Keeping things simple: How getting the system-built method right cuts time and confusion

If you spend time talking to people who are really knowledgeable about multi-family construction, you’ll hear again and again that stick-built construction is an old way of doing business. Even some people whose business is still mostly conventional construction will tell you this.

But that’s not the same as saying that every modular building manufacturer has what it takes to make the most of system-built technologies and management methods. Unless the business is structured specifically to address system-built multi-family construction, the advantages will not be what the builder and others in the process hope for.

To be direct about it, Deluxe has the multi-family gig down. That’s not our language; that’s the way it was put by a builder for whom we recently finished a major project. This concept – construction simplified – helps define the parameters under which we operate. We bring together high-tech manufacturing methods with refined project management staffing and methods to control time and complexity on the job site.

The key is integrating the manufacturing and the site construction processes. We’re staffed that way, with project managers, engineering project coordinators, and project administrators. These experts get involved from the design and planning stages, gearing up every job for maximum speed and efficiency. Helping make the most of our advanced manufacturing technologies, they eliminate almost any bottleneck before it happens. Their involvement continues through the factory to the jobsite phase to support rapid, trouble-free setting and completion of the project.

By their nature, systems methods are leaner - builders need less staff. They’re also embracing it because it radically cuts the overhead required to manage all the subcontractors. When you get rid of the extra time, extra site work, and extra staffing with what’s accomplished in the factory, you’re way ahead of the game.

What’s more, true integration between factory and site makes the process predictable in ways that are not possible either in the stick-built environment or with other, less evolved modular approaches. Working with the builders, we set rigorous schedules and control the process, maintaining those schedules through to completion. There are no weather delays in the manufacturing process, and no delays resulting from problems with large numbers of subcontractors.
This is where the comparison really stands up against stick-built or less refined modular methods: We don’t sell boxes, we build projects. The system-built approach to multi-family projects is all we do. We’ve been doing it longer than anyone else. We’ve developed the ability to make the transition seamlessly between the factory and the field.

This business model doesn’t eliminate performance problems, but it absolutely minimizes them.

How much simpler can you make it?