The Starting Point
What I Learned from Neuroscience Research and a Stubborn Superintendent
Neuroscience Researchers can observe the human brain at work in real-time. That sounds like science fiction, but that’s real. It also happens to be the best, most modern, and profitable method for managing construction projects.
With my background in plumbing and mechanical construction, I was excited by the idea that this breakthrough in cognitive research would finally allow me to know exactly what the bloomin’love-of-gracious my superintendent was thinking when he stopped working, left the job site, and drove to the supply house to pick up:
- One (1) 1” copper tee
- One (1) 1” x ¾” fitting reducer
- One (1) 1” x ½” fitting reducer
…when I had already ordered:
- One (1) 1” x ¾” x ½” copper reducing tee.
Okay, so maybe I’ll never know what he was thinking (now that I think about it, I wouldn’t want to roam freely through that festival of experiences anyways). However, what’s just as important to the result of the project was that he didn’t know what I was thinking either. Further, as a servant to some of the hardest working men and women in this country, it’s my job to give the skilled labor exactly what they need, and when they need it.
Neither of us are incorrect with our material outlook. The plans clearly showed a domestic water system branching a ½” leg from a 1” line, before reducing to a ¾’ line, and continuing on. I think the reducing tee is best because it offers fewer opportunities for a leak and requires fewer man hours due to fewer joints. However, my takeaway from this situation was that the miscommunication (or more accurately, misaligned expectations) lead to an amount of waste that was far greater than the additional soldiering required by using the fitting reducers.
In other words, if he and I had been on the same page with using fitting reducers, then we would have saved money relative to the actual waste caused by not being on the same page with our plan. To demonstrate, let’s count the types of waste represented by this situation:
- Wasted time #1 – Time he spent looking through the box which held the 1” x ¾” x ½” tee I purchased. It was there, but he was looking for the 1” tee he “needed” (i.e. expected). To complicate matters, all of the copper fittings were piled into one box. So, he was looking through a box of roughly 50-60 fittings for the one (1) unique and correct one. That's just plain bad service
- Wasted time #2 – Time he spent cussin’ me. He felt better when he was done, but it’s still waste.
- Wasted time #3 – Time spent driving to the supply house to pick up the 1” tee he needs. Thankfully, he knows how dumb I am – so he picks up the fitting reducers while he’s there.
- Wasted material dollars #1 – Material cost for the new 1” tee and fitting reducers. The original tee will never be installed, leaving it to be either returned for a fraction of the purchase cost, lost, or brought back to the shop and thrown into the pile of other material created by a similar situation.
- Wasted time #4 – The time spent handling this left-over material and either bringing it back to the shop, or taking it back to the supply house.
At this point, the best-case scenario for our little 1” x ¾” x ½” friend is for it to be used on another one of our projects in the future. Worst case is that while moving the heavy pile of like-fated materials, one of our men strains a muscle in his back and must take time off to recover. If we - the Project Managers/Estimators/Servants for the plumbers, welders, and fitters across this country - are honest with ourselves, we’d admit that this happens more than once every so often. The question is, how many times is too many?
Which brings me back to our good buddies in the field of neuroscience. Like I said, they now have the ability to see inside the brain and watch it work while it’s operational, in real time! This allows them to know which parts of the brain are active during certain actions, which parts of the brain are working properly, and which parts aren’t.
With that in mind - if I may speak directly to my construction herd for just a moment- if they can do it, why can’t we? Why can’t we watch our projects with real-time precision, thereby seeing which parts of it are active during certain time-periods, which parts are working properly, and which parts aren’t?
The good news is that we can. We just need to know what to look at, and how. We may also need to be a little creative regarding what kinds of data we need to create, and we surely need to push past our comfort zones as we draw conclusions from the data we collect. At Cycle Rate Performance, we're giving contractors the ability to watch their materials like neuroscience researchers watch neurons.
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