Discussion about this post

User's avatar
John Straube's avatar

Another good article Brian. I have noted that "the way we always do it" is stronger in single family residential (reaching a peak in production housing) than institutional buildings. There is a direct correlation to the detail of the design documents and also design fees. The design effort and documentation for a production home is very sparse, and yet they bang them out by the thousands. A courthouse today will have hundreds of full size drawings and thousands of pages of specs.

Also, the 3000 parts count in a house is very low. If you count each shingle, brick tie, and brick, each electric face plate, and floor tile (each part handled by a human installer), you get closer to 30 000 than 3000. There are over a thousand asphalt shingles in a modest house. Toyota says that their cars have over 30 000 parts but they count fasteners "down to the smallest screws" (and they often show up on parts diagrams). If you count fasteners, then 30 000 parts in a single family home is easily exceeded. I cant see how a larger building like a federal courthouse would not have 600 000.

Expand full comment
Rob Baxter's avatar

Complexity and Lean thinking is defined by the time it takes to complete. I have heard of homes in Phoenix built in 30 days, my friend does complete bank renovations in 2 weeks working 24/7. In China a highrise floor every 48 hours. Any studies on applying lean to construction?

Expand full comment
12 more comments...

No posts