January 10, 2008 

In 1986, Dr. W. Edward Demming, author of the infamous book "The Toyota Way", which has become one of the great inspirations for our team at Vico, defined a model that applies to virtually every imaginable process. It is often referred to as the "Demming Wheel" and consists of a circle divided into four equal parts, each one representing a typical phase for a management process: Plan, Do, Check and Act.

People who work in construction management jobs go through this cycle numerous times per day. They "plan" what needs to be done next, "do" the required things to make that happen (attending meetings, placing phone calls, sending e-mails), then "check" if everything is going according to plan and finally "act" if something is not going according to plan, after which the cycle restarts.

It is typically the third phase in the PDCA cycle - the "checking" part - that is taking a disproportional amount of time from construction managers. The vast amount of both paper based and digital, but foremost disconnected information that provides them with project status updates requires a lot of processing time.

It is common sense that the human brain is limited in its capabilities to process large amounts of data and to subsequently derive an objective view on the actual status of a project. It is therefore, that jobs in construction management require many years of experience and exceptional skill sets in order to make sure that projects are completed on time and with the desired quality by interpreting available information the right way. The majority of people that are currently occupying these crucial jobs in the construction world are from the "baby boom" generation, which is expected to retire over the next 10 years.

The challenge that the construction industry is facing today is to make sure that the "C" in Demming's cycle is going to be performed successfully in the future as well. That is: after the people with the exceptional skill sets and years of experience that are running projects today will have left the site. Automation and smart reuse of knowledge seems to be the horse to bet on. Companies that successfully implement systems that allow for deriving project status instead of contriving it, will be prepared for the future.