[HN Gopher] The Rise of Shippable Microfactories
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The Rise of Shippable Microfactories
Author : mhb
Score : 48 points
Date : 2025-07-26 13:08 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thesisdriven.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thesisdriven.com)
| mschuster91 wrote:
| A nice concept - but at the end, it's still a structure made out
| of wood and cardboard, and if the staff isn't trained, well just
| look up Cy Porter and his videos of home inspections for the
| utter idiocy and cost-cutting [1]...
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/@cyfyhomeinspections
| runsWphotons wrote:
| With a few hundred highly trained consultants spread through
| major markets and working directly with contractors with decent
| jobflow to train them, it could work.
| rotexo wrote:
| Reminds me of Nadia traveling all over Mars after the first
| failed revolution and building habitats from scratch using the
| huge robots in KSR's Mars trilogy.
|
| Very cool, but probably not solving the factors involved in
| housing unaffordability.
| proee wrote:
| Contractors that produce standing metal seam roof panels on site
| are right inline with this concept. They bring a magic machine
| with a long roll of steel. Then they form and cut the panels to
| lengths based on the job site. It's a super cool process to watch
| and very efficient.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| The economics aren't a mystery, people build concrete plants on
| site for large buildings for the same reason. That said, it makes
| me wonder if there are things you could do with this sort of
| approach that would be even more daring. You would be unlikely to
| fabricate glass on site, but glazing should be doable. Making the
| windows on site could save time and transport costs. Duct work?
| We had gutters done which were rolled and welded on site. I could
| imagine ducting could be similarly created. Custom cabinetry
| would be another thing I'd wonder about. We've got a neighbor
| that does custom cabinetry in his 2 car garage, but that setup
| could be reproduced in a couple of containers. Not that you're
| going to put that on site at a remodel and block the street, but
| if you would doing a full housing development? And if you didn't
| need to lease space for your factory when it wasn't producing
| would that make for better economics?
| mcphage wrote:
| Glulam beams might be manufacturable on site--and it might even
| be better, since you can make very long glulam beams, but long
| beams are more expensive to ship.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| In some places in the world (like Pakistan), it is common for
| upper middle class people to have custom cabinetry in their
| homes. Usually, during house construction, the carpentry team
| shows up with the necessary cutting machines. Usually a back of
| pickup van is sufficient.
|
| Everything is cut from full sized boards as needed on site and
| installed right there.
|
| It works because wood working machinery is fairly cheap, not
| heavy and works off standard electric power.
| Animats wrote:
| There's a video of the robotic building woodworking system for
| building components.[1] (This article is from their VC firm.) The
| video is so bad that, if weren't from ABB, a legit robotics
| company, it would clearly be a scam. They never show the robot at
| work for more than 1-2 seconds at a time. It's not clear how much
| of the job it does. The video is about 90% filler - quick cuts,
| talking heads, scenery. It's not even clear what they're making.
| All they show is a robot moving some wood around.
|
| Assembling building panels with robots in factories with has been
| done, but it takes a bigger factory, because what's being made is
| large.[2] That's a legit video showing the whole process of
| making housing panels.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMC-Ls0vI14
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3al52UWoc0
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Another of the companies mentioned, Facit, has a lot more
| videos and information about their build process:
|
| https://www.facit-homes.com/building-process
| contingencies wrote:
| I visited _Re:frame Systems_ [1] in Boston last month and it
| was pretty cool to see their system which was apparently
| primarily comprised of a series of magnetic stops on an angled
| work-surface tended by a giant robotic arm. Cut to length
| lumber would be fed in on batched trolleys and the arm would
| compensate for non-square lumber while pinning individual
| pieces in place then finally nailgun them together in to a
| completed structural frame. These frames then moved flatpack-
| style to a second site in the factory for assembly then manual
| fit-out. I was quite surprised at how slow the arm was, but it
| didn't really matter because a human would likely take longer
| by the time they went up a ladder a few times, had a break, and
| took time off for weather interruptions. They had a pretty
| impressive team drawing experience from most of the larger US
| robotics applications and were moving from single level to
| double level housing, with more elaborate structures planned in
| future.
|
| [1] https://www.reframe.systems/
| octoberfranklin wrote:
| Most factories have _lots_ of utility connections to their
| equipment -- kilovolt mains power, compressed refrigerants, toxic
| waste outputs which must be chemically neutralized before
| disposal.
|
| Connecting and disconnecting these utilities requires special
| skills and doing it wrong has major consequences. Special
| licenses and permits are almost always required by government
| regulators.
|
| It's the "HVAC guy problem", writ large.
| youngtaff wrote:
| In't the size of the container a limitation?
|
| In the UK, prefab house panels can often larger than a container
| and constructed on large platforms
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