Driving past construction sites today doesn’t look a lot different than in years past, but don’t let that fool you. Onsite construction is facing work being done by less qualified or inadequately trained workers, causing mistakes that require expensive rework, often at the expense of the contractor.
According to the 2022 Associated General Contractors of America Risk Survey and Report, the biggest risk faced by the onsite construction industry is the limited supply of skilled and craft workers, cited by 86% of respondents, 69% of whom are general contractors.
Onsite construction is work done in the field at the Jobsite vs. Offsite construction, is where work is completed away from the Jobsite and shipped to it for installation and completion.
Offsite construction includes factories that produce manufactured homes, modular units that can be used for residential and commercial construction, and manufactured wall panels and truss factories, just to name a few.
Offsite factories are still running at or near capacity due to their production being built out of the weather. This gives offsite factories a good place for both skilled and standard labor to work a regular schedule and not have to follow the work as onsite workers do.
In a discussion recently with several factory GMs and Owners, the turnover rate for employees, both skilled and standard, is less than 20% after the first year, while onsite construction companies can have as high as a 60% turnover rate.
The lower turnover rate in onsite construction factories means the skilled labor that builds the company’s product continues to remain on the job, and quality continues to be very good.
If an onsite worker without enough experience or training misunderstands what needs to be done, an error can be repeated many, many times before it is caught, and that leads to rework. In the offsite factory environment, those mistakes are found before the product leaves the factory floor or is shipped to the job site. Employees offsite are trained by fellow experienced employees in the production line station they are assigned.
Though not every project can be manufactured offsite in a factory, those that could be… should be!
