A Denver startup claims it has developed a system to build apartments, hotels and dorms faster, cheaper and greener and with fewer defects than current construction methods. “This is a disruptive technology,” said John Vanker, CEO of Denver-based Prescient. “It will be a game changer.”
Technology has lowered costs and improved efficiencies in a wide range of industries, but construction, given its complexity, has resisted big breakthroughs.
Vanker and his partners started Prescient after 25 years of developing properties. No matter how much experience they gained, the same problems seemed to keep popping up.
“We weren’t learning from our mistakes,” he said. “We realized if we could standardize things, we could make them more predictable.”
Prescient has developed a component library with two dozen steel panels and one truss that works with standard steel columns for buildings of up to 12 stories.
Using that library, the company has built a proprietary software algorithm it claims can “solve the structure.”
Its software, which integrates with the popular architectural program Revit, allows modifications and the resolution of problems in the model ahead of time rather than on the construction site.
Each piece of the frame is assigned X and Y coordinates that establish its precise location in the design and allow the part to be made to specification in a plant.
Each part carries a tag detailing its location, allowing trained assemblers to quickly assemble it on a grid system. Prescient is also developing a mobile application where a worker can scan a QR code, updating the model in real time as pieces go in.
That, in turn, will allow materials to be brought to the worksite “just in time” and placed within 20 feet of crews.
Blaine Brownell, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, said the construction industry is moving toward “big data,” which involves tagging, tracking, reporting and even placing sensors in materials.
He predicts that the information that materials contain and communicate will become more important than any of their specific physical attributes.
“This development is important, in that it represents the next step in a general trend to connect more information with physical materials,” he said of Prescient and other industry innovators.
Prescient’s building system distributes the weight of the structure into the columns, allowing for the use of standardized and lighter panels, saving on material costs.
Such standardization means panels and trusses can be mass produced at precise tolerances, eliminating the need for cutoffs and other time-consuming modifications now made on the fly. Because steel is used rather than wood or concrete, curing times are eliminated, and the follow-on work can start sooner.
Three Denver-area buildings have gone up using the company’s system, including the B Street LoHi in Highland and University Station. In April, the company won a contract for a dormitory at Lackland U.S. Air Force Base in San Antonio, one of eight buildings it expects to help complete this year.
Prescient’s system allowed for quicker construction times at a lower cost at University Station, a senior affordable-housing development near the University of Denver, said George Thorn, CEO of Mile High Development.
The lower costs allowed Mile High and its partner Koelbel and Co. to build six floors, rather than the usual limit of four floors on wood-frame designs, he said.
“We wouldn’t hesitate to use the Prescient again in similar circumstances for a similar-sized building,” Thorn said.
Prescient opened its first manufacturing plant at 6260 Downing St. in December 2012 and has plans for a second plant, in Houston, to serve customers in Texas.
At its Denver plant, coils made up mostly of recycled steel are rolled into light gauge components, with only 1 percent waste, Vanker said. Those parts are the building blocks of the panels and trusses.
Workers with rivet guns assemble panels on work tables, near large monitors that show their progress and productivity. If they surpass their goals for the day, they receive a bonus.
Welding, a more complicated task, is handled by large, fast-moving robots, similar to those used in auto plants.
Their arms move in a synchronized dance, sending sparks flying and precisely welding each part based on the information in its tag. Every so often they lift up — like a ballerina placing her arms in the fifth position — to clean themselves.
Although focused on steel framing, Prescient is working on ways to more closely integrate mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems into its model.
That could give specialty trade crews the right pieces in the right sizes at the right place and the right time, reducing the time now wasted to find materials and make them fit.
Prescient’s system can save about $3 a square foot on wood-frame buildings and $6 to $10 a foot over concrete designs, Vanker said.
The company currently employs 35 people in Denver and another 25 people in Poland on the software and engineering side and expects to add another 40 workers this year, Vanker said.
Growth will depend on how much capital the company can raise. It expects to lock in a second round of venture capital funding, for $10 million, next month, Vanker said.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410, asvaldi@ denverpost.com or twitter.com/aldosvaldi
