he ended up in and out of the hospital with two consecutive back surgeries. Circumstances forced him to reconsider his vision for the business. During his recovery, he and his wife Rachel came up with the plan for what would become AMC1. Firstly, James and Rachel worked out how to secure land for an industrial-scale facility, then how to fund it. They took that plan to investors, eventually finding partners willing to buy equity in the business, and used that capital to build the facility in Lemnos, a suburb located just eight miles north-east of Shepparton. JMB received their certificate of occupancy in February of this year. The design of AMC1 reflects years of research well beyond the construction industry. James traces some of his design thinking back to 2017, when he became a helicopter pilot and learned about weight, balance, and moment calculations that would later prove essential for engineering modules that can be lifted safely without twisting or warping. A trip to China in 2018 further shaped his approach to advanced manufacturing. “Where I take my inspiration from is the automotive industry, the shipbuilding industry, and the aerospace industry,” James explains. “You look at what works for them and how you can grab their technologies, their moving production line process, their takt times, and their way of thinking, and introduce it into an advanced manufacturing facility to effectively create industrialized construction.” That thinking is now embedded in the physical layout of AMC1. Each module begins at station SEPTEMBER 2026
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