Today marks another significant step in the development of the CfOC-ICC-1220 Modular Interface Standard: the standard's Advisory Committee has completed its work to determine the appropriate size of the Consensus Committee and to select its members. The moment represents the culmination of a month of preparation, review, and deliberation, and concludes an intensive phase that clears the way for the standard’s real technical work to begin.

For the past several weeks, every Advisory Committee member carefully reviewed the full application packet for each candidate (involving application essays, résumés, and professional profiles). This level of preparation matters. A strong standard begins with a well-constructed team, and today’s meeting was devoted entirely to that purpose.

How the Advisory Committee Built the Team

The Advisory Committee’s task was straightforward in principle but demanding in practice: identify the “best possible” team to write a national standard that will shape the future of modular and offsite construction in North America. That goal required three forms of discernment:

• Breadth of representation: ensuring that all major stakeholder groups affected by the publication of CfOC-ICC-1220 are present.
• Fairness of disposition: seeking individuals capable of deliberating with balance, humility, and a commitment to consensus.
• Depth of wisdom: prioritizing life-earned professional judgment over mere information or credentials.

As a result, the Committee looked for candidates with rich, varied pathways through the offsite, manufacturing, construction, and design ecosystems. It favored individuals whose experience spans multiple firms, multiple roles, and multiple types of projects. It also welcomed candidates from national organizations whose professional lives revolve around listening to dozens of practitioners and synthesizing their day-to-day challenges. That indirect experience, gathered across hundreds of conversations, often represents a broader cross-section of the industry than any single résumé could.

The Committee’s Young Composition for a Young Field

One striking feature of the final group is that its demographic profile reflects the youth of the offsite industry itself. While standards committees in other sectors can comfortably skew toward older senior practitioners, this Consensus Committee includes a handful of professional leaders in their 30s and 40s — professionals who have already accumulated substantial offsite experience despite the industry’s relative newness. Their perspectives on what hasn’t worked in offsite construction were valued just as highly as their perspectives on what should work.

The committee sought an intentional blend of seasoned leadership and next-generation expertise. It mirrors the rapid evolution of offsite construction in North America and ensures that CfOC-ICC-1220 is shaped by those building that future firsthand.

A Deliberate, Fair, and Balanced Process

The Advisory Committee took exceptional care to ensure balance and fairness:

• Members individually ranked candidates before seeing one another’s evaluations.
• Rankings were only pooled once all independent reviews were complete.
• Candidates were considered through ANSI’s required categories: users, producers, and general interest.
• Geographic diversity, industry subsectors, and background diversity were actively evaluated.
• The entire selection procedure had been publicly published nearly a year in advance.

At significant stages of the meeting, each Advisory Committee member was polled to confirm that they felt comfortable with the process, had access to all relevant information, and believed each step felt both fair and natural. The result was a unanimous roster, which mirrors a process the Consensus Committee must emulate to work in a broadly unanimous fashion.

What Happens Next

The newly seated Consensus Committee will:

• Receive an orientation packet outlining the rules and expectations for consensus operations, along with background whitepapers that establish the project’s intellectual context.
• Determine its meeting rhythm, establishing the cadence of work.
• Interpret and apply the CfOC’s procedures specifically for this standard-development effort.
• Agree on the scope of the first draft of the CfOC-ICC-1220 Modular Interface Standard.

This is where the process shifts, from preparing the team to enabling the team’s technical work.

Driving Towards a Healthy & Sustainable North American Offsite Industry

Seating this committee is a historic moment for the North American offsite industry. The CfOC and ICC are working as quickly and as carefully as possible to bring open-source, opt-in intellectual property to an industry that urgently needs it. CfOC-ICC-1220 will play a foundational role in creating a healthy, robust, and sustainable “tier two” of pod and modular suppliers — giving every builder in America more tools to reduce costs, shorten schedules, and meaningfully address the nation’s affordable housing crisis.

Today’s milestone marks the beginning of that work.