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November 2020 #12256 Page #108
The Next Evolution in Modular Has Started By Gary Fleisher hen the first automobiles began showing up on the streets more than 100 years ago, most were built in barns and warehouses one at a time. There were no car dealers as the two or three person shop that built them also sold them. Car builders began popping up in every small town in the country.
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As time went on, the surviving shops began to expand both their manufacturing space and their workforces to meet the growing demand. The entire car was built in one place with all the parts and pieces being brought to it, similar to building modular units on cribbing today. That was the case until the first moving assembly line was built by Henry Ford in 1913. Increased production space was no longer determined by how many individual cars could be built at one time, which required more space and workers as demand increased, but by how many cars could be sent down the assembly line in a day. This was the first true evolution of the auto industry. Many more would follow including establishing dealerships and national advertising.
An Industry Begins The modular industry didn’t start with cribbing but was instead an idea by senior management people of the manufactured housing industry who thought they could build better houses that would meet the tougher standards that site built homes met. They already knew the importance of the assembly line and dealerships (authorized builder networks) and started using Ford’s assembly line approach from the start. Within a few years, two distinct types of modular factories were being built: one for modular housing and the other for commercial projects. The two types were rarely built inside the same factory. The modular housing factory would build multifamily projects but usually they were townhouses or small apartment buildings. The commercial modular factories started at building multifamily and quickly moved into apartment buildings, dormitories, and other commercial buildings.
A Tipping Point for the Modular Industry In 2008, the modular housing industry took a major hit when more than 50 modular factories Continued next page
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