In the
September/October issue’s Editor’s Comments I proposed that:: In the next
five years, the acceptance of digitally enhanced/controlled equipment and the
underlying understandings of its use should be virtually universal, but this is
only the entry ticket into the arena where the dramatic changes lie...the
real-time digital job site and emergence of highly flexible, nonlinear project
management processes, techniques, and visions.
Over the past
couple of years, our “Technology in Construction” section has used machine
control as its entry point into more detailed discussions of the digital job
site. This was not, as you might suspect, by accident, because we wanted to root
the grander subjects in something that made obvious and immediate sense—a blade,
a bucket, or a compactor wheel in your favorite environment … dirt. Now we turn
to the underpinnings of a revolution changing the way all of us will do business
with TINs at the forefront...the tools of project
management.
No surprise that
the management process begins and ends with a total understanding of what the
project is about, but less than a half-step behind comes the need for a precise
knowledge of the job site and what it takes for you to get from any point in
time or space to where it is you plan to go.
Now more than
ever before, your ability to swiftly, accurately, and confidently determine work
to be done—the amount of material to be dug, scraped, pushed, compacted, and
hauled; how this relates to machine time, fuel consumption, payroll, and the
myriad details you once lumped into a category called “miscellaneous”—is
fundamental to your survival in a business whose margins for error have shrunk
to near zero. Love it or hate it, that’s the reality of the modern job site,
brought to you through the wonders of technology.
I’d like to know
what your project management experience has been over the past several years.
How do you compare where you are technologically today with where you were, say
in November 2006? What tools and understandings have made the
difference?
What about the
future? What changes do you see yourself making in the next year or
two?