From a still-undisclosed specific location in the Southeastern U.S.’s hyperactive housing market will come – one day – 12 to 15 fully-constructed new modular home units, ready to transport via oversized-load trucks to within a five- or six-hour driving radius.

That’s the volume Ken Semler, ceo of Martinsburg, W.Va.-based

Source: NAHB Eye On Housing

Modular’s value proposition – especially in a business, economic, and operational environment now profoundly constrained by its shortage of skilled tradespeople – adds up this way.

  • Flexible design options
  • Quality from a controlled environment
  • The ability to construct a home quickly and cost-effectively

The specific site Semler and the Impresa Modular team have zeroed in on for their facility comes with an accompanying dashboard of demand, and this coupling of factory capacity and a go-with of customer orders shapes into Semler’s site-capacity analysis for future facilities.

Core to the Impresa Modular growth strategy: Create demand by easing supply constraint.

We have order volume in the immediate region that will take us to break-even immediately, and profitability following right after that, versus a typical factory that takes two years to get to break-even and then to profitability in three years,” says Semler. “We’ll expand our branded facilities based on our ability to calculate how much new demand is springing up beyond that five- or six-hour driving radius of our plant. This way we can keep to the model of breaking even relatively quickly and reaching profitability when we are on fully-optimized production – both of our own branded Impresa Modular homes and our housing-as-a-service offering to builders and developers.

According to the Impresa Modular statement:

Impresa has secured its initial investment through APG Capital out of Raleigh, NC with Jim Anthony Jr. as President, and is currently in discussions with a select group of additional developer investors. The company is also vigorously seeking qualified employees in every construction category. Planning to full capacity, a factory of this size will employ more than 100 full-time staff and produce an average of more than 20 complete modules per week.

Leading the new factory initiative as President is Dan Hobbs, a 14-year industry veteran who has revitalized and operated multiple modular factories. According to Mr. Hobbs, on the current trajectory, limited production should start as early as October, ramping up to full production by March of next year.

“Our plant will incorporate many of the design advantages of existing industry concepts, together with leading edge software for design, process control and inventory management. As always, workforce is key and we are driving to assemble top talent in all disciplines,” said Dan.

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