Industrializing European Modular Construction with Pop-Up Factories

Labor and Logistics

For maximum efficiency, LECO needs to be able to get people working in the temporary factories quickly. They also need to draw from the pool of labor local to each factory. This means they can’t rely on being able to find skilled workers. Having to rely on unskilled labor requires an assembly process that is very simple and quick to learn. LECO’s factories do not cut the wood for their modules (eliminating the need for cutting machines and skilled workers to operate them). The pre-cut wood is delivered to LECO’s temporary factories for assembly.

Having a number of temporary factories, instead of one permanent one, creates logistical supply chain challenges. To address these challenges, LECO formed a dedicated supply chain division. LECO is a group of four companies, each of which has a different function: supply chain; employee training; engineering; and signing the contract with the client.

“Our supply chain company buys the wood and finds a company in the vicinity of the project who can cut it,” Jaffray explains. “We get the wood delivered to that company, and give them the files they need for their cutting machines. Then, the cut pieces are delivered to our temporary factory for assembly.”

Like McDonald's

Jaffray wants LECO to grow without becoming a huge company with high overhead. The way they’re doing this is by selling LECO licenses. “For those who buy a LECO license, we provide the engineering, we deliver the pre-cut components, and we train the employees. But they sign the contracts with their clients and employees, and they arrange for delivery and installation of the modules.”

LECO currently has two licensees in Germany and is working on getting licensees in the UK and the US. “I’m looking for people in the US who want to change the world,” Jaffray says with a laugh.

He compares his licensing business model to McDonald’s franchising. McDonald’s doesn’t have a huge factory where it manufactures Bic Macs to ship long distances to every McDonald’s restaurant. “McDonald’s franchisees hire unskilled workers locally at each restaurant. Those workers make the same products in all the different locations, using a simple process, with ingredients from the local supply chain. The restaurants in all their locations then serve the exact same products,” Jaffray says.

Recent and Upcoming Projects

Last year, in the heart of Paris, LECO built a three-story student dormitory on top of an existing three-story building. “With 400 people living within 100 meters of the construction site, there were concerns about construction noise over a long period,” Jaffray says. But LECO completed the project quickly and quietly.

For a month and a half, an exhibition hall in the north of Paris wasn’t holding any events. “So we rented the space for that period between two exhibition events,” Jaffray explains. “We spent four nights placing the modules and the maximum noise we made was briefly 80 decibels.” (According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 80 decibels is the same volume as city traffic from inside a car, and is significantly quieter than a motorcycle.)

For the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, LECO will rent space from a large trade show company to build accommodation for 100 athletes. It’ll be needed for only two months. Like all LECO modules, they can be moved afterwards and be used for other purposes.

Jaffray explains that being able to relocate buildings is a more sustainable and economical solution than building new facilities when others are under-used. For example, an area may no longer need an elementary school building, but it now needs accommodation for college students. So instead of a building standing empty or under-used at the elementary school and building new college accommodation, the building can be relocated from the elementary school to the college.

“Relocatability is especially important for social housing,” Jaffray explains. “It’s easier and quicker to get approval if the housing is permitted for a limited period of time, eight years say, rather than permanently. That means that people can be housed sooner, but still in high quality buildings.”