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

Arthur Baskin and Stephen C-Y Lu
Manufacturing, construction, and infrastructure maintenance all involve complex system-level
problems which, at best, can only be decomposed into multiple interacting sub-problems. These
sub-problems require cooperative conflict resolution among differing areas of required expertise.
While this approach allows more complex problems to be solved than more traditional methods,
it is more difficult to manage than previous approaches. Fortunately, computer tools for
cooperative work, such as those being developed for concurrent engineering, are beginning to
become available (2,3). While this emerging technology is still in its infancy, there is every
reason to expect that it will produce an impact on group or team productivity as profound as that
of the personal productivity systems on individual workers.
1. The Two Meanings of Technology Transfer
In all three of the areas discussed in this paper, technology transfer can mean either the transfer
from researchers to practitioners or the adaptation of tools from one discipline to another. In
preparing this paper, we have used both definitions of technology transfer. After discussing the
need for cultural change in the next section, we discuss issues which arise when information
systems are used as agents for transferring new decision making technologies from researchers
to practitioners. We illustrate these issues with examples drawn from our experience in
manufacturing and engineering logistics management. In later sections, we generalize currently
active areas of research in concurrent engineering to problems in construction and infrastructure
maintenance. By looking at the challenges, requirements, and solutions being developed for
system-level engineering problems, we may be able to benefit from work done in one area by
transferring techniques, if not actual tools, from one discipline to another.
2. The Need for Cultural Change
As we briefly outlined above, there is a need for a change in the traditional decision making
culture in manufacturing, construction, and infrastructure maintenance. In each case, separate
(and usually serial) decision making needs to be replaced by a more parallel process emphasizing
cooperative conflict resolution. Traditional manufacturing design was a serial process in which
communication was frequently in the form of specifications and drawings. In this approach,
conflicts lead to expensive backtracking in order to revise early design commitments in light of
downstream factors. The current emphasis on concurrent engineering represents a change in
culture away from this serial approach.
Figure ' illustrates the evolution of product development practice with its increasing emphasis
on concurrent engineering. As we shall discuss in greater detail in the remainder of this section,
manufacturing has evolved from centralized product development to distributed product
development on its way toward true concurrent development. Construction and public works
infrastructure mranagement are already highly decentralized and will need to converge on a more
concurrent planning process in order to improve.
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