Technology is transforming entire industries to be more efficient, yet productivity lags in construction—confoundingly so. The reality is that the problem is systemic.

这不仅仅是公司决定提高生产力的问题。根据项目所不明的合同类型,总承包商可能不会激励其生产力。没有建筑标准或指标(高尔夫球标准)可以强迫更高的性能。According to McKinsey & Company, 98% of projects face cost overruns or delays; the average cost increase is 80% of original value, and the average slippage is 20 months behind original schedule.

The reasons are complicated. First, every construction project is a multiemployer site, with tens to hundreds of companies going into the building of a project. If general contractors—who build the schedule and oversee subcontractors—are in lump-sum contracts, they may benefit financially for every dollar saved under the project price.

In a hard bid, the goal is to win by as little margin as possible. A perfect bid day is being lower than the competition by one penny and getting the job. The result is, performance is driven to an average. Because the owner didn’t hire the general contractor in preconstruction to point out mistakes in plans and specs, the general contractor can use those mistakes as a strategy to ensure a winning bid.

因此,所有者社区开发了一种招标方法guaranteed maximum price(GMP), which solves the problem of vetting designs for constructability, budget, and schedule but often gives project savings back to the owner. The general contractor’s financial gain in a GMP is established before the price is established for the project, in the form of fees and general conditions percentages.

In that instance, the owner hires the architect and contractor around the same time so that the builder can validate the design from the standpoint of constructability, pricing, and time.

分段装配期间,总承包商加勒比海盗ives at an agreeable price for the owner (GMP), including the fee and general conditions (say, 3 and 6 percent, respectively) to cover the general contractor’s costs to manage the project. The larger the GMP, the higher the fee and general conditions. But the owner has full-audit rights. If the general contractor brings the project in under budget and under schedule, the savings usually go to the owner. They aren’t incentivized to be efficient.


Why Golf’s Par Is the Answer

In golf, a golfer doesn’t play against competitors. The golfer plays against par, the predetermined number of strokes it should take to complete each hole on a course. Dedicated golfers compete with themselves to get as far under par as possible.

In construction, there is no par, so general contractors play to each other. If everybody is great, then everybody is average. But what if there was an objective benchmark—a way to measure excellence in an industry that doesn’t reward productivity? The way things operate now, price, quality, and efficiency standards are not up to par; they are what participants say they are.

Fortunately, there’s one established par for the industry: safety. The Experience Modification Rate (EMR) is an objective measure of a contractor’s safety performance and determines the rate it pays for workers compensation insurance. If a contractor has an EMR of 1.0, that means it must pay $1.00 for every dollar of worker’s compensation. If the EMR is lower, say .75, that’s $0.75 for every dollar of compensation.

一旦承包商理解EMR的含义,他们就会建立系统以推动EMR降落,从而保护了工人,节省了金钱,并大大降低了受伤的严重性和频率。EMR成为所有者在选择承包商时可能会权衡的因素。无法表现出良好EMR的总承包商被取消竞标资格。

When an owner is ready to start a project, it’s standard practice to interview several contractors. Contractors are skilled at demonstrating their superior capabilities, and owners have no objective way to qualify claims.

为什么没有质量,可持续性或效率的标准?业主为什么不能提及行业指标,然后说:“您说您拥有业务中最佳的调度系统,但是我看到您的日程安排指数与其他三个相比更高?”

One reason is a lack of centralized data necessary to establish a standard. In the case of EMR, contractors are legally required to report safety incidents to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which compiles the data to establish its rating.

Another reason is incentives are improperly aligned. General contractors aren’t used to reporting things they do wrong because project managers, fearing exposure to liability, are reluctant to capture information that may put them in a bad light.

进行返工:在竞争中完成一份工作,因为分包商的盈利能力直接与生产力联系在一起,他们努力尽快完成工作。看到孔被撞到新鲜的石膏板中并不少见,因为在水管工可以放入管道之前,石膏板将其放在。总承包商没有动力报告该错误,因为这可能表明他们没有正确协调时间表。

总承包商always do what they have to do to remain profitable. But to be more consistently profitable means really digging into all the drivers of poor productivity. Rework has real hidden costs that are not eliminated simply because a subcontractor “made it go away.” The root cause of the rework is still there and won’t go away until the process changes.


Bring on the Digital Data

The first step toward standards, which the industry is starting to take, is using the cloud to centralize data. The next step is to get contractors to collect consistent relative data that can be analyzed to make them more productive. Machine-learning systems give better results when more relevant information is put into the system—good or bad. Imagine if reporting rework resulted in better final performance instead of additional headaches. What if subcontractors gave good contractors better pricing because they managed rework better or scheduled more effectively?

最终,设置标准符合所有者在授予合同之前坚持独立验证的所有者,实际上迫使总承包商捕获良好的数据并使用它来持续改进。

凭借一致性,PAR将产生更好的利润。如果您询问总承包商,他们是否希望每次为项目平均获得1-8%的利润或保证5%,您认为他们会选择哪个?18luck官网他们将选择5。

会有成长的痛苦。您不仅会在第一次举行高尔夫球俱乐部时就抬起头球并拍摄小鸟。当一些较小的承包商必须符合客观标准时,他们可能会抛弃。但是,这些标准杆将驱使良好的承包商找到新的生产力方法,并最终获得更一致的利润。这是整个行业的一个洞。

莎拉·霍奇斯(Sarah Hodges)是Autodesk的建筑业务线总监。本文最初出现在Autodesk的Redshift, a publication dedicated to inspiring designers, engineers, builders, and makers.透明