This blog explores the growing business opportunities for BuildUSA, the Prototype Initiative, and Optimized Building
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Change has always presented a double-edged sword. On the one hand, change offers great opportunities to those willing to embrace innovation. On the other hand, change imposes limitations and hardships on those who are unable to adapt. Change is coming straight toward the building industry. Companies unable to adapt will go out of business, while those properly positioned will reap large rewards.
Several of the challenges and opportunities have already been presented earlier in many earlier Build Blog (BB) posts.
As of 2023, there are 3,759,710 (Ibis World) businesses directly affiliated with the building industry. These businesses include material suppliers, distributors, contractors, architects, engineers, and specialty consultants. Each project that these companies are involved in features a different project team with its own unique demands, standards, and workflows, and siloed knowledge. This is the typical situation in today’s building industry, and this situation creates serious questions that these companies (if they are paying attention) need to address:
1. What will the future look like?
2. How should they position their company and the services they provide?
3. How will future project teams be run and managed and what do they have to do internally to be prepared?
4. What are the types of investments they need to make today to be ready for this uncertain future?
5. What will business and client relationships look like?
6. What type of building solutions will the market be requiring 5, 10, 20 years from now?
Only the most forward-thinking companies have seriously examined these questions and are actively pursuing solutions. The other 95% of the market simply do not have the capacity to figure out a game plan – or, frankly, have not been able to formulate the questions in the first place.
BuildUSA can provide you with a clear vision of Building’s future and help set you up for success.
Viewed from a 30,000-foot level, BuildUSA is an organization that will:
1. Reach out to ALL the building organizations and market a clear vision of what the industry will look like and why.
2. Describe how the industry will operate to create and manage the future built environment.
3. Describe in specifics how each party in the industry needs to position itself to succeed in a rapidly changing business environment.
4. Provide tools, standards, templates, and workflows for the building market.
5. Offer consulting on the organizational shifts required to stay competitive and successful.
Coming down a bit to the 20,000-foot level, BuildUSA services and products are divided into three divisions: Research, Process, and Execution.
1. Research
There has been extensive research performed to date to create the current BuildUSA capabilities. Talks are active with two universities to explore creating a private-public partnership to perform research in three specific areas:
1. Building, data aggregation, data structure, and data analytics
2. Construction Assembly Module design and fabrication and the intervening connections
3. New building materials and the application to Optimized Building.
2. Process
To date, BuildUSA has invested extensively in this area to create the BCE and the STWs required to provide the tools that will allow BUSA to complete its mission. As the “Execution” division of BuildUSA implements Buildings OAB #1-#3, the BCE and supporting STWs will be used extensively by the CIPO group, BUSA-Chicago, to implement the project. The current technology has gone through “proof of concept” testing. In analyzing the current BuildUSA technology, leadership is confident that:
a. The technology is sufficiently tested and robust enough to successfully produce OABs #1-#3. Further, by the time OAB #3 is complete, the BCE business and technology infrastructure will be robust enough to commercially market and scale.
These improvements are the necessary next step in the technological development of the BCE and STWs. The ultimate goal is to commercialize and share the technology with growing numbers of CIPO groups around the country as well as individual building companies looking to properly position themselves for the fast-arriving future.
3. Execution
This category refers to designing and executing Optimized Buildings. Based on our market analysis and extensive experience within the healthcare sector, our initial focus will be on the Optimized Ambulatory Building. BuildUSA, through its business relationship with Syntec Group and other strategic partners, has strong relationships with existing hospitals and healthcare systems. We’ve already begun conversations with these organizations to be strategic client #1 and to develop a future pipeline for business.
Moving down to the 10,000-foot level, the BUSA vision becomes focused on very specific services and products that will be introduced during our first three years. The interim goals during this 3-year roll out will be multifold:
1. Create CIPO group #1, BUSA-Chicago, and implement Optimized Buildings #1 – #3. In the process, clarify the rules of engagement for CIPO groups to ensure future CIPO groups can scale up operations significantly and continue to improve quality and efficiency.
2. Stress test the BCE environment and all STWs in the design and development of OABs #1 – #3. The real-life projects will ensure the current proof of concept work will be fully tested and the current STWs can be modified, corrected, and expanded to ensure they are all commercially ready to be dramatically scaled by year 4.
3. Fully develop the design of the first Optimized Building Prototype, the “Optimized Ambulatory Building.” The design solution will include:
a. The CAMs that can be fully integrated into the design given the current strategic partners and marketplace.
b. The design options that are reasonable to offer the marketplace and that can be supported by the Optimized Building process.
4. Develop the core set of strategic partnerships required to execute the first three buildings and be prepared to have the partnerships in place to scale the enterprise with other CIPO groups.
5. Develop and market a growing pipeline of services and products to clients interested in Optimized Building. This will include clients for the OAB as well as clients interested in developing other Optimized Building prototypes.
The goal at the end of the 3-year roll out period is that the CIPO business relationships, BCE technology workflows, and Scalability and Optimized Building protocols will be sufficiently tested and robust to allow a full-scale roll out of BUSA, The Prototype Initiative, and Optimized Building to both regional and national markets.