Every construction project is unique. Each new project brings new conditions, new contractors, new blueprints, and new local regulation. Because of this, automating the construction process has been difficult.
Robotics are great at executing repeatable tasks. And manufacturers that utilize robotics in an assembly line have realized immense productivity gains over the last half century. These robots run the same task over and over, manufacturing widgets by repeating the same line of code.
But construction sites are different. Very few tasks are repeated in the exact same order on a construction site.
Let’s take Katerra for example. Katerra was a pre-fabricated, modular home builder founded in 2015. With over $2B in venture capital funding, Katerra would utilize robotics to manufacture large building components (walls, roofs, etc) off-site at a manufacturing warehouse. The company would then transport the components and assemble the home on-site by connecting the pieces at the project location.
While Katerra was able to automate some of the construction process by manufacturing pre-fabricated walls at a warehouse, they encountered challenges when delivering and connecting the components. Remember, each new construction project brings new site conditions, new contractors, new local building regulation, etc.
Katerra encountered new challenges at every new project location, and the company struggled to efficiently build houses using this technique. By 2021, Katerra had burned through its $2B of venture capital funding.
In construction tech, the repeatable, automatable processes lie further away from the jobsite. Tasks in finance, procurement, accounting are much more repeatable and are therefore easier to automate with lines of code. In fact, the most successful construction-tech companies to date have been those that sell enterprise software to a construction company’s headquarters.
So - when starting a robotics company, make sure to ask: how repeatable is this process? Because the challenge with automation lies in the complexity of the task. And in the world of construction, every project is a prototype.
Thanks for your article! I know nothing about Katerra and you may be able to answer a question for me. In your opinion would it be possible to automate and use robots just for the factory side of construction? Or is it the case that even at the factory level, before site, there is too much difference between individual projects? Thanks