[Opinion] Construction industry mapping
Back in 2022/2023, I worked with a group of people (all from construction) to map out the construction industry from various perspectives. We then used the aggregate of these maps to determine where to invest from the view of societal and market benefit.
The society needed us to invest in supply chain awareness, modular design and observability (through sensors). Think "factory mode" for a car but done at the building scale i.e. why shouldn't a building have a button you can press and it checks whether it complies to current regulation? Ok, that might take a bit of time to get there but starting by including sensors is a good step.
The market benefit was focused on sustainability (though we didn't actually know what the supply chains were and trying to work out if something was sustainable felt more like marketing than science), workforce retaining (mostly to do with robots & AI) plus robotic construction. Yawn. Yes, I know the financial benefit of "efficiencies" through trying to get rid of staff but ... really? ... well, it does say market benefit not societal benefit I suppose.
I've attached the table. Another in the long list of why a focus on market benefit (and growth) doesn't translate to societal benefit. Different areas, and this pattern is repeated across all 17 industries that I've looked at. Unless you're one of those Ayn Rand fans who thinks that the market is society in which case you're a fruitcake anyway.
The reason why I mention this is not to have a pop at Ayn Rand fans (though I admit I do enjoy that) but instead I really enjoyed this story. This is exactly the sort of thing we need, more modular design. Of course, a bit more awareness of supply chains would be nice as well.
Originally published on LinkedIn.