IN THE FRAME: JULY 2026
⏱️ 2 min read
Forget the polished case study. The real story is what happens before the bullet points and highlights. It is in the 2am decision, the process that failed twice before it worked, the messy middle of scaling up.
This month, we open the factory doors on two businesses putting light gauge steel (LGS) framing automation to work in very different ways. M3 Components brings hospital grade control to healthcare construction, while Capsule applies aeronautical engineering to building modular building products.
Closer to home, Ryan Barber’s story is a reminder that better systems still depend on good people getting a chance to grow.
SMART BUILD SPOTLIGHT: M3 Components
More control, before it ever reaches site.
Healthcare projects leave little room for guesswork. M3 Components (M3C) runs framing, MEP, design detail and production through one controlled process in its Sacramento factory, so the certainty gets built in long before anything reaches site.
If you are scaling a factory line of your own, this is what "ready to grow" actually looks like on the floor, not just on a slide deck. When M3C picked its Howick FRAMA™ 7600, price and specs were not what tipped the decision. The full story gets into what did, straight from the team that made the call.
Reading about a factory only gets you so far. Get on the factory floor with the people and processes shaping M3C’s unique operation.
Watch the M3C episode on YouTube
SMART BUILD SPOTLIGHT: Capsule
One partner came from Boeing. The other from defence engineering. Tested on a coffee cart.
Capsule did not start in construction. It started when a team with backgrounds in Boeing and defence engineering decided to build a coffee cart after hours.
Now they run a Howick powered line that turns complex assemblies into repeatable products. Its Glide Casework System can get a full kitchen installed in 4 hours - click-together components, steel rail, no guesswork onsite.
If you build the same assembly more than once, whether that is a kitchen or a wall panel, this is what repeatable can look like without losing flexibility.
Step how Capsule builds kitchens in 4 hours
Go behind the Capsule production line and see how that Boeing and defence thinking turns into building products you can install in hours.
Watch the Capsule episode on YouTube
From foot in the door to leading the floor
No experience. No CV. Just determination and a willingness to learn. That was enough for Howick to take a chance on Ryan Barber in 2017.
Nine years on, that chance has taken him to Production Manager at Rollforming Services, Howick’s sister company. In the interim, he has picked up welding, manual machining, fitting, commissioning, servicing and installation, working across Howick machines, SPEEDFLOOR®, X-CALIBR™ and custom R&D.
The machines and systems matter but entrusting them to the right people is where you find the performance leap.
Ready to build smarter?
That is July wrapped up. More certainty on a healthcare job site, a Boeing-and-defence team building kitchens in hours, and a factory floor now run by someone who got the chance to grow into it.
If you are looking to bring more speed, control and certainty into your build process, let us talk about how Howick roll-forming technology and LGS framing automation can help.
