As the construction industry transitions from the industrial era to the performance paradigm, opportunities will abound for manufacturers to innovate and produce. Your future success should be based on producing products and systems that measurably increase the performance of buildings and also the productivity of the building process. The Performance Building Institute anticipates the building product manufacturers will be the innovation forerunners in the performance paradigm.
The political and social pressure to produce sustainable buildings creates an enormous potential for manufacturers of products that support sustainable objectives. If you can do this and also produce those products and systems in a way that increases productivity and helps reduce the overall capital cost of projects, then you will be able to meet the needs of both the building owners and the sustainability advocates.
The barriers to innovation that have marked the construction industry for several decades will be dismantled. This will make the entry into the marketplace much easier. Where proprietary products were largely blocked because of commodity procurement practices, performance standards and measures will enable the innovations that proceed from your ingenuity.
You may learn more about the performance paradigm through the research articles (aka white papers) and a Performance Building Blog . 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.
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.