News Detail

Improving Constructability and Productivity

5/3/2021

It's an honor to be writing you as the new ACI President. I want to thank Jeff Coleman for his outstanding leadership throughout the past year, during which COVID-19 challenged us all. Jeff clearly understood the importance of leading with optimism and vision during periods of adversity, because he provided it in abundance. As a result, both he and the Institute achieved much. Kudos to Jeff.

Looking ahead, the COVID-19 picture is steadily improving, allowing us to chart a path forward with renewed certainty. That being the case, I'd like to share my goals for the coming ACI year. But first, some background.

I grew up in Spokane, Washington, the son of a successful general contractor. I was exposed to construction as far back as I can remember. I worked summers in my father's cabinet shop in my early teenage years and on jobsites in Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon in later years. Although I generally worked as a laborer—wheeling concrete, hauling lumber, and cleaning the site—some of my father's projects were open shop, allowing me to work in trades that would have otherwise been off-limits. One summer I even did some logging for the construction of a breakwater at a Priest Lake, Idaho, marina. It was all great experience. And, interestingly, the naivete of my youth allowed me to observe more clearly an issue that the passage of time has obscured. I noticed that designers and builders didn't collaborate much. They didn't always share information. In fact, they often seemed adversarial. It's something our industry too often accepts as standard operating procedure. More on that later. But first, let's fast-forward.

I am the Founding Principal of CKC, a structural engineering firm based in Seattle. We design urban buildings and other structures for owners, developers, architects, and other clients. Many of our designs involve concrete, and I had the good fortune years ago to attend an ACI Convention. It changed the course of my career. The opportunities ACI has provided me over my 30 years of involvement have been instrumental to my advancement. I have enjoyed and participated in technical sessions, leadership activities, and committee work, including 318, 352, and the Financial Advisory Committee, among others. I've also made many good friends.

ACI is a global leader; we advance our industry in many ways. Our codes, standards, and other documents are second to none. There is an important challenge, however, that we need to focus more effort on: construction productivity is stagnant. Whereas productivity in most other industries has grown significantly in recent years, construction productivity has been flat. To better understand the problem and identify its causes, the global consulting firm McKinsey & Company recently did a deep dive into our industry, compiling data from 41 countries and summarizing the results. In 2017, the firm issued its report, which I encourage you to read. It is sobering. Despite major improvements in design and construction tools, construction productivity, as measured by the value created per unit of time, has made little progress for decades. Productivity varies from region to region, of course, and some segments of construction have clearly progressed. Nevertheless, when the data is aggregated, construction productivity has not advanced significantly since the 1950s.

It's a problem with many causes, and although ACI did not create it, we can initiate new activities that will help solve it. It will begin with the work of an already formed Productivity Task Group (TG), which I chair. Our mission is to study ways ACI can leverage our resources to improve productivity in the concrete industry. An important focus area will be to evaluate strategies for improving the constructability of designs. Throughout my career, I've observed many situations similar to what I saw in my youth. Designers and contractors seldom collaborate as well as they might. As a result, design decisions are often made without the constructability input necessary to allow the potential of modern construction systems to be fully realized.

Constructability is only one topic of several this TG will evaluate. Our goal is to develop actionable strategies that will place ACI at the forefront of addressing this industry challenge. Our recommendations will be presented to the ACI Board of Direction later this year. You will hear more about this as the year progresses.

Meanwhile, I am honored and privileged to have been elected the 98th President of ACI.

Cary S. Kopczynski

ACI President