Building a home or a commercial project should be an exciting journey, a tangible representation of dreams and aspirations. However, the reality for builders is often a minefield of challenges that can turn those dreams into a headache. From fluctuating material costs to navigating complex regulations, the path to completion is rarely smooth. This blog delves into the often-hidden struggles faced by builders, shedding light on the issues that can impact project timelines, budgets, and overall quality.
The construction industry is a complex ecosystem facing a multitude of interconnected problems. This blog will explore the key challenges that builders encounter, focusing on:
1. Efficiently Specifying Materials
Builders don’t just “design pretty buildings.” And responsible for keeping up with and complying with changing building codes at a minimum and accommodating customer purchase trends in the housing market to succeed and increase delivery speeds of product samples. builders need to be able to efficiently specify the materials to be used in a build. This brings us to their next challenge.
2. Keeping up with changing technologies
BIMs, CADs, Project management tools, and sample procurement tools from third parties, manufacturers, and distributors who are all doing things a little differently (or not at all) have made digital adoption of product specification harder for builders.
Until the network effect of these SaaS technologies positioned to aid builders in their daily efforts takes root within the entire building materials ecosystem, BIMs, CADs, Project management tools, and sample procurement tools will continue to be another burden on builders’ shoulders.
3. Solving for the Affordable Housing Gap
The increased need for affordable housing builders has introduced a kink into many of their business models. For builders that historically have focused on acquiring customers building luxury and high-dollar properties in order to price based on a percentage of the estimated finished construction cost, affordable housing is simply outside the scope of their typical work.
While challenging, this is also a unique opportunity for builders to design affordable housing options and enter the market for adaptive reuse projects. This will allow them to adjust to market demands and keep their business model profitable in the years ahead.
4. Actively and deeply, listening to consumers
While not builder-centric, I would suggest that a lack of customer-centric listening by architects, builders, and building products manufacturers alike is the biggest challenge facing builders. The MO of the builder’s is to be a leader, not a follower. To follow and respond to the needs of the customer rather than to define and shape the culture is a reality builders need to grapple more with. The flattening of the industry and the decrease in “need” for a builder to be local has perpetrated an inherent sameness and level of denseness to the customer. This mindset is not helping the traditional building process stay relevant against disruption. The good news is that this challenge is one that each person can actually control. Even better is to collaboratively listen to share customers from an ecosystem mindset. Hearing what customers want versus designing for what architects think customers should want are two very different approaches. The former is what will define the success of a builder’s designs.
5. Bridging the generational gap
Mid-level architects are facing a two front battle in maintaining quality of knowledge at their firms. There is increasing loss of tribal knowledge from highly experienced senior builders and increasing naivety of entry level builders to the operations of the builder world. As mid-level architects work to capture as much experience and wisdom from retiring builders, they are simultaneously tasked with training and managing the fresh ones. It doesn’t help that most manufacturers do not have product information neatly organized or organized in any consistent way, so architects must find their own ways to organize product information. Reducing the number of mistakes new architects make and reducing the amount of time to competency.
Conclusion
The life of a builder is a tapestry woven with threads of creativity, precision, and resilience. While the profession offers immense rewards, it also presents significant challenges that require attention and action. By acknowledging these issues and working collaboratively towards solutions, we can create a more sustainable and fulfilling environment for architects, ultimately leading to designs that enrich our communities.
