Industrializing Construction Sites

Seven lost tenders in a row, and none of them lost on their core strengths.
But lost on Security, logistics, data, waste, access, ESG: everything the client now demands is about the construction site. 
Marianne, second-generation CEO of a growing contractor, hires Thomas, a CFO from the freight industry, and he asks one annoying question again and again: “How is that actually different from what we’re already doing at headquarters?” Against him stand the silverbacks, the experienced project directors who insist that every site is unique. Through design, the gate, waste, the canteen and the US Army’s base in a box, Ulrik explores why a contractor’s best people should spend their time building, not running the site. And why the answer might be sitting in a LEGO box on Marianne’s desk.

About the series
Industrialising the Construction Site explores how construction is being industrialised on two fronts: the products, and the site itself. New episodes follow the thread from the problem to the solutions.

Host: Ulrik Branner, founder of SiteHub and and 13 years in construction
🔗 Follow Ulrik on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ulrikbranner
🏗️ SiteHub: sitehub.dk

Sources and figures mentioned in the episodes are available on request. The views expressed are the host’s own.

If you work on a construction site, I’d love to hear from you: how many minutes an hour are really spent building on yours?

Episode 3: Monday and Tuesday

Same electrician, same pay, two construction sites. On Monday, Mads queues at the gate, carries cable up the stairs and argues about whose waste it is. On Tuesday, the site simply works. Through security, logistics, cleaning and lunch, Ulrik shows what an industrialised site process actually looks like, and why the better site wins the race for skilled workers.

So in this episode you get a practical insight on how the Process can be improved.

About the series
Industrialising the Construction Site explores how construction is being industrialised on two fronts: the products, and the site itself. New episodes follow the thread from the problem to the solutions.

Host: Ulrik Branner, founder of SiteHub and and 13 years in construction
🔗 Follow Ulrik on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ulrikbranner
🏗️ SiteHub: sitehub.dk

Sources and figures mentioned in the episodes are available on request. The views expressed are the host’s own.

If you work on a construction site, I’d love to hear from you: how many minutes an hour are really spent building on yours?

Episode 2: Two mornings
Six in the morning. Sakura, at a Toyota plant, builds for about 45 minutes of every hour. Mads, an electrician on a site outside Aarhus, manages about 20. Same skill, same will, two different worlds. Ulrik digs into where Mads’s minutes go, and answers the classic objection, “but we’re not a factory”, with an airport and a metro built at record speed.

About the series
Industrialising the Construction Site explores how construction is being industrialised on two fronts: the products, and the site itself. New episodes follow the thread from the problem to the solutions.

Host: Ulrik Branner, founder of SiteHub and and 13 years in construction
🔗 Follow Ulrik on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ulrikbranner
🏗️ SiteHub: sitehub.dk

Sources and figures mentioned in the episodes are available on request. The views expressed are the host’s own.

If you work on a construction site, I’d love to hear from you: how many minutes an hour are really spent building on yours?

Episode 1: The thesis of the two fronts
Prefab, modules and factories have promised to transform construction for decades, and the graveyard of failed attempts is long. In this first episode, Ulrik sets out the thesis behind the series: construction is being industrialised on two independent fronts, the product and the process, moving at two very different speeds. And the overlooked one may matter most.

About the series
Industrialising the Construction Site explores how construction is being industrialised on two fronts: the products, and the site itself. New episodes follow the thread from the problem to the solutions.

Host: Ulrik Branner, founder of SiteHub and and 13 years in construction
🔗 Follow Ulrik on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ulrikbranner
🏗️ SiteHub: sitehub.dk

Sources and figures mentioned in the episodes are available on request. The views expressed are the host’s own.

If you work on a construction site, I’d love to hear from you: how many minutes an hour are really spent building on yours?

Afsnit 2 – To morgener Klokken er seks om morgenen.

Sakura træder hen til sin station på en af Toyotas fabrikker i Japan. Mads møder ind som elektriker på en byggeplads uden for Aarhus. Sakura bygger i omkring 45 minutter af hver time, Mads i omkring 20. Ikke fordi han er mindre dygtig, men fordi systemet omkring ham er et andet.

I dette afsnit går jeg et skridt dybere i tesen om industrialiseringen af byggepladsen. Hvor stort er problemet, og kan det overhovedet løses? Jeg tager de klassiske indvendinger én for én: “Vi er ikke en fabrik”, “Vi er ikke en lufthavn” og “Vi bygger ikke en metro”.

Undervejs fortæller jeg om Toyota, om Københavns Lufthavn, hvor jeg selv blev uddannet, og om Madrids metro, et af Bent Flyvbjergs yndlingseksempler.

Pointen er enkel: Ingen byggeplads ligger det samme sted to gange. Men måden, vi driver den på, behøver ikke at blive opfundet forfra hver gang.

I næste afsnit: Hvad er industrialiserede pladsprodukter og pladsprocesser?

Ulrik Branner er stifter af SiteHub og har brugt de sidste 13 år i byggeriet.

Hans tese er, at byggeriet industrialiseres på to fronter. Den ene er produktet: præfab, moduler, fabrikken. Den anden er processen: selve byggepladsen drevet som et samlebånd.

Den første front har efterladt en kirkegård af fejlslagne fabrikker. Den anden er knap begyndt, og den behøver ikke vente på den første. Fra romerske legioner til japanske husfabrikker ridses fronterne op for at spørge lytteren, om Industrialiseringen af byggeriet kan ske uafhængigt på begge fronter.