346: System Built Master Facilitators lessons learned

"Every developer has a different site, every developer is confounded with different setbacks, zoning, and planning...so everything's different which means it's more project based, you can't just build a thousand of them because you're not going to be able to see a thousand of 'unit A,' and so that's like the biggest challenge." Join Devon as he chats with Jared Levy about advancing prefabrication! Equal parts creativity and relentless problem solving. He has spent the past two decades in the prefab space, transforming the way housing is built and delivered. He helped launch Marmol Radziner Prefab in 2004 and developed the product line. He was one of the early pioneers in the modern prefab movement and received a ton of press – called “Masterpiece in a Box” by GQ and “Prefab Perfected” by Dwell – but he served a limited niche market with his bespoke custom prefab homes. In 2012, he co-founded and launched Connect Homes. His mission was to deliver modern living to a broader market. By turning the home into a standardized product, they were able to develop an assembly line process to build housing at scale, delivering over 900 modules to date. And with their patented prefab logistics system, they could cost effectively deliver homes to a national market. Their first home appeared on the cover of Dwell with the tag line “Modern For All”, so they knew they were heading in the right direction. And still are to this day. At the core of off-site construction are large gaps between design and manufacturing and the field. You might have functional expertise in each of those areas, but things fall through the gaps. These gaps between functions and stakeholders are where margins slip and where schedules slip. With his experience in all aspects of the product lifecycle and value stream, he likes to focus on these gaps and close them. As a former CEO, he knows first-hand the path is not always a clear one to scaling in this space. He’s learned what works and doesn’t work, made mistakes along the way, and learned from them to save you from having to repeat them. He is on a never-ending pursuit to build homes more efficiently and he wants to make a positive impact to companies like yours that are trying to change this industry. Watch a clip of this virtual podcast! Read about Jared in this article, Why Prefab Is Broken (and Some Suggestions to fix it) Keep up with the Art of Construction (AOC) podcast on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Youtube!