Robots make wall panels at a Katerra factory (Katerra)
US-based offsite construction pioneer Katerra is closing its original building components factor in Phoenix, Arizona as bigger and more automated plants take over.
The move is expected to result in the loss of 200 jobs.
The company, backed by Japanese financier SoftBank, said the 250,000-sq-ft facility, which opened in 2017, represented its “first-generation approach” to offsite manufacturing, according to CM’s sister publication Global Construction Review (GCR). Larger and more automated factories in California and Texas would supply timber and steel components for its building projects, it added
Construction of Katerra’s California factory, in Tracy, is nearly complete, while construction of the factory in San Marcos, Texas is slated to begin in early 2020, with production starting in 2021.
The closure announcement follows a report last week that one of the founders of the company, Fritz Wolff, had left the board.
Since its founding in 2015, Katerra has expanded rapidly with more than $1bn invested by the SoftBank Vision Fund, prompting media to compare the company, which is yet to turn a profit, to other troubled companies such as WeWork that have grown quickly with SoftBank’s backing. Katerra has rejected such comparisons.
Announcing the Phoenix closure yesterday, Katerra’s head of manufacturing Matt Ryan said the 577,000-sq-ft Tracy factory had 30 fixed robots, 12 mobile robots, and a digital manufacturing process using self-guided vehicle technology. It will reach full production next year, the company said. Equipped with the same technologies, the 600,000-sq-ft San Marcos factory is scheduled to reach full production in 2021.
In September this year Katerra opened a 270,000-sq-ft mass-timber component factory in Spokane, Washington, and has two factories in India, and plans to establish mobile factories in Saudi Arabia.
