Demand in line with scaled production with little or no changes in manufacturing processes is industrialization’s recipe for offering quality products at low prices. Mass customization yields these advantages without compromising replicability through manufacturing a product offering that can be diversified by purchase options. In cars, shoes, boats, or smartphones this diversity is often limited to colors, aesthetic add-ons, and performance options. Selected modifiers adjust production processes marginally. Spreading branding, design, planning and investments over a stable client pipeline demand is the basic principle of effective manufacturing. As it relates to industrialized building, variety challenges and difficulties lie in how to frame choices or options. Consumers have grown accustomed to the high level of fragmented trade-based personalization in the built environment.
In the prefab sector many companies relay individualization as a strength; Customizing options include everything from exterior materials to faucets and flooring materials. While this certainly leads to a distinction in the final product and an ability to sell prefab as, just as customizable as conventional construction. Many options are counterproductive to a successful business model. Harmonizing supply chains for bulk purchasing implies a sameness through projects to reduce costs. As the prefab industry has often been compared to the automobile sector, it would seem ridiculous for clients to demand a particular steering wheel or an analog dashboard in lieu of a digital one. Options are limited to what is manufacturable within the same optimized processes tweaking them minimally for product differentiation.
The same type of standardization would be required to elevate offsite construction to the status of industrialized construction at least for it to be profitable and affordable. Making multiple products the same doesn't only revolve around dimensional sameness as has been the case for prefab for decades; Repeating products, patterns, finishes, materials, and methods is instilled in a building manufacturer’s genes. Does the drive to please consumers oppose the need for replicating models ? Companies like Boklok, founded by Skanska and Ikea, have directed personalization to interior lifestyle choices within an identical shell gearing repetition as a selling point.
 |
| Housing development by Boklok (Skanska and Ikea) |
No comments:
Post a Comment