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Is there a better way to construct buildings?
We believe the answer is “YES” and at ZURU we plan to change the way we design and build forever.
All great ideas need a key competitive advantage to be successful. At Walmart it was to stack product high and take less margin. McDonalds simplified the menu and created mass production of fast food, reducing prices and waiting times. The shipping container standardised freight, sped up loading and unloading times and increased security. Every business model that changed the world had at least one key competitive advantage. We aim to have several.
Our goal is to design and manufacture any size of building from 1 floor to 80 floors and any style of building from a town house, hospital, office tower, school, apartment block and more, while still meeting the building codes in each country. We want to produce buildings for less than 10% of the cost in western markets and less than 50% in developing nations. Everything we do and think about is how to create customised buildings, disrupt the current cost structure and make the highest quality product in the world.
To achieve our goals, we need to change the way we think about manufacturing, and it starts with Mass Production.
The production line remains one of the most important concepts. There’s no more effective way to create scale, quality and cost reduction than the moving production line developed in the early 20th century.
On December 1, 1913, Henry Ford installed the first moving assembly line for the mass production of an entire automobile. His innovation reduced the man hours it took to build a car from over 1000 hours in 1907 to 1 hour 33 minutes by 1924.
The factory was divided into sections, each assembling a single part of the car in an incremental building process. The Ford factory eventually featured 500 departments in its assembly line. Each department had well defined jobs that a person could quickly become an expert in, allowing them to do the job faster and at a higher standard. This resulted in higher quality cars, more efficient production and the highest salaries in the industry.
As Ford worked to improve the assembly line he noticed that he could bring 100s of downstream processes like stamping, moulding and upholstery right onto the line itself, precisely where the part was needed. This avoided producing the part in another factory or in another building - saving transport time, decreasing reject parts and reducing human movements, allowing for even greater efficiency savings.
At the time the moving production line, vertical integration and the division of work into small repeatable tasks was the single biggest breakthrough in Human efficiency, making Henry Ford the most successful businessman in history.
ZURU is applying these same moving production line concepts in our building project today, as well as the concepts of just-in-time and lean manufacturing developed by Toyota in the 1980's and the speed of innovation concepts developed by Elon Musk in Tesla and SpaceX today.
However, we are going ONE STEP FURTHER. In manufacturing - to produce at the lowest cost, create high quality and scale quickly - it’s best to standardise the product and process. BUT a building is not like a car, electronic device or toy where a single product can be made which covers a large market application. Ideally, every building is unique and this requires flexibility in the design, production and onsite assembly.
This demand for uniqueness and individuality has meant we’re changing the way we think about production. ZURU is building the factory of the future - a fully flexible facility capable of producing every part uniquely.
There are many aspects of a building that require uniqueness. These include Structural Design (for example taking account of specific soil substrate and geotechnical measurements, foundations, formwork, concrete cover, rebar size and location, ductility, live and dead load requirements, earthquake mitigation, flexure and shear strength), Layout (including sun orientation, building use, floor plan, site size, ground contour, fire access, building services, height restrictions, floor levels) and Aesthetics (surface finishes, windows, lights, heating, ventilation and air con etc).
Flexibility means that all parts of the end product need to be customisable. This is the only way to meet the requirements of architects, structural engineers, the region’s building code and, most importantly, the building’s owner. This is an extremely difficult problem and no one has attempted to resolve it at the level required for success.
We are creating the world’s first factory at scale where every part flowing through the production line is unique. Traditional production lines have pre-set control paths for standardised components. At ZURU the control paths are created in real time for non-standardised components using a digital twin. As the component moves through each station it becomes unique to the customer’s requirements, allowing complete flexibility in the final product.
This concept allows us to produce customised buildings that meet an individual customer’s needs cost-effectively. In essence allowing us to mass produce a ‘lot size of one’, while still using the efficiencies discovered by Henry Ford and Toyota. To solve the flexibility issue at ZURU we are using Mass Production coupled with Mass Customisation.
The problem with Mass Customisation is implementation. It’s extremely difficult to execute and complicates every part of the product design and production process by many orders of magnitude. For most products mass customisation would be close to impossible. For example a car or an electronic device is extremely complex. Even if they were simpler it would still not make sense to add more complexity into the production process because it’s already possible to produce a high number of standardised products for a large market sector. Fortunately, buildings are made of simple elements with few materials, making it an ideal industry to implement Mass Customisation. Not only is it the industry that needs Mass Customisation the most, but it’s also the easiest industry in which to achieve it.
The question of 3D printing: People often ask about 3D printing and whether it can solve the flexibility issue. Definitely, 3D printing has its place in many applications, but we believe it’s not the correct path for mass production of buildings. Among the many reasons is the difficulty of integration of other elements such as structure, building services, floors, surface finishes, windows, etc. Further, it’s too slow and expensive to set up, only the cheapest part of the structure is being produced, it’s inaccurate, has a poor-quality finish and creates a thermal bridge. We believe 3D printing will not be a meaningful way to mass produce buildings in the next 100 years.
For us the only way to achieve our goal is through mass production coupled with mass customisation, and then optimising the factory for speed and density followed by massive scale.
One of the difficult problems with mass customisation, which is further compounded by the product being assembled on a building site far away from the factory, is Quality Control.
We aim to solve this by replacing manual inspection processes with AI-powered vision systems to reduce manufacturing errors and accurately control the quality of each unique component. By applying machine learning algorithms, we can detect errors immediately, rather than at later stages in production or onsite where repair work is much more expensive. This AI quality control approach is essential with mass customisation, as shown in our ZURU test factory where the floor operators are not aware of what part or process is being produced at each station, ruling out any type of manual quality control.
We strongly believe and have proven in our test factory that we have a manufacturing path to make customised buildings successfully. There is still the issue of designing the building, sending the parts to the factory and making sure those parts can be formed into the building on site. To do this we are integrating software throughout the process.
Steve Jobs of Apple is well known for his product-focused strategy and push for simplicity, closely integrating software and hardware, so they “just work.”
At the same time, while other companies like Microsoft were taking a more open approach, Apple was taking end-to-end responsibility for the user experience making for far more compelling products.
The building industry is fragmented. It’s one of the least integrated industries in the world and because of this it is also one of the most frustrating and costly for customers. We’re striving for similar software and hardware integration and the kind of user experience that Apple brought to their customers with the iMac, iPod and iPhone.
Our guiding principle is Simplicity - not merely making something simple for simplicity’s sake, but really understanding the essence of the entire product, the complexities of its engineering and its manufacturing process and deciphering how to de-clutter the complexity to come up with elegant solutions.
To follow in Steve Jobs’ footsteps and create an end-to-end solution we are developing software we call Dreamcatcher. It is a total collaboration between our designers, product developers, engineers and the manufacturing team to tie the hardware into a user experience that is simple and seamless for our customers.
Dreamcatcher is free-to-use software allowing anyone to design buildings anywhere in the world, then send their unique design to the factory where our manufacturing operations software creates a digital twin of each component. It then schedules and advances the component through the factory. Dreamcatcher eliminates communication and customer interactions to reduce mistakes and allow product customisation. Everything can be designed uniquely to fit the building site, the local Building Codes and local geotechnical conditions.
The Building Codes for each region in the world are embedded so that the software can provide guidance on local compliance, and then automatically create data sheets for building approvals.
There is an inbuilt structural module allowing Finite Element Modelling for Earthquakes, live loads and dead loads. A local structural engineer can work directly with the architect and customer within the software to approve the building structurally.
Professionals and customers will be able to collaborate with each other in a real time community. They can plan the building and schedule final assembly with other professionals in one application, allowing for complete integration of the entire building process.
Additionally, there is a built-in store where architects and designers can sell their building designs and ideas. External companies can plug in their products to sell within Dreamcatcher.
A carbon rating can be calculated, letting you understand the total carbon footprint of the building in production and during its entire life cycle. Reducing the carbon footprint is critical for us and making it transparent for our customers is a key priority.
The software has real-time pricing so that you can see the cost as you design: Change a surface finish and the cost changes. Add a door and the cost changes. This feature allows for full pricing transparency. A simple checkout process allows you to choose a delivery schedule and payment plan.
Once the checkout is finalised Dreamcatcher combines the components in the best shipping layout for freight efficiency and ease of onsite assembly. It then queues the components for production so they move through the factory in the correct pack out and assembly order.
When your building components arrive at your building site an assembly and planning application are created for easy on-site assembly. The building contractor can follow step-by-step instructions using QR codes to make sure the parts are assembled correctly, then run quality control software on the electrical and building services.
The software module also schedules in other trades, allowing them to plan jobs while not holding up the building schedule.
Once the house is complete you can run Dreamcatcher’s Home Automation Software to control and manage the building.
Dreamcatcher is at the heart of everything we do. At ZURU we have more software engineers than all other engineers combined! Our intention is to change the way we view construction - making it a simple, transparent end-to-end experience and ultimately result in a much more affordable and compelling product.
Finally, to maximise the potential of the ZURU Factory and Dreamcatcher Software we need Good Product Design.
Elon Musk has been a huge inspiration for us as we have formulated our goals and vision. The way his companies are reinventing business models by continually focusing on the speed of innovation is incredible. This mind set has led to vertical integration, first principle thinking, a focus to cut waste, a team of problem solvers and hard work. If it speeds up the innovation cycle his team will implement the process and it has led to unstoppable product focused companies like Tesla & SpaceX
Throughout our company we think about everything Elon does, starting with Product Design. We want to ensure that the design and materials chosen are cost effective, plentiful, have a path to zero carbon, can be manufactured at scale, shipped without breakage, easily assembled, meet building codes and meet the level of customisation we require.
There are three key Customisation Focuses in our Product Design Philosophy:
The first is Meeting the Different Building Codes from around the world. Our compliance team is continually databasing these. There are thousands of building codes in each country, and we’re ranking them (from strictest to least strict) by region, allowing our product design team to understand what product and customisation is required.
Second, we are making sure that the Different Components Integrate Together. It’s easy to design a single known building, but we need to find simple solutions to the challenge of integrating the building components seamlessly together, while still having positional flexibility to design the custom-made and unique building required by the customer.
The third focus is Aesthetics. Every building owner wants to tailor the look and feel of their building to their individual tastes. We are working on fully customisable surface finishes, fully flexible window designs and building services designs - all able to be physically recreated on the factory floor. If you can touch it or see it, we’re making it customisable to your tastes and needs.
These three factors coupled with creating a product that can be manufactured at scale bring significant complications for our product design team. We are making great progress towards our goal of a fully customisable, environmentally friendly product - one where you’ll be able to design and produce any size or type of building you wish.
The Environment is also a huge and important driver for our product design teams. Currently the construction sector creates 39% of the world’s carbon emissions - through raw material mining and processing, construction and during the operational life of the building. Having a path to zero carbon in all three areas is critical. We believe for the world to meet its carbon goals the building industry will be one of the most important sectors to be disrupted and changed positively. We are building our factory to have zero water, air and ground pollution and have the challenging goal of doing the same for the down-stream raw material processes – With this ZURU plans to lead the charge to zero carbon.
Critically, the product design team also focus on quality and cost. We know these are extremely important factors in purchasing decisions. In everything we do, Cost and Quality are at the forefront of all our decision making.
At ZURU we follow some Key Principles in everything we do - allowing us to integrate every part of our company, solve problems, fail faster and create a performance culture. Below are some of these key ideas.
To innovate faster and reduce costs we are implementing extreme vertically integration. We are following in the footsteps of industrial titans of old like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford as well as the modern-day Elon Musk. This includes end-to-end Integration of the entire building process, from Product Design and Software, through to Manufacturing and Onsite Assembly.
We are focusing on how each atom moves from the raw material mine to the end consumer and how to make this process as efficient as possible. We design, build, code, assemble and test every part of the product and process in-house. Vertical integration allows us to innovate faster and integrate ideas without waste and with reduced cost. It allows us to make decisions at all levels of the company. If it's core to the business - we do it ourselves and we become the best in the world at doing it.
Automation is central to what we aim to achieve. We want to minimise the need for communication and human intervention in all processes, reducing the communication steps required, as well as automating the physical factory and onsite assembly. It’s effectively thinking of the entire process as a production line from customer to final product and trying to eliminate all waste in between. How do you reduce human labour to zero? Obviously that’s not possible but everyday at ZURU that’s exactly what we are aiming to do.
Coupled with Vertical Innovation and Automation are our internal ‘Speed of Innovation’ rules. This is a measurement of our ability to innovate and the speed we do it at. The rules we follow are ‘Vision’, ‘Leadership’, ‘Talent Density’, ‘Experts Leading Experts’, ‘Waste Elimination’, ‘Vertical Integration’, ‘Simplicity’, ‘Specialists not Generalists’, ‘168 hours in a Week’, ‘First Principle Thinking’ and ‘Performance Culture’.
At ZURU we’re really excited to change the way we build forever. Our offices in Italy (Milan, Modena), China (Shenzhen, Dongguan and Huizhou), India (Ahmedabad, Kolkata), USA (Los Angeles) and New Zealand (Auckland) are working to do this every day. We have over 400 engineers and designers working in over 900,000 square feet of research and development space.
If you’re interested in joining our team, we are looking for Engineers, Designers and Problem Solvers from all industries. We are looking for people who want to join a performance culture of hard work and team work. Come help us make the future brighter and the world a better place.
Come build with ZURU.