The increasing complexity of the construction industry is driving the evolution of the industrial management mindset toward a new post-industrial, or performance paradigm. More and more it is becoming critical for the construction industry to assess and align its core competitive capabilities with its contextual environment. For industry leaders it is important to understand both the industrial and performance (post-industrial) paradigms in order to design more effective strategies to evolve from an industrial to a performance industry. The industrial paradigm, characterized by linear-analytic logic, and compartmentalized or specialized “silos” needs to be replaced with a paradigm characterized by systems-thinking, computational sciences and market realities — the performance paradigm.
In the 1950's, W. Edwards Deming, the statistician who revolutionized the Japanese economy following WWII, applied systems thinking to management and industry. His principles were successful wherever properly applied, and are presented in this work as an alternative to the fragmented practices that currently impede construction's advancement. In the 1960's, computational science emerged as the field that would provide the technology capable of organizing and processing complex systems like computer networks, the internet, and now, hopefully, construction. These two movements — systems thinking and computational science — are the twin pillars of the new paradigm, the performance paradigm . Thanks to the power and accuracy of computational systemic thinking , performance is no longer a vague marketing slogan, but a measurable, producible quality:
performance, n. The quality of execution of an action, operation, or process; the effectiveness of a person or thing in performing an action; spec. the capabilities, productivity, or success of a machine, product, or person when measured against a standard . ( Oxford English Dictionary, emphasis added)
building performance , then, is the quality of execution of a building operation when measured against a standard .
The proposed solution is to shift the industry into the building performance paradigm . The shift is expressed by five key transitions in the industry's structures and practices:
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Performance Standards and Measures — These will organize and evaluate the performance of the building product, the building project team, and the building delivery process. It requires the collection and standardization of data and measures in all areas where performance improvement is sought.
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Function-based Computing — Sophisticated computational modeling system that is necessary to process the complex data and information. This cyber modeling system simulates systemic standards for projects, and also validates and calibrates performance measures. The success of systemic performance standards and measures depends on applied computation science.
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Operating Building Focus — With performance data and computational systems in place, the industry will be able to shift its focus away from services, documents and production in accordance with those documents. Instead, the focus will shift to the life-cycle performance of the completed building; functional, operational and environmental.
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Integrated Innovation — As transitions 1, 2 and 3 promote new interdisciplinary and integrated practices, the opportunity to innovate will begin to effect all corners of the industry.
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Integrated Optimization — Rather than optimizing a fragmented system, construction needs to first establish an integrated system, and then optimize that . There are, in fact, three main building systems that need to be established and optimized: the building organization, building process, and of the building itself.
When these transitions have been made, then the construction industry can be said to have entered the performance paradigm . The benefits of such a shift are many, and include high performance buildings produced by a high performance industry , as well as the national and global recognition — and hopefully emulation — that will attend successful examples of innovation and optimization in such a complex industry. Everyone expects innovation and optimization from Apple and Google, digital era industries that never had to deal with an industrial paradigm, but everyone needs innovation and optimization from construction, a foundational industry as old as civilization.
The solution does not begin with innovation and optimization, but ends with these. The solution begins with owners, design and construction professionals accepting the performance paradigm shift and teaming with manufacturers, educators and researchers to develop the strategies. As these innovative professionals and leaders gain traction, once performance measures and standards are established, and once the information processing infrastructure is set up, then innovation and optimization will follow.
In order to join the movement, the first step is to understand the performance paradigm. The best place to start is the Performance Building paper.