RENCO Opens Automated Plant in Jupiter, Lands on TIME's Best Inventions List
RENCO, a maker of composite building components, has opened a fully automated manufacturing plant in Jupiter, and its building system has been named to TIME's annual Best Inventions list, trade publication Window + Door reported.
This year's TIME list recognizes 300 innovations. TIME builds it from nominations by its editors and correspondents around the world and from an online application process, and it judges entries on originality, efficacy, ambition and impact.
"This is one of the biggest changes in the construction industry in a century," RENCO president Ken Smuts said. He added that the TIME recognition shows "the world is ready for our innovation."
What the Jupiter plant makes
The new facility runs compression molding machines with robotic arms, along with pultrusion lines, a process that pulls fibers through resin to form continuous structural shapes. Together they produce every component of the RENCO system. The company says the plant can turn out enough components each year to build the equivalent of 6,000 apartment units.
Window + Door did not report the plant's address or how many people it employs.
How the system works
RENCO's components are molded from what the company calls a "renewable composite" of glass fibers, resin and naturally occurring minerals. The precision-molded pieces interlock and are bonded with adhesive into a single, monolithic structure. Crews follow color-coded plans on site, and the company says assembly requires no cutting and produces little waste.
According to RENCO, the system is more durable than concrete pound for pound and weighs one-fifth as much. The company says it is rated to withstand Category 5 hurricanes and resists fire, water, mold and pests. Those performance figures come from the company.
"We are simplifying construction with a complete system that arrives on site ready to assemble," managing director Patrick Murphy said. He said robotic manufacturing and a system "any crew can learn quickly" will let the company build stronger homes faster and for less.
First project is next door
RENCO's first U.S. development is a 96-unit apartment complex in Palm Springs, the village in central Palm Beach County. Fast Company reported that a crew of 11 unskilled workers built each of the project's four three-story structural shells in about eight weeks.
Before the TIME list, RENCO took first place for building innovations at the JEC Composites Innovation Awards in Paris and won Best Construction Product Design at the BLT Built Design Awards in Switzerland.
The full Best Inventions list is available on TIME's website.