Great article as always. If folks are not aware, there are now standards that are associated with pre-fab offsite construction for different assemblies. ICC has two ( https://www.iccsafe.org/advocacy/safety-toolkits/offsite-construction/ ) and ASSE has one ( https://assewebstore.com/asse-lec-2012-2021a-download/ ) specific to plumbing and mechanical systems. It wasn’t long ago that when a PE needed a rooftop air handler, they would design the entire system themselves by specifying individual compressors, coils, fans, etc. Today, they select a packaged RTU. A similar trend is starting up with packaged plumbing system available from manufacturers. Will be interesting how and where GC's and engineers adopt the concept.
You discuss the replication crisis but I note that this is strongest, by far, in the social Sciences. In the hard Sciences, not nearly so much.
Presumably, assuming equally honest individuals, this is because there are so many, many more uncontrolled, and uncontrollable, variables when individuals or groups of people are involved.
In that sense, factory manufacturing is more like physics and construction is more like psychology... It could probably be easily shown, if one had better math than I, that psychology can never be as reproducible as physics and, similarly, construction can never be as efficient as factory type manufacturing...
Well, yes. Medicine involves People - Especially hard to replicate. Still, their replication rate is far above the social sciences.
Biology involves living organisms, hard to replicate.
Chemistry & Physics - can control almost all variables - quite easy to replicate if they write up their methods carefully.
Psycology, Sociology, etc., - Involves not only people but systems of people - way too many variables to control even if people don't lie routinely to themselves and investigators - Replication is very, very hard.
PS I should note that my father worked all his life in construction, both custom and modular-mobile. Spending a lot of time on both types with him, it was clear that quality was potentially better in the plant but this often wasn't achieved Iin practice because the better craftsmen avoided factory work when possible and factory managers built only to some minimum standard while craftspeople tended to compete on quality. This was as much or more for personal pride reasons as for business reasons.
We'd spend extra effort on things that customers would never see (hidden behind walls etc.) because " you'll know if you did it right" (quote from my dad).
Great article as always. If folks are not aware, there are now standards that are associated with pre-fab offsite construction for different assemblies. ICC has two ( https://www.iccsafe.org/advocacy/safety-toolkits/offsite-construction/ ) and ASSE has one ( https://assewebstore.com/asse-lec-2012-2021a-download/ ) specific to plumbing and mechanical systems. It wasn’t long ago that when a PE needed a rooftop air handler, they would design the entire system themselves by specifying individual compressors, coils, fans, etc. Today, they select a packaged RTU. A similar trend is starting up with packaged plumbing system available from manufacturers. Will be interesting how and where GC's and engineers adopt the concept.
Thank you Brian. I enjoyed reading the review and learned new concepts.
You discuss the replication crisis but I note that this is strongest, by far, in the social Sciences. In the hard Sciences, not nearly so much.
Presumably, assuming equally honest individuals, this is because there are so many, many more uncontrolled, and uncontrollable, variables when individuals or groups of people are involved.
In that sense, factory manufacturing is more like physics and construction is more like psychology... It could probably be easily shown, if one had better math than I, that psychology can never be as reproducible as physics and, similarly, construction can never be as efficient as factory type manufacturing...
I'm not sure this is true re: hard sciences (depending on what you consider 'hard') - medicine, for instance, has pretty similar problems with replication: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
Well, yes. Medicine involves People - Especially hard to replicate. Still, their replication rate is far above the social sciences.
Biology involves living organisms, hard to replicate.
Chemistry & Physics - can control almost all variables - quite easy to replicate if they write up their methods carefully.
Psycology, Sociology, etc., - Involves not only people but systems of people - way too many variables to control even if people don't lie routinely to themselves and investigators - Replication is very, very hard.
The role of the worker's pride in their product is something I don't think I've seen you address...
PS I should note that my father worked all his life in construction, both custom and modular-mobile. Spending a lot of time on both types with him, it was clear that quality was potentially better in the plant but this often wasn't achieved Iin practice because the better craftsmen avoided factory work when possible and factory managers built only to some minimum standard while craftspeople tended to compete on quality. This was as much or more for personal pride reasons as for business reasons.
We'd spend extra effort on things that customers would never see (hidden behind walls etc.) because " you'll know if you did it right" (quote from my dad).
I'm wondering if design-build firms do better at controlling their processes and if so, why the subcontractor model is more common?