In the first of our Industry Reset interviews we spoke with Head of Industrialised Construction Strategy and Evangelism at Autodesk, Amy Marks.
Known to many as the Queen of Prefab in her previous role as CEO of XSite Modular, Amy helped define the language and processes adopted in prefabrication around the world. At Autodesk, she is defining product and corporate strategy around design for manufacturing and assembly, prefabrication and advanced building methods like automation and robotics. She is also heavily involved in educating the wider industry in Industrial Construction strategy.
We start off our interview talking about the impact of COVID19 and the opportunities we should be exploring including the potential of DfMA beyond COVID and what strategic change really looks like.
How has your role and area of focus been impacted by the pandemic? How do you see things have changed and developed?
I think we have already seen a convergence of industries within the (AECO) ecosystem, including process within the ecosystem and workflows prior to COVID.
But I think this pressure now, that COVID has put on us, has just heightened the need for more convergence, to make all of this easier for our customers, the rest of the ecosystem and for anyone that’s really trying to do more with less under these circumstances.
When asked how she sees things differently in the States compared to the rest of the world Amy raises the point that we’ve all been forced to change our behaviours. And really, that’s been the biggest barrier in our way all along.
I think what’s going on now is unprecedented. However, no new technology was invented in the last six months that I can really point to. It’s really our behaviour and the way in which we’re using the technology that already exists that has changed.
And I think that’s good. It showed us that we are much more resilient than we thought. That we have much better tools than we thought. And, that we could change our behaviour, even though we thought we couldn’t.
A great example, one of my friends owns a company, he didn’t believe they could go paperless for sign offs. He’d been trying to do it for three years. And, within three days of COVID, somehow, they’re doing it. That’s not a change in technology in three days. That’s not a change in anything other than their own behaviour.
We have a well-documented skills shortage and need to create a more diverse industry. With all the upheaval in the world and a push for people to reskill do you see this as an opportunity for people coming into the sector?
If you’re using Industrialised Construction, you have an advantage. You get people that want to work with their hands, want to work with technology, you get people that want to be physical, you get people that can be in a lot of different places.
We’re not figuring out how to reach into the universities that are there. But beyond young people, we’re not figuring out how to reach out into the ecosystem and the other industries that have diversity that could support us. And by the way, like you said, right now these people need jobs, we should be scooping them up by the handfuls, we should be grabbing every single person we can find.
There are plenty of women and people of colour and diverse backgrounds that are my age, or in that 20 to 45-year-old range, that would want to get into our industry, or that don’t even know about us. That’s who we should be targeting. There are plenty of women that come back from family leave, that we could be targeting to get into our space. But we don’t. And we’re focusing more on like the 20-year future, we don’t have time for that, you’re basically rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic at that point. And it’s not because I want to see a woman sitting across the table. I want to see diversity of thought, diversity of thought is good for business. That’s the answer, right?
So, tell us about our journey towards industrialised construction?
If you do things differently every single time, you just can’t really get better at doing it. We’re lacking certainty and predictability – you don’t get the savings without getting the certainty first.
And I think the issue is that we move very slowly in our space, with jobs taking a long time. But what’s worse is that we haven’t moved from a project lead mindset to a product lead mindset to create certainty.
If you are a subcontractor you need to productize, if you’re a designer you need to use those products in your design, you get to ask for products. And if you’re an owner, you have to demand that people, utilise these products and your playbook and the way in which you design and build your building. Because if you want to get transformational, you can’t act the same and think you’re going to get dramatically different results. Right? That doesn’t happen.
How much of the industry do you see moving towards industrialised construction? And how could this model help create a more resilient sector?
It’s interesting. I mean, McKinsey, you’ve obviously read the new normal, and they’re saying 45% of the practices in the AEC space are going to shift towards industrialised construction. Mostly towards pieces and parts, by the way, I think volumetric modules follow that.
That’s interesting, it’s future based, and they’re saying the next 15 years. But if you look in the last three years, there’s a study just out by dodge that said, nearly two thirds of general contractors are already having experience with multi-trade assemblies and around three quarters of subcontractors have experience with multi-trade assembly.
I just did a talk where it was mostly US based, but they were a bunch of subcontractors and almost all of them that had heavy fab said that COVID has barely touched their business. If anything, some of them are doing better. Crazy, huh? You know why? Because now they’re more like a brewery that can pivot and make hand sanitiser instead of alcohol. Because they were decoupled from the on-site process, they were able to keep working and keep their workforce and they don’t need as many people because they’re working in their fab shops. So, they’re putting that skilled labour where they need it. And they’re training everybody else to do specific tasks within that shop. And because of that, they’re also getting a diverse work population.
So how do we encourage industry to change it’s behaviours and embrace changes without the call for a global pandemic?
There’s a book called It Starts with One; changing individuals changes organizations. And it basically talks about successful people, their thought process and how everything they do is based on some success they had at some point.
I talked to lots of multi-billion-dollar companies and they talk about their processes, how they got here, why they’re multi billion dollars, and they often ask why do we have to change?
The answer is that the environment has changed, the technology has changed, the labour force has changed, everything around you has changed. You can’t keep doing what you used to do that used to be the right thing to do, even if you did it really well. Because now they are doing the wrong thing, they just do it well, which is why their margins are really small. So, they have to switch to doing the new right thing. And then getting that right. First, you do that poorly and then you do it really well, which is why there’s a learning curve.
I always say you don’t have to evolve, as a company you could cease to exist. You don’t have to listen, but you also don’t have to, you know, survive. It’s up to you. And by the way, you better recognise that there are a lot of companies that haven’t changed, that aren’t here anymore.
When we talk about automating processes often the challenge of employment is raised. Concerns of killing of jobs. What do you say to those people? And to those not willing, for whatever reason, to adapt or change right now?
I’m laughing, I’m like, who’s flush with labour right now that has great skilled labour? ‘Take your job’, I find it to be the most ridiculous excuse ever. This is about people not wanting to change. It’s like, I don’t have enough labour but, I don’t want to do automation that needs less labour. What you just said, you don’t have enough labour. But it’s mind boggling, right? This is the circular reference of people that don’t want to change, right?
We don’t buy any kind of technology in our personal lives that wouldn’t be obsolete within two years. Right? Look at anything you buy right now, you’re like, uh, what’s the next upgrade? But somehow, we are refusing to evolve to new change in technology and digitisation in our ecosystem. That makes no sense, right?
For example, the Autodesk construction cloud, I’m sure a few years ago, when people were like, we’re moving to the cloud, there were a lot of naysayers. What are they saying now? How would you have dealt with the situation right now if you weren’t on the cloud? How are you going to not stop doing business, if you don’t have a seamless integration of things like BIM 360, from design to construction. You wouldn’t be able to function.
And I’m not saying that because I work at Autodesk. I’m saying that because that’s what the clients are saying to us and I’m new here. I’ve only been in for eight months and I’ve heard when COVID happened, so many stories of where people wouldn’t be able to work unless we were in the cloud and didn’t have these tools to connect us to design, construction, and operation. You just wouldn’t exist. If you are questioning getting digitised at this point, that’s like saying, I should just run outside into a giant crowd without a mask. It’s not that safe right now, regardless of what you think or know or believe. It certainly wouldn’t be the behaviour I would encourage my 12-year-old.
What advice would you give to those looking to adopt new technologies or processes?
Here’s some good advice for digitisation: you’re making an investment for the long term. You should think about who’s been around for a long time, and who owns the majority of a stack, because you want to have seamless connection and integration. And you need to not only have product portfolio that is connected, you need somebody who’s focusing on the future of a connected platform. So that other things you might want to use, some small sliver of some other cool app or some other cool software, it can talk with this other big platform. You want somebody who is set up for that today, and somebody who can project into the future that we’re working towards.
I explain it like this, if you were designing a garage for your car, right now, let’s say you have Company A and Company B, maybe Company A makes a slightly nicer garage right now. But Company B really understands the future and their design is going to also enable your personal flying device. Company A has no concept of personal flying. You go to pick between Company A and Company B; do you want to pick the company that builds your garage to enable in the future your personal flying device and anything else that’s coming down the pike, so you don’t have to rebuild a garage one day where you’re stuck out in the cold?
That’s what you want to think about for digitization. You need to get digitised and work with companies that are thinking about tomorrow. This convergence of industry, of process, of work, of how we move more make and operate information up into design so we can do more DfMA and prefabrication. You need to put your money on that horse, because that’s the horse that A is going to be around and B is going to get you where you’ve got to go next, even if you don’t know what next is.