Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, and How to Fix It - Hardcover

by Todd R. Zabelle (Author)

The separation of planning from doing and the preoccupation with administration, contracts, and scheduling over designing and building has been disastrous for construction. Lawyers, planners, risk managers, schedulers, and other administrative roles impede the ability of architects, engineers, and craftspeople-the professionals who design and build the things society needs to function. It isn't just a matter of getting things done on time-if you're the owner of an asset, manage a construction company, or invest in a project, overcoming these limitations is critical to your ability to compete and profit.

Todd Zabelle, a recognized expert, construction CEO, and one of the founders of the lean construction movement, looks critically at each aspect of the industry, from production to construction to design to deployment to what the future holds, deftly analyzing where we've gone wrong and offering concrete, clear-eyed solutions for how to fix it.

Zabelle's incisive wit and pulls-no-punches honesty are a refreshing antidote to the bland, overly polite, vacuous dialogue of board meetings and academic conferences. Speaking from the heart-and informed by over thirty years of experience in all facets of the industry-Zabelle delivers a much-needed wakeup call at a time when it's needed most.

Back Jacket

The construction industry is broken, bloated, and stuck in the past. But there is a way to fix it.

The construction industry is as big as it is important. Without construction, our society would cease to be. We would have no ports, roads, or bridges. No communications networks, power grids, or water systems. No hospitals. No schools. No homes.

But we can barely get anything built. Capital works projects are routinely finished late and over budget. Everyone acknowledges the problem, but no one seems to have the vision, or the will, to fix it.

The problem is industry relies too much on outmoded approaches to management and production that arose in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The preoccupation with Taylorist scientific management, project management's current focus on planning, and administration interfere with the critical work of designing and building, giving way to the bloated, bureaucratic boondoggles that have marred the industry's reputation.

The solution is an innovative, forward-thinking approach to construction that leverages operations science and utilizes revolutionary advances in digital technology to cut through the red tape and deliver on time and on budget. As Built to Fail shows, this is not mere theory; these ideas are being successfully implemented, providing facility owners and construction professionals who adopt them a competitive advantage and meeting the needs of citizens who depend on those projects to work, live, and thrive. But change is slow, and the people calling the shots--backed by the teeming ranks of administrators, planners, project managers, and others--are unable, or unwilling, to carve a new path forward. As a result, everyone suffers.

It is time to move construction into the twenty-first century. This book is a manifesto for why and a blueprint for how--a call to overcome the status quo and remake an industry on which civilization itself depends.