October 25, 2001

Turning over a new leaf

“What if...?” is always a fascinating question, particularly when it applies to an industry that has been held back by its dysfunction and compromises.

This article will suggest what might be done differently if we had a chance to build a construction industry anew.

Some of these ideas have already been put to practice, while others have been discussed by consortia such as the Construction Industry Institute. However, I believe several of these ideas have not been widely considered, and it is doubtful that all have been viewed together.

Life cycle view — Owners and constructors develop a total life cycle value proposition for each project based on industry templates, and then examine where each contributor brings added value regardless of when the contributor is participating actively in the effort.

Production — Construction based on manufacturing principles and an automation perspective focused on value pricing, not man-hours. Manufacturing has redesigned itself in the past decade and much can be learned from what the industry has done, even at the small contractor scale.

New labor practices — An end to approaches that foster a focus on man-hours, with all its tendencies to elongate schedule and perpetuate inefficiency. This is tightly coupled to the first two efforts above.

Virtual halls — All construction workers in this country should have a Web page on a national resource site and control which groups have access to their personal information. Experience, skills, certifications, preferences and references would all be available.

Processes — Should be fully documented with a national best-practice repository that can be used by owners to build the requirement basis for their needs. A national repository of tools and templates would be a powerful motivator, and the added opportunity for training in this discipline over the Web would enhance the opportunity.

WBS and cost codes — Build a national template for five major facility sectors using a national work breakdown structure and cost code view, and get companies to agree that these will be used with a minimum of specialized additions, which will be clearly identified. Those with a stake in this include insurance, bonding, banking and owner groups.

Standards — Many current construction and material standards are based on inertia in the industry, not on an aggressive examination of what is possible and what could be better. Too much of the emphasis of standards bodies is on sustaining the revenue of selling and controlling this information, not on making the industry better. A national initiative to look at the alternatives to major standards should be launched with complete objectivity about alternatives.

Construction tools — The use of physical tracking systems to eliminate loss would encourage constructors to equip their people with the very best and encourage innovation in new specialty tools. A national specialty tools tracking database would be especially useful in responding to major emergencies.

Software tools — Off-the-shelf software tools cannot be a source of competitive advantage because others can obtain them. So settle on a small subset to make sure vendors stay healthy and information is retrievable throughout the facility life cycle.

Handling tools — We currently handle many large and heavy things in construction in ways that have proven workable, but we have seen little effort to truly improve this area. Much of this comes from adherence to standards built without regard to consequences in handling and assembly. For example, it’s archaic to have an ironworker in a sling trying to wrestle a bolted connection with a bull wrench. On the other hand, while it seems possible to use a robotic combined lifting clamp with a walking alignment punch and Huck fastener installer, such tools aren’t available because stakeholders haven’t invested in research and development.

Litigation — Develop a national view to construction claims handling. This would include highly standard ways of developing and reporting claims so that a production view to handling could be developed to catch them earlier, handle them better and learn from them more easily.

Schedules and estimates — Owners lose millions on delays in time-to-revenue because of deficiencies in schedules and estimates. But doing them well requires a strong historical database of past efforts from which to build the next effort. Rather than giving this away, we should imagine how we could post project profiles, associated schedules and estimates with all associated assumptions in a national repository to which others could subscribe. It would be anonymous, but could improve the quality of all efforts large and small over time.

Coordination — A national view to balancing the scarce resources of construction personnel would seem appropriate, as getting and keeping such people becomes harder.

Safety — We tend to look at safety as a reaction to the many assumptions we make about how construction currently must work. What have we done to stand back and question every accepted practice in the context of safety, with all options open to change?

Learning — We should consider a national “lessons learned” repository with immunity from discoverability. We, as an industry, can learn a great deal from each other, but such learning is badly inhibited by the misuse of lessons learned by others against those trying to communicate and improve.

Alerts — A national alerts posting system should be developed so that any concerns about equipment, methods, materials or participants could be posted in a controlled manner for those in the industry to use to improve their efforts and avoid unnecessary losses.

These are all very brief discussions about complex topics, and they only scratch the surface. However, there appears to be enough substance in just these few to warrant further discussion and examination. I am ready to work with others starting today to move any of these forward.

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