The economics aren't a mystery, people build concrete plants on site for large buildings for the same reason. That said, it makes me wonder if there are things you could do with this sort of approach that would be even more daring. You would be unlikely to fabricate glass on site, but glazing should be doable. Making the windows on site could save time and transport costs. Duct work? We had gutters done which were rolled and welded on site. I could imagine ducting could be similarly created. Custom cabinetry would be another thing I'd wonder about. We've got a neighbor that does custom cabinetry in his 2 car garage, but that setup could be reproduced in a couple of containers. Not that you're going to put that on site at a remodel and block the street, but if you would doing a full housing development? And if you didn't need to lease space for your factory when it wasn't producing would that make for better economics?

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abdullahkhalids 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

In some places in the world (like Pakistan), it is common for upper middle class people to have custom cabinetry in their homes. Usually, during house construction, the carpentry team shows up with the necessary cutting machines. Usually a back of pickup van is sufficient.

Everything is cut from full sized boards as needed on site and installed right there.

It works because wood working machinery is fairly cheap, not heavy and works off standard electric power.

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jopsen 4 days ago | parent [-]

And labour is cheap.

In other parts of the world, you standardize cabinetry sizes and just build for that.

Then a long list of providers offer cabins that fit.

Custom sounds expensive and hard to replace when needed -- what's the upside?

	▲	abdullahkhalids 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		The upside is that people can express their artistic visions by having ornate woodwork in their house. Obviously only available to those rich enough. But for them, better than https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3_ug-IGBJY

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jpollock 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

When cabinetry (custom or otherwise) is manufactured, it's done with large CNC machines and then assembled.

Unless you were doing a _lot_ of cabinets, the labor cost of an idle cabinet maker overwhelms the shipping cost.

On-site, you're paying the cabinet maker to sand the wood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGEF1T3omec

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mcphage 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Glulam beams might be manufacturable on site—and it might even be better, since you can make very long glulam beams, but long beams are more expensive to ship.