Is construction "the most wasteful least productive industry in America?"

[editor]

The Boston Globe has a fascinating article that takes the construction industry to the woodshed.

IN APRIL, A gasoline tanker overturned beneath a key stretch of highway in Oakland, Calif., erupting into flames that melted the steel of an overpass and brought a section of road crashing to the ground.

Repairs were projected to cost $5.2 million and snarl Bay Area traffic for months. The state solicited bids for the work, offering a set of bonuses for finishing early, and got a surprising offer: One company said it would take the job for $867,000.

The firm, C.C. Myers, set to work around the clock, working closely with suppliers and fabricators across the country. The repairs took just 18 days, earning the company a $5 million bonus, giving commuters a smooth drive home far sooner than anyone expected -- and sending waves of surprise through the industry.

The article goes on to talk about how every other major industy in the nation has modernized except construction.

[TheNiche]

One of my favorite quotes from the article:

This fragmentation has enormous costs. It guarantees that any building site will be an assembly of strangers, with a high risk of miscommunication. It traps the industry in conservative practices, ensuring that any new learning will spread slowly, if at all.

I've been dealing with a whole mess'-o-contractors lately from all different trades to make a small commercial project happen. The built-in conservatism is true. If you yourself don't have any expertise in a trade, for instance roofing, then they do nothing more than try to sell you on the standard procedure. No innovation, nothing. To get a good combination of materials and/or coating, I basically had to figure out all the options myself and tell them precisely what I wanted. Otherwise, they didn't even need to innovate to try and get a job because none of their competition were either. It is pathetic.

But don't even bother trying to set hard deadlines with incentives for early completion or disincentives for late completion. Suggestions like that don't go over very well at all.