Tracking Infrastructure

Each week I publish an email that offers stories about the precast industry or personal anecdotes that relate to my passion for continual improvement. This week's subject line was: Precast, John Deere & The Family Farm. It recounted my very positive impressions of both Deere and a nationally recognized farm for the importance they place on data collection and analysis to sustain continued productivity growth.

So, perhaps its fitting that I just came across an article in Planet Lean entitled Lean Maintenance in Agriculture. As you might guess, there are some good lessons for the precast community in observing how leading farms are applying lean manufacturing principals to maintenance practices.

I was touring a precast plant about a month ago and my host pointed over to a clump of trees in the distance. 

"Do you know what that is?", he asked.

"We call it Area 51 because we can't explain the inventory that is located there."

A year or so ago, I had a similar conversation with another precaster who had just purchased a precast plant. The acquired plant had a place in its yard that was called Inventory Mountain.

There has been a lot of talk about 3D modeling and BIM in recent years. Both have experienced acceptance and application in commercial construction.... but very little in the civil construction market. However, it seems that the FHWA's push for e-Construction practices over the past 5-6 years is bearing fruit. Now, all of a sudden, DOTs are starting to require e-ticketing and Digital As-Builts from their suppliers.

Stubbe's Precast, based in Harley, Ontario, is a big precast producer with a great reputation. They serve eastern Canada with two state-of-the-art manufacturing plants specializing in structural and architectural precast. Speak to any precaster in Canada or in the northeast United States and they will speak of Stubbe's with high regard. The reason for this is found in Stubbe's values: quality, innovation and, as they state on their website, "forward thinking solutions". 

Since early in Q2 of 2020, we have seen a dramatic growth in inquiries from large precast manufacturers who want to 'go digital' in their plants. They all have their own specific needs, of course, but the acceleration of interest suggests that there is something bigger at work. Something that suggests a change in thinking or a transformation. It feels as if the industry has reached a tipping point, much the same way that the world rushed to embrace Zoom to manage through COVID.

We think it has.

Our discussions with concrete product manufacturers during the past month reveal that many are reassessing their workflows in response to the COVID-19 disruption. Smart managers see a break from normality as a good opportunity to rethink the old ways in order to emerge more productive.

The first cut is to find hidden costs that can be eliminated.

Amazon engages its vendors through a web interface it calls Vendor Central. Parties invited to become vendors register on the platform and their relationship with Amazon is managed on it. Why does Amazon operate in this way? Because it is the most cost-efficient way of doing business. All commerce will eventually follow Amazon's lead and engender the efficiency that platforms offer.

This is the third in a series of posts from our recently published vision statement called The Infrastructure Supply Chain Platform. Today we discuss how infrastructure manufacturers will engage with their vendors on a platform to save time, reduce costs and add more value to the end users of the products they produce.

Advances in information technology over the past 30 years have created a foundation for improved manufacturing productivity that is often dubbed the Second Industrial Revolution. In the first revolution electricity was the underlying technology. But it was the application of this technology to a new manufacturing model... the assembly line... that created the productivity break-through. Today, information technology is serving as the foundation for another new model... the industry platform.

This is the second in a series of posts drawing from our vision statement for the future of infrastructure manufacturing. Today we discuss how manufacturers can provide a quantum leap in the value that they offer by using a customer-facing platform to provide seamless data sharing.

There is a lot written about technology and the role it will play in improving the productivity of the construction process. But how will technology improve the efficiency of the construction product supply chain?

This is the first in a series of posts dedicated to this topic and it draws from our recently published vision statement entitled: "The Infrastructure Supply Chain Platform". We start with a dive into how systems integration will help manufacturers realize improved productivity from systems they already have in place.

"Modular construction's time may have finally come." This is how McKinsey & Company summarized the findings of its June 2019 report Modular construction: From projects to products, a follow-up to its 2017 report about reinventing construction to produce $1.6 trillion of productivity improvements. The possibilities include accelerated timelines (estimated 20-50%) and cost reductions of 20%. McKinsey reports that the primary factor enabling these possibilities is the application of technology. All manufacturers, modular or not, will want to understand the technology landscape in order to compete effectively. We offer a profile here.