MAY 2019 BCBUSINESS 11 COURTESY OF HORIZON NORTH
L
ouie Quilt hefts a sheet
of drywall into a box
about the size of a cabin
sitting in the middle of the shop
oor, the next step for what
will become a compact studio
apartment for a not-so-well-o
resident of Burnaby this spring.
Originally from Williams
Lake and the Tsilhqot'in Na-
tion, Quilt has just €nished
his €rst four months working
at this Horizon North plant in
Kamloops, where housing is
being churned out in a way that
Henry Ford would admire.
There are €ve production
lines in this former bingo hall
on Tk'emlúps te Secwepemc
industrial land, where three to
four modular units a day are
manufactured—complete with
kitchens, bathrooms, rubber
roofs, high-quality insulation,
even furniture—deploying a
high-tech system that uses
virtual reality to check plans,
iPads to track testing and qual-
ity, and pre-packed sets of
building components.
For Horizon North and the
other dominant players in the
province's modular home busi-
ness, and for the government
of B.C., this is part of a small
revolution. It's one they hope
can ease the intense pressure
that many parts of the province
are experiencing with home-
lessness and the lack of simple,
basic, cheap apartments that
used to be prevalent in North
American cities.
"It's really assembly, like in
car manufacturing," says Joe
Kiss, the engineer who heads
Horizon North's modular
division, as he walks around
the plant talking about the
company's reliance on Toyota-
inspired lean manufacturing
strategies.
Those methods, combined
with building homes indoors
instead of in a muddy €eld,
are what everyone is hoping
can produce a lot more hous-
ing for hundreds of millions of
dollars less than conventional
techniques.
The Mod Squad
As they capitalize on the provincial government's push to build
more social housing, B.C.'s modular home manufacturers want to
conquer foreign markets, too
by Frances Bula
C ON ST R U C T ION
(
the informer
)
O N
T H E
R ADA R
INSIDE JOB
Makers of prefab
homes stand to profit
from the shift toward
higher density
BUILDING BLOCKS
At Horizon North's
Kamloops plant,
workers assemble
entire homes indoors
SOURCES: Statistics Canada,
U.S. Census Bureau,
MHABC
44%
2 0 16
60
+
%
19 8 0 s
69%
Canadian housing
starts in 2018 that
were multifamily,
versus 30% in the U.S.
SINGLE DETACHED
HOUSES ACCOUNT FOR
A SHRINKING SHARE
OF OCCUPIED B.C.
PRIVATE HOMES
28
Members of the Man-
ufactured Housing
Association of British
Columbia
(MHABC)
Building homes
in a controlled
setting is more
environmentally
friendly: less delivery traf-
fic and noise, fewer bits
of machinery in operation,
less-toxic adhesives
and better insulation–
meaning less heat loss
