As a small share holder of FBR and bricklayer and who has worked as bricklayer in Victoria, Darwin(laying blocks), Western Australia (Ran my own bricklaying business) and now in London working on commercial projects in the city, i thought i'd throw my 2 cents in.
My main concerns are;
The finished product is render ready. It's not face brick. In ten years of as a bricklayer, i've maybe done 2 houses that were completely rendered externally. The general preference is face brick or partially rendered, so there is a large part of the market lost there. If they do venture into face brick, it's also of my opinion that they would need to use a traditional mortar so it's aesthetically pleasing. I think there is still a ton of R&D i to go in regards of accuracy, to be able to lay a brick as well as a good bricklayer, that's why they have chosen to produce render ready finish as less accuracy is required.
In regards to build time, it's certainly not saving 6-8 weeks, the longest i've ever taken to complete a house in similar fashion as their animation demonstration is 10 days, building WA homes that are 2 course brick (external face brick, rendered internally). Single skin, single course face brick timber framed homes, can go up in 5 days with a 4:1. Again this is face bricks, rendered would be quicker. Up north of Australia where homes are built with 6- 8 inch blocks, render ready, i've seen complete external walls go up in 1 day, 2 days complete finish if internal block walls as well.
Also have to keep in mind that this machine is tailor made for WA housing designs that doesn't require damp proof course, expansion joints, over hanging angled sills, mitre sill etc, they are built on an empty slab. Timber frame designs, the frame is built, windows and doors installed, and the roof is already on before the bricklayers arrive.
The last thing that concerns me is that they are just planning to sell these machines. I thought they would be planning to tender for their own building contracts and such or leasing machines. Even larger commercial bricklaying companies i have worked would be unlikely to spend $2M for a machine until it's really tried and true, with a few years of results and after general change of the construction industry to cater for this type of brick automation. Forget any small bricklaying business, which is probably 80% of the industry, it's simply out of the question for them.
They would have to market these to large volume builders/developers that usually prefer to subcontract 90% of the building process to local tradesmen for various reasons.
If we were to put this into context, Simonds homes, a volume builder, had 2,500 home starts in 2016. A realistic approach would have an operator working 5 days a week average, which would require 20 or so hadrians at a cost of $40M to build 2500 homes (assuming there is never any problems, no down time between any jobs), then adding on cost of capital, operator wages,insurance, maintenance, fuel etc. The current labour rate for humans is roughly $21M flat ($1.05 per brick) per 2500 homes, each contractor has their own liability insurance, has to guarantee their work for 7 years etc. Though all this is only true if they can sell 2500 rendered homes. It would require significant change to their home designs, where 90% of their current builds are either face brick / face brick with partial render. Plus, now have to pay a renderer to come and completely render the building.
I would say the overall savings cost to the client would be in the region of $2-4k tops and maybe 3 to 8 days off the standard build time. It's a big risk to completely change the way you go about designing your homes. Maybe they buy one, trail some new designs, market interest etc.
Anyway, while i think Automation is definitely the future of construction, i think it's still a long way of before any real changes are made to the current system. Though there are obviously still opportunities for this machine in the hear future building housing in 3rd world countries, disaster areas, though again, it comes at a cost of $2M just for the machine, let alone shipment, manufacture of specialised bricks to suit.
Until they can produce and accurate, aesthetically pleasing face brick built home, i think this will take a long while to really gain any type of market share anytime soon, though when construction automation really takes off, the will be positioned very well indeed . Though hopefully they don't stop with just bricklaying, hopefully they put a lot of R&D into other areas of construction that could be automated.
I think it's still 10 years away, though fast brick are definitely on to it and on to it early, and i do wish i could afford to buy more shares.
Just my 2 cents..
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