Construction Business Review

ManufactOn
The Offsite Construction Software Platform

Raghi Iyengar, Founder & CEO and Michael Clark, Director of Marketing, ManufactOnRaghi Iyengar, Founder & CEO and Michael Clark, Director of Marketing
Lego’s interlocking plastic brick game is the perfect exemplar of a modular building system. Block by block, one plastic brick at a time, Lego shows how simple, miniature pieces can be strategically conjoined to build complex structures of immense grandeur and scale. Extending this ideology into the mainstream construction industry, Massachusetts-based Manufacton was born. The company enables construction firms to set up factories by shipping volumetric modular pieces of the building to the job-site and affixing them just like Lego blocks. Raghi Iyengar, the founder and CEO of Manufacton says, “In an era where construction firms have to abide by an ever-shrinking timeline, this kind of manufacturing does not only meet the fast-paced construction needs but also leads to a dramatic drop in construction waste.”

Complementing this innovative approach to construction, Manufacton enables its clients to plan, track, and optimize their prefabricated assemblies, kits, and materials. Through these services, Manufacton provides greater visibility, collaboration and insights throughout the entire construction process. For general contractors, Manufacton delivers real-time insight into the supply chain of their trade contractors. What parts and assemblies are where, are they on time, and are there any issues that need to be elevated. For Trade and subcontractors, the company offers the ability to manage production processes at a more granular level—what needs to be coordinated, detailed, fabricated, shipped and installed to meet the project deadlines.

“We are becoming a strong catalyst for the advancement of the construction industry but also being able to see the transformation first-hand,” mentions Iyengar.

At the core of these competencies is Manufacton’s Cloud-based (mobile/web) SaaS platform. Unlike other organizations that need to continually follow up with their clients through phone calls, emails, and text messages, Manufacton’s platform provides a dedicated channel to construction firms for real-time updates and opens up new routes of communication that facilitate a greater level of collaboration. “We leverage APIs to integrate with customers’ workflows and other data; eliminating silos and improving efficiency. Integrating with design platforms, project management systems, document management solutions, and accounting ERP software enables Manufacton to be an end-to-end offsite production platform,” asserts Iyengar.

When it comes to implementing the platform, “Our goal is to become a trusted member of our customers' team. Their success is our success. We are a strategic partner that seeks to understand our customers’ goals and needs more than a mere software vendor,” says Jason Barber, vice president of Industry Solutions and Strategy at Manufacton. He cites a case scenario where one of its clients’ top-notch design and the manufacturing team wanted to bring visible changes for their construction processes in Chicago. Manufacton assisted the client in their transformation; worked with them carefully to understand their design platform. “Through our collaboration, the client was able to expedite their workflow in terms of deploying and setting up the architectural modules for their ongoing projects—apartments, hotels, clinics, and other buildings—seamlessly,” says Barber.

Integrating with design platforms, project management systems, document management solutions, and accounting ERP software enables Manufacton to be an end-toend offsite production platform

Like this instance, Manufacton is the driving force behind many other construction firms, assisting them to scale their offerings and gain efficiency at a rapid scale. As a company that is continually improving and adding to its portfolio of solutions and services, Manufacton has no plans of slowing down. “We are a trusted advisor in the construction sector and will continue to improve our offerings and focus on new areas of the industry. We strive to be the catalyst to build it safer, faster, and cheaper with higher quality and less waste,” concludes Barber.