![]() ![]() On the other hand, strategic investments that bring applied technology and data into play to augment – not replace – community members who bring value to construction's value chain, like LP Building Solutions investment in Entekra and Saint-Gobain brand CertainTeed's strategic partnership with Bensonwood, and PulteGroup's acquisition of Jacksonville, Fla.-based ICG, and Clayton Homes' roll-up of site-built operators to flank its empire of manufactured home facilities, reflect the beliefs of that other line of thinking. Simply-put, a Silicon Valley-Wall Street financial approach to solving for residential construction's chronic, legacy-ridden challenges – exemplified in the late, great Katerra rise and demise – find the messy, real-world of complex land, money, people, materials, and time combinations harder to re-invent than their business architects initially imagine. strategic development, and operational fabric of the industry. The business has examples now of both schools of thought working their way into the capital investment. "We're leveraging our unmatched scale, industry relationships and technical knowledge combined with a technology player – Paradigm – people have worked with for years, and trust as a tech solutions provider." "We're not looking to change the way homes are built," Flitman says, asserting that the know-how among builders and their manufacturer and materials suppliers doesn't require reinventing the wheel. Homebuilding can significantly evolve and better itself, and improve and expand its capacity to provide shelter and community to people, proponents of this view assert, without starting from scratch.īuilders FirstSource ceo Dave Flitman ascribes to this school, a school committed to build on the construction community's bedrock of trusted intricate relationships, collaborations, dynamics, and a track-record of "what works," as foundation for change and improvement at scale.įlitman says as much as he offers insight in a brief conversation with The Builder's Daily into rationale for the announcement this morning that Builders FirstSource has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire building products software solutions and services provider WTS Paradigm, LLC (“Paradigm”). That makeover might best resemble a productization development diagram – simplified, streamlined, designed, and baked for accountability and efficient management – like, say, computers or even more complex physical platforms or systems.Īn alternative school of thought considers the blank-sheet-of-paper approach the equivalent of throwing the baby out with the bath water. This school of thought claims that homebuilding's end-to-end lifecycle needs a total makeover. It proposes to discard all given knowledge and wisdom as too rife with problems, cross-purposes and conflicts to be worth carrying any part of it into a new value chain. ![]() Two schools of thought crystallize around residential construction's challenge of extracting itself from the rut of too many 100-year-old practices. ![]()
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