Friday, October 29, 2010

Friday Wrap Up

Just finished my last two sessions of the conference, both very good.


FM of Tomorrow, Dean Kashiwagi, Ph.D., P.E., Arizona State University, Performance Based Studies Group
Dean's message to FM's is that our profession will not exist in the near future, at least not as we know it today.  In essence FM's today are expected to be experts in many areas, but the more "expert" you become the more silo'd you become as well, and that counters the trend in business towards strategic thought and relationships.

He suggests that a better model for FM is that we become strategic in everything we do and in HOW we do it.  Addressing the needs of executives requires thinking as they do, which is about value first.  Instead of buying a product or service think in terms of the entire supply chain, focusing on value instead of cost cutting. 

A key benefit of this shift is that it will closer align FM with enterprise strategy and allow FM to react quicker to strategic moves at the enterprise level.  Key steps in the business model shift include:

  • Looking up, not down
  • Aligning education and training focus
  • Find visionary models to emulate
  • Implement the new philosophy
At the bottom line, Dean's core message was that FM must become much more strategic and take the big view in order to act as leaders and align with businesses.  Everything beyond that becomes transactional, and there is no leverage, little opportunity, and less fun when you are purely transactional.


Nine Transforming Keys to Lowering Cost, Cutting Waste and Driving Change in a Broken Industry, Rex Miller, TAG Consulting
There was a lot of meat in this presentation even before Rex got to the nine transformational keys.  He described in vivid terms how broken the design and construction process is and how the myopic focus on cost reduction by Owner's is really working against their twin goals of lower cost and higher quality.  From there he briefly explained BIM, IPD and how their convergence with economic crisis are reshaping the industry.  Good stuff.  I picked up a copy of The Commercial Real Estate Revolution co-authored by Rex with Dean Strombom, Marik Iammarino, and Bill Black.  In the book they explain the nine keys in detail, here is a quick summary of what you will find.

Key 1   Trust-Based Team Formation enables you to select your entire project team and putting them together as a team before schematic design begins.

Key 2  Early Collaboration allows the team to redefine project management around a specific project's unique requirements. 

Key 3  Built-In Sustainability is a core principle and should be intentional and an integral part of every project.  When done right it costs no more than conventional building and payback begins immediately, not 3-5 years down the road.

Key 4  Transformational Leadership is required to break the business mold built for the past and envision what can be.  It will require facing reality and allowing others to do the same.

Key 5  "BIG" BIM refers to the impact that BIM technology is having on our industry.  It is big and it is going to get bigger.  It is fundamentally changing the way we do business in the design/build industry.

Key 6  Integrating Project Delivery (IPD) brings together a number of elements (collaboration and trust, BIM, lean construction, social networks) to integrate all components and entities of the design/construct process.

Key 7   Trust-Based Agreements and Client-Centered Incentives describes the process of defining participant needs and incentive/risk sharing in these new working models.


Key 8  Offsite Construction, or "manufactured construction" speaks to the advantages of paralleling construction processes typically done sequentially, with obvious time and cost benefits.

Key 9  Workplace Productivity conditions include interconnection, complexity, acceleration, intangibility, convergence, immediacy, and unpredictability.  Each is becoming more important, none are growing at the expense of others.

All in all, two great sessions this morning and a fitting wrap-up to my personal educational experience at this year's conference.  Now I get a couple of hours to do "work work" before tonight's Awards of Excellence affair.  Hope to see you there.

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