Brian Hornback, deputy assistant director for Field Services and Public Safety at the Washington Department of Labor & Industries, briefed the committee on July 24 about the department’s work on factory‑built residential structures and steps taken since an April briefing.

Hornback said the department treats factory‑assembled residential structures as a distinct class (excluding panelized construction and manufactured/mobile homes) and highlighted three core functions: plan review and approval, factory inspection and placement inspections prior to shipment. He told the committee that residential plan reviews, which at times had taken months earlier in the pandemic, are now being prioritized and ‘‘residential structures right now are going out in approximately 2 days.’’

L&I said it is formalizing and clarifying third‑party review and inspection processes that were put in place quickly during COVID. The agency reported there are currently 11 authorized third‑party reviewers and 10 firms with 15 approved licensed professionals; Hornback said the earlier, informal rollout has made it harder to expand the roster and L&I is working to standardize that process.

To improve internal capacity, L&I said it will create a plans‑examiner supervisor position to triage customer inquiries and allow senior program leadership to focus on strategic work; recruitment for the position was expected to go live the week after the briefing. Hornback also described completed business requirements work for a customer‑facing database to show plan‑review and inspection status in real time and said IT product development is the next step.

On rulemaking, Hornback said draft language to govern third‑party inspections has been prepared for review by the FAS board, with a CR‑102 anticipated in September to start formal public notice and comment. Finally, the department said it would begin analysis of national modular and factory standards (for example, model standards proposed by the Modular Building Institute) to assess alignment with state building codes and whether partial or whole adoption is feasible without creating conflicts across jurisdictions.

Why it matters: L&I’s changes—faster residential plan processing, hiring to coordinate customer work, a planned tracking database, and formal rulemaking for third‑party inspection—are aimed at reducing one known bottleneck for scaling off‑site construction in Washington. Formal rules and a standardized third‑party process could make factory output more portable across local jurisdictions by providing consistent pre‑shipment inspections and a recognized state label.

What’s next: L&I will proceed with rule review before the FAS board, file CR‑102 public notice in September, continue its analysis of national standards and move forward on the plans‑examiner supervisor recruitment and the tracking database project.