTek faced similar challenges combining their legacy software with TrusJoist’s in the OptiFrame joint effort. In fact, truss and panel programs couldn’t be merged, so new code had to be written. This extended the development cycle through the severe 2008–2009 downturn, the untimely death of Tommy Wood in 2011, and later the Covid pandemic, but it can be argued that we have finally reached a new era for whole house design.

Utilization in the present day – So now that robust whole house software is available, is it being used? Surprisingly, after software investments of hundreds of millions of dollars, most CMs, including Builders FirstSource’s large cadre of panel designers, mainly compartmentalize panel design and separate it from truss design. Both tasks require a mastery of the intricate details of building plans and an intimate understanding of potential framing solutions. However, both the details and the solutions are radically different for trusses vs. panels. As a result, designers attempting both may become “a jack of all trades, and a master of none.” And two sets of expert eyeballs on a plan can provide a valuable quality check and may be necessary to meet builder’s deadlines.

So, even if all the industry’s efforts have fallen short of the dream of a single user modeling the entire structure, the payoff has been substantial. Although dealing with software updates can be a painful process, good designers understand that it is a way of life.[1] And designers will accept the pain if they have substantial gain.

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Panel Equipment Innovations