Building for Tomorrow Global Enterprise and the U.S. Construction Industry (1988) / Chapter Skim
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4. Research and Development in Construction
4. Research and Development in Construction
Pages 55-65
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From page 55... ...
Other countries appear to be putting more effort than the United States into construction R&D; . Other countries are working hard to improve the "hardware" of construction by improving construction methods and developing technology for automation (including robotics)
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From page 56... ...
Vertical integration within large foreign construction firms has made easier the utilization of research results by the operating units of their companies; . There is less emphasis on research related to the "management" of construction by firms in other countries, since they tend to acquire these technologies through joint ventures with American firms or by sending their young professionals to U.S.
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From page 57... ...
The federal government laboratories such as the Army's Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) , the Navy's Port Hueneme Civil Engineering Laboratory, the Tyndall Air Force Engineering and Services Research Center, and the National Bureau of Standards' Centers for Building Technology and Fire Research conduct research on a diverse range of topics with military and civil applications.
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From page 58... ...
The architectural research community is based almost exclusively in universities, so that the potential exists for linking such research to teaching programs. The civil engineering research community is also largely based in universities, but there is some mechanical, electrical, or electronic research of direct relevance to the construction sectors being done by these other departments.
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From page 59... ...
Five of these units do traditional science and engineering research of the type done in government building laboratories around the world, but one research unit concentrates on "cybernetics." Not much is known about the work of this unit, but it potentially could represent an interesting area for collaboration. With their government's strong encouragement, the six large, integrated Japanese construction companies all support research by internal units.
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From page 61... ...
New technology for infrastructure could possibly help the United States avoid the endless cutting and patching of our lO~year-old systems, and could also provide whole new market opportunities in the international sphere. There should be special programs to concentrate on infrastructure development within the university research community.
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From page 62... ...
As the Japanese mode! illustrates, university-based activity is not the only way that construction R&D can be accomplished, but in the United States, academic institutions have become the primary centers of research.
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From page 63... ...
There were nearly seventeen million telephones in the United States, almost twelve million of them in the Bell System. And in perhaps no other field had the force of scientific research in support of engineering development been so effectively demonstrated.*
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From page 64... ...
Perhaps more significantly, the application of scientific methods to solving the "system" problems of telephony set a pattern that influenced industrial research and development by demonstrating the power of these methods and developing techniques of management that encouraged their use. Backing up the work on systems, which had laid the groundwork for so much that was yet needed, were the successful management techniques which had been developed for conducting and applying research, the means for closely controlling the quality of manufactured product, and a type of organization providing close integration of the user, technical developer, and manufacturer.
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From page 65... ...
Electric light and power systems today are not just scaled-up versions of the Pearl Street station that Edison introduced in New York City in 1882. By the turn of the century, for example, it was the utility manager, not the inventor or engineer, who played the major role in extending round-the-clock service to many different kinds of customers to the night shift chemical plant as well as the rush-hour electric streetcars.*
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