Manufacturing is difficult and more important than ever. Most people underestimate the complexity behind simple things especially when they cost a fraction of a dollar but even object that can be acquired for small change require an army of skilled people to deliver the final product.
This was the core thesis of “I, Pencil” written by Leonard E. Read. This famous vintage essay illuminated the hidden intricacy behind things that appear fairly simple on the surface level, if you haven’t read it yet check it out for yourself. https://fee.org/ebooks/i-pencil/
After playing tennis in the sun with a friend (I won) we chatted it up and while describing his current job as an environmental lawyer, he brought up I, Pencil as an allegory for how complicated cases are handled. While listening to the details of how a massive case is chopped up into bite size pieces and distributed to those best suited to handle them, I couldn’t help but draw an analogy to construction, specifically construction innovation.
The first thing I considered was the basic Subcontractor/GC hierarchy with an average of 22 subcontractors required to build a single family home (ranging from 11-30). Unfortunately for the housing crisis, the complexity doesn’t end there.
Thinking back to the I, Pencil essay reveals final assembly is only a fraction of the problem. They discuss procuring lumber, graphite, metals, paint, whatever the heck erasers are made of… you get the point.
Now look around your home, everything from the drain pipes up to the roof tiles are independent products many of which have far greater complexity than a basic #2 pencil.
How do we fix it?
I don’t know but I have some ideas.
Let’s revisit one of my favorite inventors of all time, John Moses Browning. His creations are heralded as the most reliable of all time, outperforming even modern pistols on military durability testing. What did he have that others didn’t?
He had an understanding of the complete process.
Browning would design the entire pistol himself and assemble it himself too. His acute omniscience didn’t end there, he would also hand make the manufacturing tools to produce his product at scale. At first glance it may seem impractical for one person to tackle so many aspects of production, wouldn’t it be better to find the best designer, and the best blacksmith then distribute responsibility accordingly?
The magic of the Browning process was the precision with which he could tweak tiny tolerances producing weapons that were more accurate and reliable than anything the military had ever seen before.
Today even the design of a new firearm is divided between massive teams each responsible for 1 CAD file which are then combined to make the digital twin of a new model. From there they often outsource production of each part to different large teams who may or may not even be in communication. The spring manufacturer likely has no contact with the barrel manufacturer or the production team behind the slide. You end up with a game of telephone so complex it’s a miracle when they finally get it working. Though many salaried workers are passionate about their jobs, the incentive for perfection just isn’t as strong as the motive of John Moses Browning who personally won his contracts with the US military for his work.
It’s not trivial, it leads to tragedy like the recent death at Warren Air Force Base caused by an M18 that misfired when it was dropped, killing the owner of the government issued firearm (The owner of that firearm has since been arrested implying it may not have been a misfire).
I’m not saying we need one person to orchestrate every minute detail of building a house, thats frankly untenable from my perspective.
When I was doing construction labor on commercial buildings for a few months after college, I quickly learned the GC’s right hand man was a Polish carpenter. This guy knew his shit. The GC was only on site for maybe a couple hours 2-3 days a week so when he wasn’t around it was this skilled carpenter who called most of the shots. He knew how to read plans and he knew when to ignore them because the architect had some of the plumbing wrong in the pre construction as-built. Lego is a beautiful standard but in the real world, constructing a building from parts often means some of the parts don’t perfectly match your little instruction booklet the way Legos do.
It may not be the carpenter on every job but there is almost always someone who understands far beyond their specific role, not from a top down perspective like the GC with the primary responsibility of measuring competency and negotiating contracts but a bottom up perspective who deeply comprehends the nuts and bolts from years of screwing them together.
So here’s my big idea of the day.
If you want to innovate the future of housing you need some grey beards with that innate understanding for the job site to bridge the gap between the future and the present. It’s pretty wild how something as everyday as making stuff like a pencil, a gun, or even a whole house hides this massive tangle of knowhow that nobody can really wrap their head around alone. That’s the genius of Leonard E. Read’s old essay “I, Pencil,” showing how it takes a whole orchestra of talents to pull off what looks dead simple. But then you have folks like John Moses Browning who nailed it by owning every step, from sketching ideas to cranking out the tools for mass production. These days, with everything chopped up among subs, far flung suppliers, and teams that barely talk, that big-picture grasp slips away, causing screwups, wasted time, and yeah, sometimes real heartbreak. If we’re serious about fixing the mess in housing and pushing building tech ahead, we’ve got to give the spotlight to those old school pros the “grey beards” with their hands on smarts from years in the trenches who can handle the messiness of actual job sites. They’re the ones who can connect pie in the sky plans with the gritty here and now, unlocking ways to create tougher, smarter homes and systems. So, why not hunt them down, soak up what they know, and weave it in before another wonky fitting or bad weld throws everything off track?