major energy corporations such as
Energy Transfer and Duke Energy,
defense contractors, construction firms,
and all branches of the US military.
After the defense budget decreased
in 2012, Shang retooled the business plan
once again. Relying on lessons learned
from building military training structures,
Shang and his engineering team applied
that knowledge to other industries,
eventually developing standardized
products for industrial, office, and
workforce living needs. Shang’s strategy
shift toward product standardization
was revolutionary, as the container
structure industry traditionally focused
only on custom solutions.
When Falcon Structures moved into
the shipping container-based structures
market, it started from the perspective
of a manufacturer, not a construction
company. While on a scale much smaller
than a company like Katerra, Falcon
also vertically integrated its design and
manufacturing capabilities. At Falcon,
projects exist in a virtual environment
throughout the sales and design cycle
and are only printed on paper when a job
starts in the factory. That will change
soon, too.
Jobs move through production using
a Kanban view in Salesforce® where
managers can see exactly how much
revenue is in each production stage at any
time. Quality control checks are captured
in an online tool providing a real-time
understanding of how production is doing.
The near-term future goes a step
further. Using Wi-Fi networks throughout
the factory, smart devices will be attached
to each shipping container in production.
Using Salesforce®, managers can see
exactly who’s clocked in to each job. Cost
and gross margin information will be
available daily. Inventory is updated as
it’s used. The production staff will be able
to see how they’re doing against labor
budgets. Jobs that are blocked due to lack
of material or lack of labor get flagged
for immediate attention. As soon as a job
completes one stage, the workers at the
next stage will know when a job—and the
materials for a job—are available.
Perhaps the most striking difference
27
that Industry 4.0 is bringing to Falcon
Structures and other companies like it
is in the personnel department. While
employees can never truly be replaced
by automated systems, and while those
systems still need manpower to operate
them, the automation does not come
at the cost of additional personnel.
In the modular construction industry
that Falcon Structures operates in, this
is extremely important because the
promise of increased productivity doesn’t
get realized if all of the associated costs
go up as well.
Ultimately, the changes that are
coming with this new industrial revolution
are going to be both dramatic and
widespread. Unfortunately, predicting
where that trajectory of changes might
lead to is just as difficult as it was during
the revolutions of the past. After all, who
could have predicted what would have
happened to the auto industry after the
invention of the assembly line when it
was first introduced? As the old saying
goes, the only thing that doesn’t change is
change itself.