The U.S. construction industry continues to be one of the nation's major economic drivers, contributing almost 10 percent of the nation's GDP and involving about one-sixth of its total work force. Yet due to its impact on how we live, work, travel, and recreate, the industry's significance to the nation is far greater than its size indicates.
Few industries are as fragmented as the construction industry, and the industry involves millions of owner organizations, a million contractors, and 100,000 design firms. Projects are governed by over 50,000 building codes and as many technical standards. It is fair to say that the industry almost never speaks with one voice.
The four major sectors of the industry (residential, non-residential building, industrial, and infrastructure) are each unique in many ways, particularly with respect to market size, sophistication of key stakeholders, worker skill levels, professional affiliations of key players, configuration and complexity of work product, capital intensity, approaches to risk allocation, and types of change currently underway. Indeed, the construction industry covers a broad range: from highly automated nuclear power plants to mom-and-pop home renovation projects.
Likewise, the construction industry and its projects are paradoxical in many ways:
Historically the industry has been relatively stable in terms of overall size or work volume, yet sector work volume volatility remains a constant challenge.
The industry operates relatively effectively in terms of supply chain management and globalization, yet spends very little on research and development.
Risks are abundant as evidenced by the large numbers of bankruptcies among even established companies, yet profit margins remain low (not compensating for such risk) due to relative ease of entry and keen cost competition.
Thus, the construction industry is confronted with many challenges.
Industry/Academia Interface
Until recently, the construction industry, with heavy emphasis placed on experience, has involved less interface with academia than most other large industries. However, in the past few decades degree programs have emerged among both schools of architecture and colleges of engineering. The University of Texas at Austin’s graduate program in Construction Engineering and Project Management was started in the late 1960’s and is now among the world’s largest, with approximately 25 doctoral students and 30 masters’ students.
While construction/project research funding has progressed even more slowly than has educational development, an industry/academia interface began to develop in the late 1970’s with the initiation of the Business Roundtable’s Construction Industry Cost Effectiveness Project. A breakthrough in construction industry/academia relations occurred in 1983 with the establishment of The Construction Industry Institute (CII), headquartered at U.T. Over the last 20 years, CII has involved over 60 faculty and 250 graduate students from the nation’s leading universities. Its credibility has largely been established through proven benefits to projects resulting from implementation of key research findings.
The success of the CII is largely due to its unique collaboration between industry and academia. Even so, that model has limitations. Beyond reflecting primarily the interests of the industrial sector, the major limitation of CII’s approach to research is the lack of acceptance of highly- or even moderately-risky topics. CII’s approach to topic selection, combined with the large number of studies needed, results in a bias toward short-term, narrowly scoped topics.
The Center for Construction Industry Studies
The Center for Construction Industry Studies (CCIS) was established in 1996 under the first Sloan grant and with seed money from CII. CCIS Phase II efforts began in Spring 2000 and Phase III in Spring 2003. The flexibility provided from Sloan Foundation funding has been significant in two important ways. First, it has allowed extensions of topics initiated by CII but later discontinued after preliminary studies because of the short-term and disjointed nature of the CII research process. Second, it has allowed for introduction of riskier, longer-term topics that have breakthrough potential. Thus, CII and CCIS have a mutually-beneficial relationship that is manifested in many ways:
Some CII-funded studies have been conducted through CCIS;
Many CCIS results have been presented at CII annual conferences and semi-annual Board of Advisors meetings;
CCIS reports are routinely distributed to all CII member companies; and
Many CII member companies participate in and provide data for CCIS studies.
