Building Container-Based Homes to Combat the Housing Crisis in Southern California & Beyond w/ Strategic Habitats
Building Container-Based Homes to Combat the Housing Crisis in Southern California & Beyond w/ Strategic Habitats
Cory Segall, co-founder of Southern California-based Strategic Habitats, discusses his company's approach to building shipping container-based homes, the viability of containers as a long-term housing option, and their potential for combatting the housing crisis in San Diego, across the state of California, and beyond.
John McMullen
Hello, and welcome to Inside Modular: The Podcast of Commercial Modular Construction, brought to you by the Modular Building Institute. Welcome, everyone. My name is John McMullen. I'm the Marketing Director here at MBI. Today I'm joined by Cory Segall, co-founder of Strategic Habitats. Cory is here to talk about his company's efforts to combat the affordable housing crisis with container-based homes. Cory, welcome.
Cory Segall
Thank you glad to be here.
John McMullen
Tell me about yourself. Cory, how did you find yourself in the modified container business and how did Strategic Habitats come to be?
Cory Segall
So, we started our business in 2002. We were and we still are a government contracting business, we've trained over a million troops since 2002 to present. We have an eight-acre facility here that we do a lot of construction. Our facility is a manufacturing plant where we would build facilities for the military, do training for the military, and now we're expanding and looking to get more into the residential affordable housing sector here in San Diego. Then looking to do it throughout the country as we see that's a real big need. Housing prices continue to go up in California, construction costs continue to go up. So, we have a really good and strong, affordable solution that we feel can help on the affordable housing, the homeless side, and just a new solution for developers that are looking to build and create multifamily projects. We feel like we can help.
John McMullen
So, you mentioned you're in San Diego. What can you tell me about the housing situation in Southern California right now?
Cory Segall
So, it just continues to go up. Costs are, just to be frank, very high, and they continue to go up. Obviously, San Diego is a place that everyone wants to live. It's great climate, there's a ton of great things to do here, whether it's the beach, whether it's playing golf, just being outside, there's just a lot of activities. So, a lot of folks like to move here and with the rising costs, we're always looking and wanting to do new things. So, we've kind of had a lot of city officials come and take a look at our facility and take a look at our products that we build, and they really like it. We're actively working with developers and other folks, churches, we're real excited about it.
John McMullen
Tell me about the products that Strategic Habitats is producing. You mentioned container-based houses, how is Strategic Habitats filling that gap for affordable housing?
Cory Segall
We’re just trying to get involved. There's a definite need for a more cost effective builds. With the rising costs of material and labor, developers are always looking for new ways to continue to build their projects at a timely manner, that's fast, that still looks good, and can give a high product to their clients. So, we see the need not only in the military, but also the growing concern in California for housing. We can build our units much faster than a new stick build and they're probably less than half the expense. I think they did a study where in California, it's 600 to 800,000 per door, we're substantially lower than that. We can build our units anywhere between eight to 10 weeks. So, they're cost effective, they're much more efficient, and the product is really nice, too.
John McMullen
So, let's talk about the first step of building houses out of shipping containers. How do you source them and what do you need? What do they need, I should say before they can be modified into housing units?
Cory Segall
We always get kind of a CAD drawing from our clients. So, we create those we have an in-house CAD drawer, that kind of gives us specs on exactly what the clients looking for. We will then get an approval from the client, get a kind of a sign off of the yes, we like this. From there, we order the containers and we have suppliers that we work with from Long Beach, Dana Point, all over California and throughout the nation that we get our supply from with containers. Once we have them on site, we have a strong crew of welders, carpenters, guys who are real tradesmen within that and are certified. Then they start building to suit, everything is to code and we build to the highest standards of what's going on here in California. After that, we slowly then will bring it to the client and there'll be prep work in between that on prepping the site before. What's great on these, these don't need a conventional foundation so we can put these on the dirt on the gravel and basically build them up like puzzle pieces. So that's been our process so that the client can see before, during, and after the process of what's going on. They can see us starting to put it together and then we can create a finished product for them.
John McMullen
So I know there must be a lot of design work that goes into these and I know containers come in fixed sizes, are you dealing with just one size of container, are you dealing with multiple sizes, what's involved from your point of view and from a client's point of view in taking these boxes and really turning them into homes?
Cory Segall
So, we usually work with high cubes, which are nine foot six. So, it's a much taller configuration within our containers. Usually, they're eight feet tall, but we like a high cube that we that we work with, and usually go with eight by 40 that gives us the maximum amount of square footage. Usually, developers have a certain amount of square footage that they want each unit to be and then we basically have the f40s that sit next to each other. If we want it smaller, we can actually have a 40 and a 20 put together and then they can kind of work. The 20 can be the bedrooms or the bathroom, we can just kind of configure it however it’s needed. Most of the time, developers will have a certain square footage, they want a one bedroom or two bedroom, and then we could just build it to suit. But that's usually how we've done it most the time we'll use an eight foot by 40-foot container, but a much another foot six inches tall or so it gives it doesn't feel as small.
John McMullen
What’s the development process like for container homes? Are there any additional hurdles that you guys have to go through to create these homes? Are there zoning issues, anything like that?
Cory Segall
Well we work with the developer hand in hand. They deal with the permitting on the jurisdiction side of things, and then we'll have our facility approved by the State of California to where all of our units will be stamped so it's built to code. Then from that, we will build everything to the engineer drawings. So, engineer drawings are really important so we know structurally where everything's going to be, the sizes of our windows, our doors, everything is built to code to where we can then build them and then stack them up. All the weight goes on the corners so once we start messing with walls, it doesn't really affect the integrity of the building because all our weight is on the corner. We retrofit the inside to make sure it's extremely strong and these can go up to nine storeys high. We try to stay at three storeys or below because after that you have to bring in an elevator. That just helps with not having to go through those types of permitting, but we work in tandem with the developer on the permitting side of things. On our end, we work with our engineer to get make sure our engineer drawings are built to suit. So, we have a nice, consistent flow.
John McMullen
You mentioned earlier that you had a building for military background, you're using containers for military purposes, training folks, what would you say the learning curve has been like moving from applications like that, to turning shipping containers into homes that people feel comfortable in? What have you learned during that that process?
Cory Segall
Yeah, it's a big jump. When you're habiting homes, you have to have the certain codes, you have to build to suit, you have to build it to the California compliancy. In the military, you build it, you throw it on their land, and it's a training facility. There's no code, there's no proper foundation, there's no installation, all those things have to now be in on a residential habitat unit. So, there's a big curve, but it's something that we're now pretty vested in and feel confident in. But there's definitely a big curve because we can build something that is a steel structure, we can slap it on the military, and then they use it for training. So, it's strictly for a training purpose. Then the move over to residential is making sure it's fire rated and making sure your sprinkler systems are in. You have your installation, you have your windows a certain height for egress and egress in case of a fire multiple exits. It's just having that and then also working with the engineer so that it's structurally sound too. So, it's definitely a curve but one we're excited about.
John McMullen
Were there any particular design challenges that you struggled with at first, but now you feel like you've got a handle on things? It sounds like you've got a handle on things, but I'm just wondering if there was something specific that maybe made you stumble at the start?
Cory Segall
I think getting proper square footage. A lot of times developers will want a certain square footage so they can get highest, best use and also that they can charge for that out in the market. We were having a hard time with that, because each unit is about 320 square feet on a 40 foot container. So, some wanted it 800 and change. So just kind of getting those one unit, two bedroom and then three bedroom units to what our client wants, and then kind of going from there. We're really trying to establish having one, two and three bedroom units to where they're kind of streamlined. But every client has different needs. So as long as we can capture their need and their main importance, we can then add those into the building. So, the pre planning in the beginning is always extremely important, no matter who our client is.
John McMullen
If I were to come to you tomorrow and say, Hey, Cory, I want to start building homes out of shipping containers. Is there something that comes to mind that you would tell me to get started? Maybe better yet what would you tell me that perhaps I had not considered?
Cory Segall
First off, you have to know your land. Where's this going to be? Are there any certain jurisdictions that prohibit these from being in? If there's not, we can then kind of work in tandem to understanding the ground soil. Is it hard packed? Are you going to want it on a piece of concrete, are you going to want it on dirt, are you going to want it on gravel? So, it's understanding the land, understanding the permitting processes, understanding what type of foundation, and then goes into design. Then from our end, we can create a design that is then acceptable to the client. We take those drawings, and then bring that to our engineered firm, that give us our engineering. Then from that we'll have a budget within what it's going to cost to do the project on how many units the client wants, kind of go down that path, and then create the engineering drawings. Once we have those, and they're stamped by the state of California, we're running through the processes with our developer whose project this is, then we order and we start manufacturing it.
John McMullen
I’m going to go off on a little tangent here if you don't mind. You keep mentioning the types of foundations that are available for container homes. You mentioned dirt, you mentioned gravel, concrete, of course. Are there differences? Like does it matter to you as a builder? Or is it just a matter of which one the homeowner chooses and then adapting to that?
Cory Segall
Yeah. I mean, obviously, the flattest and the smoothest is always the most ideal. Us coming from the military, we usually put it on the ground, we put it on grass, we put it on gravel, we've put it on just dirt. If they have a nice flat concrete pad, that's obviously ideal. Then we can then secure it down into it. But these can go on multiple different surfaces, so doesn't need to be perfectly flat. We can alter our ground support in our boxes to make it flat, adding either supports under each side to give it that flatness, but it doesn't need to be completely flat, like a new stick build does, where it needs foundation or needs to have a perfect surface in order to build. We can adapt in the field, depending on the terrain. So there's multiple options.
John McMullen
What's your elevator pitch to those? Be it you know, government officials who are looking for housing, housing authorities, or individual homeowners, what's your pitch to those who are on the fence about container based homes?
Cory Segall
Look, I mean times are changing. We need to evolve with what the main pain points are in our economy, its labor and materials. We're trying to build new affordable housing that works, so that you don't have to wait 18 months. These can be built to suit, they can be built fast, they look really nice, and it's an alternative solution to what are the main problems within the construction industry. Those are the top two things, labor and material. I know labor is always going to be your issue with people. But if you have a material solution that can help with that and build units that you can be proud of, this is the way to go.
You have to be open to change, you have to be open to trying new things. Put up a couple of different projects up with this in your area and you're going to see a huge benefit. Not only from your cost to put this up, that's going to be substantially less, but it's going to be built much faster. So, you have got to get with the times and evolve to what's coming down the pipeline. Those two things are always increasing so you can find new ways to increase housing and put these in areas that you know can help with not just the housing crisis but could be the homeless crisis, could be sanitation within certain areas that will help with littering or give people a sense of purpose that they're in a nice home. There are many different reasons why having a more cost-effective living situation is going to be much more beneficial for our communities.
John McMullen
Do you think containers are our long-term solution for housing? Is this something we're going to be doing for years and years and years to come? Or is this just something we can take advantage of now as we consider other long-term solutions?
Cory Segall
Well, I think this is a long-term solution. One, it's a steel structure and steel is far more sound than wood. You don't have to deal with termites or water damages. I mean, there will be some wood that's inlaid to separate the bedrooms and bathrooms, but for the most part, having steel structure is a much stronger force than any wood structure. The great thing about these is if you want, you can move them. It's a permanent structure, but you can also throw this on a truck and get it out within a week. So, it's a great alternative to someone to where if they wanted to try this in a plot of land that they had, they can put up a structure and if five years from now, they changed their mind, they can actually move it out. They don't have to tear it down like you would a new build, concrete build, or something that you need heavy machinery. Then you have to clean up and then it's just a whole other mess. So, it can be a permanent structure, it can be a movable structure and it can be not permanent. So, there's a lot of really good alternatives that containers are great for. So I think it's a long term, long term play.
John McMullen
What’s next for Strategic Habitats? I know you guys have been doing military work for a long time, you're now invested fully in the residential side of things. But what do the next three to five years look like for you guys?
Cory Segall
We want to continue to grow, have more projects going on in California. We want to be doing more projects, getting involved in the community, and we just joined with you guys. So, we want to kind of get our message out there and bring on more work and more projects. So people can see what we can do and give a real good solution. We want to just continue to grow and make this a real strong solution that people will start to use. Whether it be a smaller multifamily or bigger, I think this is a great solution that's going to stay for years to come. I know with anything new, there's going to be some pain points, but I really think this will be a great solution for many years to come. We're just excited to be involved with different building communities and the modular building community. We're with building communities here in San Diego and just ready to do more projects.
John McMullen
Oh, of course. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for your time today. If there's anything we here at MBI can do for you, please let us know.
Cory Segall
Thank you so much. Glad to be here. Thank you.
John McMullen
My name is John McMullen and this has been another episode of Inside Modular: The Podcast of Commercial Modular Construction. Until next time.
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ModCribs Are a Better Way
Scott Bridger and Matt Mitchell, co-founders of ProSet Modular, have seen it all when it comes to modular cribbing, all the while taking notes about how to improve them. Finally, "we said, it doesn’t seem like anybody’s really working on a better solution,” Bridger said. At that point, about four years ago, they decided to see what they could come up with. “That’s when we really in earnest decided to see if we can design and manufacture something that’s just better,” Mitchell said.
Scott Bridger
Believe it or not kind of both. I have you been in the industry for a long time and my partner Matt Mitchell has been in it for a lot longer than I have. He's been in it for three decades and I've been in it for one. Nonetheless, after having many, many conversations over the years about what a hassle wood cribs are. By say conversations I'm not talking about just internally ProSet conversations. I mean, industry wide. Cribs have been just kind of this really nagging part of the industry that in our opinion over all these years, everybody has really just kind of complained about and really not wanting to have a part of it. Cribbing isn't something that manufacturers want to have to deal with, especially the cribbing off site that's at the storage yards for the clients near the jobsite. Manufacturers don't want to have to figure out how to get heavy expensive, cumbersome wood cribs transported across the country. Then what do you do with them when they're done at that site and getting moved on to another job site or back to the factory? It’s just been a hassle. Over the first six or eight years of ProSet’s life starting in 2014 is kind of how the conversation went. These cribs are just kind of a hassle. Well, Matt and I had talked about it over the years and always kind of had little conversations here and there about, there's got to be a better way.
We really started paying attention and trying to see what different people were doing, different manufacturers were doing. There were slight variations of wood cribs out there. Some a little bit bigger, some a little bit smaller, some have more lumber, some have less, but more or less kind of the same. Just stacks of these two by fours, as I described. Then there were a few factories that, as I mentioned, kind of building their own steel ones. We knew about those, and we had a chance to try to lift a couple of them and we knew that they were not the answer. At one point, we were visiting a manufacturer, and this was about four years ago, and this manufacturer, I won't name names, had some cribs and wood cribbing that they were using in their facility that was so extremely cumbersome and heavy. You probably need a forklift to move one crib. Something about seeing that and neither of us said anything to the factory or to each other during that tour. When we were traveling home from that visit, we both commented on that crib. And it was just kind of that moment that we said, okay, enough’ s enough, somebody's got to figure this out. So we went to work, really trying to figure out a solution. I can give you a little bit of an overview of how that line of thinking went and how the product was ultimately developed.
It wasn't very efficient than that, and very fast. We originally thought, okay, how do we set the criteria? It needs to be lightweight, it needs to be stackable, it needs to be durable, it needs to hold the weight and last a long time. Then the last one, which is also a fairly challenging criteria, is it's got to be affordable because there's a lot of them that are necessary. Wood cribs are not terribly expensive and if it's not relatively affordable, then it's probably not going to be widely accepted. So those are our main criteria. Lightweight, stackable, durable, and affordable. We set out to see what we could come up with and we initially thought that that would be aluminum, that should meet those criteria. It was great for the lightweight, stackable, durable, but when it came to the affordable part it was absolutely not there. It was just going to be way too expensive. So, we had kind of a rough design and Matt actually mocked one up out of Masonite in his garage. That's where it all started and we still have that today. I think someday that'll belong in the ModCribs Museum.
So, we thought aluminum would work, we worked with an engineer, we tried to get some pricing and we realized that was a nonstarter just because of the cost. Eventually, we had an engineer that we were working with propose the idea of structural foam, which is essentially structural plastic, which sounded a little bit odd to us because we hadn't thought of it and seemed kind of amazing that you could actually create a crib that would meet those criteria out of plastic. We went ahead and started working on that concept and it's essentially what we landed with. It's an injection molded polypropylene with some glass fiber. Fast forward to our final testing and final product, which we now have it tested wonderfully. So, it passed the load tests with flying colors. As a matter of fact, there's about a six times safety factor beyond what it's rated for. So extremely, extremely strong can hold a lot more weight than it's required. It’s stackable, lightweight and actually pretty cost effective. Not a lot more expensive than a wood crib. So that's where we are today.
John McMullen
Well, that's fantastic. Scott, thank you so much. You answered so many of my questions. I was on LinkedIn the other day and I saw a comment from our friends at Stream Modular. They said ModCribs are going to change the game, which really struck me and was very exciting to see. What other feedback have you gotten from those who have used ModCribs? What's the reception been like so far?
Scott Bridger
Well, it's really fun, and it's been so positive. It's not unexpected, because to think about is ProSet and our staff have been on the frontlines of dealing with the challenges of wood cribs, as much as anybody. Our teams are out there having to muscle these heavy wood cribs around hundreds of them, maybe 1000 of them on a job. So, we know how much more user friendly and efficient ModCribs are than wood cribs. So, it's not unexpected, but it's still really fun and exciting to get those responses. Carson and the team at Stream has been very supportive, very excited about this and that. That also is not surprising because truck drivers that are doing these modular unit deliveries are also those who are going to benefit greatly from this because they are tasked with dragging these wood cribs around as well. Set crews, trucking crews, manufacturing facility employees that have to work with the wood cribs. All those folks are ecstatic about the notion of replacing wood cribs with ModCribs, especially once they get the chance to actually get their hands on a ModCrib. So, it's been really fun.
We've been kind of doing some tours around to some of the main manufacturing facilities around the country and bringing a couple of samples of the ModCribs for them to just get their hands on and see. Every time they grab them by the handle, and they pick them up, they smile. In the reality is 28 pounds, which is what these ModCribs weigh, is such a relief from the 100 plus pounds of some of these wood cribs that we've seen weigh up to 200 pounds. According to OSHA standards, that's well in excess of what any individual worker should be asked to try to try to lift. I think OSHA actually says that a single worker should not ever be asked to lift more than 50 pounds. So just the safety factor and the reduced burden on the actual people who have to handle cribs is really impactful. I think that's a lot of what Stream was commenting on in terms of being a game changer. We have a lot of factories who are really excited about replacing their wood cribs with ModCribs for that reason alone, because they really do care a lot about the wellbeing of their staff and their employees. They realize that this will take such a burden off the human burden of wood cribs. So that's been fun.
I think the other piece of the game changing comment from Carson, especially from Stream, from a trucking perspective is because ModCribs are stackable. You can transport many, many, many more ModCribs on one truckload than you can wood cribs. As a matter of fact, I think, roughly speaking, we can transport about 1200 ModCribs on one semi tractor trailer versus about 250 to 300 wood cribs. So, that reduces the truck trips. For example, if you had a 1200 crib job, which would might only be 120 modular units, that's not a huge job. That's a fairly average job. So, thinking of the volume of cribs that are required at these storage yards, it's significant. On average, say 100 or 120, modular project job, that means that delivering wood cribs to support those units is going to take four or five semi tractor trailer loads, that's a lot of expense. That's a lot of fuel, there's environmental impacts to that, a lot of time and then handling. So, imagine if you have four or five semi tractor trailers full of these heavy wood cribs, how do you offload that? You have to have a forklift. Then you have to scatter these all around this storage yard so that they're not so far away from where the truck drivers are going to be delivering the mods that the truck drivers have to drag them all over the jobs that somebody has to distribute them around this storage yard. That's a cumbersome, expensive task versus ModCribs which you can literally carry two at a time easily. So, I think those are kind of the game changers. It’s really about the ease of use and transport.
John McMullen
It sounds like you're going to be making lots of friends around the industry. I feel bad for the chiropractor's because you're cutting them out of a lot of work!
Scott Bridger
I'm not going to feel bad.
John McMullen
You've been on the road with these. I've seen on LinkedIn you've been to several shows, you've been going to lots of factories. Where can someone see ModCribs next who is excited about getting up close and personal with one of these?
Scott Bridger
Well, there are a couple of ways that can be done. Obviously anybody who wants to do a little traveling is welcome to come take a look at them at one of the job sites where we have them in use. We also, as you stated, we do a lot of travel. My partner Matt and I both put on a lot of miles every year around the country. Both going to our perspective job sites and manufacturers around the country. So, we spend a lot of time visiting factories in different parts of the country. We're happy to make a visit to any factory that's really interested and we could bring some samples by. The other thing that I should point out is that, and maybe jumping ahead here if you're going to ask this question, ModCribs is a short-term rental business for ModCribs at the storage yards, as I described. That's the business is a rental company. We do, however, have a limited wholesale sales program exclusively for manufacturers to use at their factory yards. So we want factories to have the opportunity to use these at their facilities, as I described earlier, to take the burden off their employees. They're just a much more efficient option for their staff. So, we don't want to limit the factories in their ability to use them. It would not make sense for them to rent because they need them year round. So, we do have a sales program just for factories. Essentially, that's our business model is that we are renting these to developers and GCs at the temporary storage areas around the country.
John McMullen
Very good. Very good. And yes, you answered a question before I could ask, but that's all right. So, Scott, you talked about the rental aspect of your business, you talked about the sales that you offer to manufacturers. How does that work?
Scott Bridger
Thank you for that question. So, that's another kind of impetus for why Matt and I made the decision some years ago that we needed to improve and kind of help solve this challenging thing that is cribbing. It's not just that wood cribs are cumbersome, expensive, break down in the elements and so forth. It's also because cribbing is temporary. Cribbing requirement at storage yards is something that oftentimes gets missed entirely because it kind of falls through the cracks of all the different stakeholders scopes. For example, when the developer is considering all of their costs and all the contracts that they need to engage to get their building complete, they've got all these different pieces of that puzzle. They're going to contract with the manufacturer, contract with a general contractor, they're going to contract probably with a trucking company. So, in that whole process, the piece of that puzzle that is temporary cribs at a storage yard, for whatever reason, very frequently gets missed. I think this is part of the overall story of cribbing and why we started ModCribs, which is that it doesn't really fall clearly in anyone's scope.
Generally, the general contractor is typically aware or thinking about it. The manufacturer, it's kind of out of their scope because once the modular units leave their factory, their scope is pretty much done typically. Then the trucking company is going to be aware of it, but they're usually pretty late to the conversation. So, for all these reasons, oftentimes it just absolutely is missed in budget, planning, scope and who's is it. So, what ModCribs is proposing, and I think is going to successfully help alleviate that sort of missed piece of the puzzle by first of all, kind of gaining awareness in the industry about the need and the opportunity that ModCribs brings to that process. At the same time, what we're doing is creating what we kind of think of as an easy button for that developer. Ultimately, it's often the developer that kind of gets stuck with it and kind of has to figure out how to get cribs to their storage yard, oftentimes at the last minute because nobody planned for it and just kind of got missed.
Historically, we've had many projects that ProSet worked on where the general contractor is kind of having to scramble and send some carpenters out to the storage yard with a bunch of two by fours and quickly try to build 1000 of these cribs. That's not an uncommon occurrence. So, the easy button that we've created with ModCribs is that simple process of contacting ModCribs, letting us know how many modular units you need to stage, where the staging yard is, and when you need to start receiving those modular units. We will provide a quote and we'll help you figure out how many cribs you need. Our typical quote is going to be for up to 60 days because normally that's about as long as the project will need these temporary cribs. Then once the contract is executed, we'll deliver those cribs ahead of the modular units starting to arrive. As soon as the last modular unit is installed on the foundation, the client can call us and we'll come pick them up. It just really simplifies that whole process.
It also takes away from the challenge that we also see with wood cribs historically is back to that example of nobody thought of cribs and then the general contractors out there quickly building all these wood cribs. That's an expensive time-consuming process, high energy consumption kind of process, but what happens at the end of that? All the buildings are now set and I can show you countless pictures of what that storage yard looks like when the last modular unit is set. There are scattered heavy, wood cribs, all over this yard. Now, they have to be gathered up, recreated, put on a truck and hauled somewhere. Unfortunately, in many cases that process is so expensive that they never get used again. They get thrown away because it's less expensive than trying to figure out how to transport it somewhere and store them somewhere. So, taking that out of the industry’s sort of inefficient and kind of challenging piece of that whole process is I think one of the big game changers that ModCribs brings.
John McMullen
Now it's really a microcosm of the whole modular building industry. If you think about it it's more efficient, more sustainable. It's faster.
Scott Bridger
You’re absolutely right. The other fun thing about it is, what is modular? What is the modular industry? It's really about innovation, right? I mean as an industry; we're innovating how we build commercial buildings in the United States. ModCribs is a very low-tech product, but we'd like to think it's a bit innovative because it's responding to a need in the industry.
John McMullen
So, ModCribs aside, what other advancements or innovations do you think the industry can look forward to when it comes to setting and on-site logistics?
Scott Bridger
Oh, that's a good question. It's going to be kind of maybe an odd answer. From my perspective, as someone who's been in the installation side of things for quite some time, I think what we're seeing is more advancement in process, I would say. So, there certainly are better and better technologies and designs in terms of equipment. In fact, my partner Matt and our other owner Chris Rimes in our company, developed our custom halos. That's something that has added a lot of efficiency to our installation process because they're very flexible and adjustable. It's just a really great piece of equipment. So, those are kind of things that we're seeing some advancements in terms of equipment, and so forth on the site. I think even as our teams continuously get better and better at implementing logistics, plans, systems, and processes that allow us to install these buildings more efficiently. I think more than anything, it's just continuing to improve the process. That whole cradle logistics I described, ultimately culminates in a crane picking a modular unit up and sitting on our foundation. That's kind of the last step of that process, but the efficiency of how many modular units that crane can pick up and sit on a foundation at any given day comes down to the planning, the logistics, and the overall coordination and programming of the process. So, I guess that's where I see continuing advancements. We see real evidence of that, because we do a lot of work, looking at historical data on our projects. We are seeing significant increases in our efficiency and the number of average modular units per day that we set over two or three years ago. Those are the advancements that we're going to continue to work on.
John McMullen
Well, speaking of innovation, I'm glad you brought it up. I also want to say thank you for the interview that you gave MBI recently. ModCribs is featured in the November December issue of Modular Advantage magazine. So, thank you for your time there and thank you for the time for this interview, Scott. I really appreciate it.
Scott Bridger
Thank you, John. Appreciate you having me on the program.
John McMullen
My name is John McMullen. And this has been another episode of Inside Modular: The Podcast of Commercial Modular Construction. Until next time.