The Performance Building Institute uses the term “building producer” to mean, at least, the first tier construction organization responsible for constructing a building. This includes the building company, construction company, general contractor, prime contractor, construction manager, project manager or design-builder. In context, “building producer” may also include the designer(s) and also the subcontractors. Why the name change? Three reasons: (1) the proposed solutions included in this website can work with any of the above in that first tier position, (2) a proposed paradigm shift anticipates a stronger relationship between the “building producer” and the completed operating building than is understood by the other names, and (3) it saves a lot of words.
Since the 1970’s, the construction industry has gone, and continues to go, through significant transitions in order to bring greater value to its customers and to the nation’s economy, ecology and public well being.
The first series of transitions began in project delivery. Construction management (CM), led to a shift in the project leadership from the architect to the building producer. This was the industry’s attempt to bring collaboration and integration to the building process. Forms of collaborative and integrated project delivery have continued to evolve as well, including design-build — even to the point where the design and project management are both performed “in-house.” A survey of the largest design-build firms shows that these have emerged from traditional construction or engineering firms. In only a few cases have traditional architectural firms grown into design-builders.
In the new millennium, two major transitions are evolving, the first one born out of the environmental movement — sustainability and its principle instrument — LEED; the other being technology and its principle instrument — BIM. The architect has re-emerged as the industry leader in these transitions.
While these transitions do bring value, they have not been able to resolve the construction industry’s continued stagnant productivity and failures to innovate. A major principle of The Performance Building Institute is that a low performing industry cannot produce innovative, cost effective, low-impact high performance buildings. Consequently, today’s “green” buildings increase the cost of construction. Without empirical evidence of financial break even and payback, owners are becoming increasingly leery about the “green” building movement, particularly during these recessionary times. And so there is a significant problem developing.
The root of problem is that construction continues to struggle against an industrial-era paradigm — one characterized by fragmented, compartmentalized silos in multiple dimensions. Even though the industry continues to produce a wide variety of complex buildings, its continued decline in productivity and failures to innovate are creating much more of an adverse impact. The implications are going far beyond a burden to the industries’ customers. The impact on the overall economy and ecology continues to mount. An increasing demand for cost-effective, low impact, high performance “green” buildings is confronting a decreasing capacity for the construction industry to deliver under it industrial era structures and practices. The answer is for construction to adopt a performance paradigm — one characterized by computational science and systems thinking and management approaches.
You can learn more about the performance paradigm through the Performance Building Blog and a series of white papers. The introductory paper, "Performance Building" describes the five key transitions pushing the industry towards the performance paradigm:(1) Performance standards and measures, (2) Function-based computing, (3) Completed operating building focus, (4) Integrated innovation, and finally (5) Integrated optimization. The result of these transitions is a transformation from conventional “gray” and “green” buildings to high performance “green” buildings.
As a design-builder you are already well ahead of most of the industry, and in a good position to take the next steps toward performance standards and measures, technology, sustainability, integrated innovation and optimization. To do so requires education, training and planning process. This process would involve a transition that would not place your current business at risk, and in fact may help it — both in operations and in sales and marketing. One way to prepare is by instituting a High Performance Strategic Plan for your business, according to the following outline:
Organization Leadership — identification of leaders with the motivational and organizational skills to guide the organization or leadership team through the planning process, beginning with establishing a clear culture of improvement and purpose.
Organizational Goals and Strategies — the clear statement of goals is the beginning of all good planning initiatives, this planning included. This step would include an evaluation of where your priorities are when considering the high performance paradigm — including assessment of market sectors, likely building team partners, delivery methods, customer needs, competitor influences, product manufacturer relationships, etc. It may also include planning related to mergers or acquisitions or internal expansion into the areas of architecture, engineering or specialty trades.
Education and Training — because the performance paradigm is founded on computational science and systems thinking, education and training in these areas is important. The “Links” section of this website provides such resources for consideration.
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Performance Standards and Measures — the white paper, “Performance Standards and Measures” describes how quantitative performance proceeds from the completed operating building and also the building process. The building producer should be in the leadership role regarding standards and measures. From these, you will then develop internal standards and measures — most likely based on some key industry recognized values, but could also apply those that may be unique to your particular practice.
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Innovation Strategies — the white paper, “Integrated Innovation” describes how innovation proceeds from the performance paradigm. The sections that are particularly relevant to the building producer include:
- Cyber Discovery Initiatives
- Prototyping and Compositing
- Product and System Production and Pre-fabrication
- Cloud Innovation – for developing and adopting innovation
- Optimization Strategies — the white paper, “Integrated Optimization” describes how optimization proceeds from the performance paradigm. The sections that are particularly relevant to the building producer include:
- Organizational Integration
- Lean Design and Construction
- Production Quality
- Process Integration and Automation
- Completed Operating Building Optimization
- Project Delivery Model — establishment of a model and guideline for project delivery teams to use in adopting the Performance Building Process
- Equip & Empower leaders to pursue this and also the performance building plan. Financing and other resources will need to be appropriated to engage in the performance paradigm.
- Implementation Plan — a short term (1 year) action plan for implementing the high performance strategic plan
The Performance Building Institute presents a comprehensive set of technologies and strategies for accomplishing construction's transition into the performance paradigm. If this interests you, please contact the Institute by email info@performancebuilding.org.