Challenges and Opportunities for Innovation in the Public Works ...

Issues in Technology Transfer:
Sharing Experience Between Manufacturing and Construction
Arthur B. Baskin
Automation Support Center
Department of Computer Science
Department of Veterinary Biosciences
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Stephen C-Y. Lu
Knowledge-Bases Engineering Systems Research Laboratory
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Department of Computer Science
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
In manufacturing, construction, and infrastructure maintenance, there is an increasing premium
on solving large system-level problems in shorter times, with fewer resources, and without
compromising the quality of the result. In the manufacturing arena, the increasing complexity
of engineering products and the intense competition of the world market have combined to force
a change from the centralized methods of the past toward a more decentralized approach. This
decentralized approach deals with complexities by dispersing different product development
functions to a team of engineers, where each team member contributes special expertise to the
overall solution.
For complex construction projects or in situations where materials and/or building techniques call
for specialized expertise, the same sort of group coordination is required. In the best case,
solving the problem of coordinating the various sets of expertise leads to a shorter construction
process with an attendant cost decrease. In the worst case, the integrity of the structure can be
compromised when design or construction changes are made without adequate review by the
appropriate construction team members.
The condition of the national infrastructure will have a profound effect on the competitiveness
of U.S. industry in the emerging era of global competition (1). Here again, multiple interacting
constraints must be brought together to balance the competing costs of deferred maintenance with
present day outlays for repair or rebuilding. In much the same way that materials knowledge
must be brought to bear on developing useful, reliable, and economical manufactured products.
engineering life-cycle knowledge must be used to allocate limited resources for infrastructure
repair or replacement.
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