In lesson planning or course design a common mantra is To Get to the Beginning, Start at the End. This concept of design lends well with sustainability and green design too.  Design with end in mind is not a strange to professional who work in Product Design but is a strange concept for those in the commercial building industry. Designers who design products, design to a price point (end) and to a target market (end) and the ability to meet these criteria means success or failure of a product.

Product designer (such as Apple; BMW; Braun etc) have to design a good product they have to begin at the end (price point and target market) leveraging a constructive methodological which requires coordinating product design and supply chain sequentially all the while not losing focus on the end criteria of the price point and target market mitigating risk throughout the supply chain.  

It is time for the AEC industry to consider Product Development in Construction - “Starting with the End in Mind” - a shift in mindset. This shift in mindset is required as the AEC’s long history of staggering cost overruns and delays in completion offers little assurance to project sponsors and executives that the cost estimates and schedules presented can be relied upon. In a  recent article in the economist: Rethinking productivity across the construction industry - The challenge of change the author says….. meeting the productivity challenge continues to be an industry-wide problem. This makes it difficult for individual organisations to find solutions on their own.

A Weippert & S. L. Kajewski from Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia in their report: AEC industry culture: a need for change has this to say: "Four decades of international Architectural, Engineering, and Contractor (AEC) industry publications reinforce poor communication and information transmission; coordination; and teamwork issues, are the cause of countless performance problems on numerous AEC projects.”

The industry has to change and fresh thinking is required and some long-held ideas of best practice in the AEC industry is being challenged, as projects are steadily become larger, more complex, and of longer duration, the challenge presented to executive decision-makers has never been greater. AEC Industry has a reputation of passing risk downwards and the only way to stop this issue which is threating the productivity in the AEC industry is to learn from the pros and cons of the product design industry and their concept of “Starting with the End in Mind”.

The key to achieving this shift in mind set is to change dramatically the current supply chain in the AEC Industry. This system is a broken system that inherently transfers risk down the tube resulting in too many layer of owner construction management; wherein cost Influence lost after design/engineering stage and cost & schedule escalates through innumerable bid cycles and layer of subcontractors creating multiple silos resulting in inconsistent quality and  risk/contingency premium carried by contractor who sits at the bottom of the current AEC industry supply chain.

Re-tooling the current supply chain in the AEC industry will require changes in the expectations and behaviours of all stakeholders, including clients, policymakers, and supply-chain partners in the AEC community. The new supply chain of the AEC Industry will be achieved only when there is a change in  Thinking to determine a changed Outcome wherein the supply chain system delivers a clear vision of the project delivery.  This system will have to the address the following key stakeholder/client drivers:

Enables client to focus on CORE business

Fewer interfaces for Client to MANAGE

Reduced capital COST

Maximize labour PRODUCTIVITY

Create efficiencies through STANDARDIZATION

Increase CONSTRUCTABILITY

Improved predictability of project EXECUTION

Improved predictability of project RISK

Reduced project TIMELINE

Improved SAFETY & QUALITY

Lower Environmental/Socioeconomic IMPACT

We live in a world of digital Darwinism where through Disruptive Selection it is reported that, 70% of the companies on the Fortune 1000 list 10 years ago have vanished and in an environment where no business is too big to fail or too small to succeed, where technology and society are growing at a faster pace than organisation and corporation can catch. The AEC is an industry waiting to disrupt and requires re-tooling and needs long-term structural change through the participation of stakeholders across the industry.

The designers, builders and managers of the AEC industry will require to innovate – re-tool the AEC industry supply chain by disrupting traditional process, and rebelliously discarding old business clichés and remaking the AEC project delivery model. Lack of leadership in the AEC industry on this matter will be detrimental for the entire industry and other players from other industry will come in with a  radical solution.

If Apple can design a car and a Nokia a manufacturer of rubber boots, tires and other rubber can successfully enter the telecommunication, do you think an outsider can change the AEC industry, you bet it can. What do you think, I would like to hear from you.

Photo credit Pixabay