In 2017, the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) Consultative Council explored how the building industry can and should evolve to meet the changing needs of society and how new technologies and practices can attract a 21st century workforce.
The Council was concerned as to whether the building industry would be ready as the pace of technology and commerce accelerates and communities face new challenges of resilience and sustainability. The Council’s findings and 10 recommendations are in its January 2018 report, “Moving Forward: 2017 Findings and Recommendations from the Consultative Council.”
Building the Industry of the Future
The fragmented nature of the building industry has resulted in inefficiencies and a slow rate of technology adoption. Compounding the inefficiency is the aging workforce and concern that new entrants are not attracted to this market segment.
The report finds that “the building industry needs a holistic examination, with targeted investment of resources—including personnel, intellectual and financial capital—to meet the growing demand for high-performance buildings. Such an approach must look at all factors that influence the building process—research, development and deployment (RD&D); technology; workforce; procurement; codes and standards; professional, technical and vocational training; design fees, schedules, processes and contracting; performance goals; and building occupants.”
Design, Construction and Operations
While the building industry has seen significant advances, with an increased focus on life safety through building codes and other guidance; use of CAD and BIM; sustainability; and building science knowledge, additional evaluation of project delivery and the contracting process; allocation of design fees; policies, codes and standards; and offsite construction is needed. This will require a shift in training, contracts, codes and standards to align with integrated teams that are collaboratively co-creating to address a multiplicity of performance-based criteria.
Technology
The report cites emerging technologies that need to be advanced, including: sensors, controls and the Internet of Things; cybersecurity vulnerabilities; virtual and augmented reality, drones and additive manufacturing; and robotics and human augmentation. Representatives from across the industry should work collaboratively to identify and implement common metrics and support the interoperability of data to further improve facilities and the industry.
Workforce
The Council was concerned with the workforce shortages and the workforce skills gap. Enticing more young U.S. workers into jobs in the industry, and reaching out to “non-traditional” workforce categories, including women and veterans, are the key elements in addressing the current shortage. Women are vastly underrepresented in the construction workforce (2.6 percent), yet are a significant potential source to address worker shortages. Offsite construction and prefabrication techniques along with investment in technologies are helping the industry to streamline the construction process with fewer workers.
Research
To continually improve, the building industry must focus on research and development (R&D). Unfortunately, because of the disciplinary-focused nature of the industry and the small size of most companies, there has been limited investment in R&D aimed at moving the entire industry forward. Many governments around the world, recognizing the invaluable role the built environment plays in their economy and the opportunity to support all segments of the economy through improved buildings and infrastructure, have established building industry research and development programs. Without a commensurate level of investment, the U.S. risks falling behind other nations—not just in buildings but across the economy. A national effort is needed to coordinate and promote collaboration, prevent duplicated research, utilize economies of scale and provide funding.
10 Recommendations
- The U.S. Congress should ask the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a thorough review of the current contracting processes it uses to procure federal facilities, and identify opportunities to implement alternative contracting mechanisms and current barriers to the utilization of such approaches.
- The U.S. Congress should require all federally funded construction projects to adopt and effectively enforce building codes that meet or exceed the latest building codes, including projects provided with federal dollars; all states and localities that receive funding associated with community development, infrastructure, public safety or community governance; and all buildings that house federal employees (whether leased or owned).
- The White House should establish a cross-agency program among the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that focuses on providing scientific and economic data associated with the effectiveness of building codes and their impacts on communities; education and training for code professionals; technical assistance; and evaluation tools for code department effectiveness.
- Congress, working with FEMA and other federal agencies, should enact incentives for state and local jurisdictions to adopt current codes in order to make communities more resilient in the face of natural disasters and to reduce the cost of federal disaster cleanup and recovery.
- Industry stakeholders should work to incorporate system-level requirements and operations-focused criteria into baseline codes and other policies to assure long-term performance and focus on diligent design, construction and operations in support of community goals and protection of subsequent owners of projects constructed for short-term investors.
- The building industry, with involvement of representatives from the legal, finance and insurance sectors, should conduct a dialogue on how to evolve the current state of fees, timelines and risk in furtherance of a systems-based approach to realize actual, measured performance results.
- DOE, NIST, the U.S. Department of Transportation and other federal agencies should continue working with the building industry to develop an IoT framework that supports efficient deployment of sensors, controls and IoT-enabled devices in facilities and the achievement of building-, community- and national-level goals.
- The codes and standards development community, including the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and NIST should work collaboratively to develop protocols and best practices that support the utilization of current and future standards within digital environments, including BIM, additive manufacturing, building automation and robotics.
- Congress, the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Labor, state and local governments and industry stakeholders should promote technical and trade programs in K-12 and technical schools, emphasizing a good career awaits, not a societal judgment. This is applicable to all students, all genders, all races and all economic backgrounds, to break down preconceived notions of who can choose to go into technical building careers. Specific attention should be directed to training programs that provide mentors for women and access to a broad range of industry trades.
- The building industry along with federal agencies should develop and fund a national high-performance building research and development strategy that reflects the value of the industry to the US economy, mirroring the 2.7 percent economy-wide investment in R&D.
