Industrializing Construction: Solutions for Productivity Breakthroughs

This post is an excerpt from the paper, “Industrialization of the Construction Industry,” by Dr. Perry Daneshgari and  Dr. Heather Moore of  MCA Inc.

An important study by the National Research Council, “Advancing the Competitiveness and Efficiency of the U.S. Construction Industry” identified solutions for breakthrough improvement of productivity.

Five Key Areas for Productivity Improvements in Construction

1. Widespread deployment and use of interoperable technology applications.
2. Improved job-site efficiency through a more effective interface of people, processes, materials, equipment, and information.
3. Greater use of pre-fabrication, pre-assembly, modularization, and off-site fabrication techniques and processes.
4. Innovative, widespread use of demonstration installations.
5. Improved performance measurement to drive efficiency and support innovation.

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These findings are very much in line with what the manufacturing industry had realized after the advent of industrialization. The Industrial revolution, which started in mid 1700, led to an increase in population due to the first time in the human history that production levels were higher than self-consumption of the working man.

With higher population also came new markets and customers. The production facilities had to become more productive.

Henry Towne introduced the concept of “Engineer as an Economist,” and led the path to the application of “Principles of Scientific Management” by Fredrick Taylor for discovering the means of managing labor and work.

Continuing with giants of productivity improvements such as Frank and Lillian Gilbreth for efficiency, human factors, and measurement; Henry Ford for efficiency of the machine; Dr. Shewhart and Deming for statistical process control; and ending with Toyota’s Taichii Ohno for application of effectiveness of labor, the manufacturing gained its four to five-fold productivity.

This post is an excerpt from the white paper, “Industrialization of the Construction Industry,” by Dr. Perry Daneshgari and Dr. Heather Moore.

Commissioned by Dassault Systemes and prepared by MCA Inc., this whitepaper focuses on industrialization of construction industry.

It maps out the construction industry challenges, relates the history of industrialization in the manufacturing industry, and summarizes five critical aspects and approaches.

Download the whitepaper and start accelerating the “Industrialization of the Construction Industry” through lessons learned from manufacturing and other industries.

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Related resources:

Optimized Construction Industry Solution Experience

Download Optimized Construction Solution Brief

White Paper: Industrialization of the Construction Industry

MCA® Website

Categories: AEC, Dassault Systèmes, Industrialized Construction, Lean Construction

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