Todd R. Zabelle > Quotes

“It’s a business model based on a catch-22, basically. The schedule becomes a system of logic unto itself, cleaved from the actual on-theground, on-site needs of production.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“In the modern world, particularly in the world of work, the fear of change becomes misaligned with the actual threat presented by that change—in other words, we often blow it all out of proportion. This explains why even good ideas get ignored or dismissed. They’re threatening simply because they are new. That’s just the brain doing what it does best: trying to protect you, for better or worse.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“Stage gates are used to monitor and control the progress of a project and ensure that it is completed on time and within budget and meets the objectives set out in the project plan.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“There is no fixed boundary between design, make, and install; they are concurrent and bleed into each other.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“It’s agile and able to adjust to dynamic changes in demand from construction teams. This one is self-explanatory. Shit happens on-site. You must be flexible to accommodate unforeseen challenges and unexpected crises.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“Implementing these ideas has less to do with the concepts and techniques per se than it does with displacing an existing philosophy. It is really a business problem. And business problems are often psychological problems—figuring out what makes people tick and getting them to do what they’re supposed to do, in concert with other stakeholders.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“Together, these approaches are recognized by PMBOK as valid protocols for managing a project. But the preoccupation with project scope, time and cost management, quality, risk, and procurement management once again misses the mark. While these factors are important, other activities are vital for ensuring a project is completed successfully. Therein lies the industry’s giant blind”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“This is important because in construction, most of the people are not on the owner’s payroll. Hiring has been divested or subcontracted out. In a given project, only 5 percent of the people involved are employees of the owner, and the rest are contractors, whether design firms, engineering firms, or specialty contractors. And contractors have a different (and often divergent) set of incentives and interests.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“Operations science is the study of how to improve and optimize processes and systems to achieve the desired objectives. It involves the use of mathematical models and other techniques to analyze and optimize systems. Operations science can be applied to many areas, such as manufacturing, logistics, supply chain management, and healthcare. It is used to improve efficiency and reduce costs, while ensuring that the quality of the output remains high.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“the auto industry does it differently. They’ve torn down the wall between design and production engineering, which is one reason why that industry is generally more efficacious.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“There is also ongoing debate regarding whether engineering or construction should establish the flow of engineering work. Though many are of the opinion that construction should set the schedule or drive engineering work, the unintended consequences of this approach must be understood. Engineering has a technical flow it must follow, which is often far different from the flow of work in the fabrication shop or on the construction site.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“Ensuring that the right material in the right quantity gets to the right place at the right time is critical for achieving construction cost, schedule, and use-of-cash objectives.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“The RAS filter can be difficult to get through, as it is designed to filter out incoming information that is irrelevant or not important. To get through the RAS filter, it is important to focus on the most important information and ignore the rest. Additionally, it is important to clearly communicate the purpose of the information, as well as how it will benefit the individual. Finally, it is important to be consistent in presenting the information, as the RAS filter is designed to recognize patterns. By following these steps, it should be possible to get through the RAS filter and make sure that the important information is received.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“the key is to “love the resistance—it says they are engaged.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“Define and design the on-site material-flow process taking into consideration the trade-off between inventory and capacity along with the implications of variability. Map, model, analyze, and optimize each material-flow production system using the production”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“The requirements for an effective supply flow control solution for capital projects include the following:”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“And finally, there is production engineering, which is mostly left to people in the field and considers the question “How will we execute the work?” For example, if we’re installing something, do we use a crane? Where do we put the crane? How do we rig it? What do we do in the shop versus the field? Do we use a hand wrench or an impact wrench? And so forth.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“Only what is needed when it is needed with no additional inventory is delivered and held at the point of installation.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“The location and environment of all materials (by serial number or equivalent) is known at all times as they flow through the process of fabrication/manufacture, assembly, transportation, receiving, storage, and installation.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“Helmuth von Moltke provided the framework for managing project schedules describing the exact framework for planning military operations that project professionals should adopt.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“Over the years, design firms hamstrung by, among other things, the stringent mandates of their insurance companies and errors and omission policies, are precluded from doing anything related to means and methods. But you can’t practically separate design from means and methods. They are, in many ways, two sides of the same coin. A design firm typically does not provide any input on how to perform the work or how the means and methods will be executed. It’s problematic because what to do (the product) has bearing on how to do it (the process), and how things can be done has bearing on what is possible.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“All these new theoretical/administrative/managerial/consultative fields give rise to a new class of professionals—a bureaucracy unto itself, wherein “How do we organize the project?” displaces the previous focus on “How do we build this thing?”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“Quoted lead times do not drive decision-making. Instead, materials are fabricated, manufactured, assembled, and delivered when needed, but not so early that preservation related to storage (versus postinstallation) is required.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“When lead times are excessive or out of proportion to the cycle time, it’s usually an indication that operations can be improved.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“The authors posited an inverse relationship between project cost and duration. If you add more people or resources, it’ll go faster but cost more. If you want it to cost less, you must use fewer resources. That is the time-cost trade-off that later evolves into the time-costquality/scope trade-off, a.k.a. the iron triangle: you can have any two but not all three. This is a well-known “law” in a range of fields, not just in construction. As a matter of fact, during a visit to Cabo, I once overheard an interior decorator explaining to their client they could have quality, low cost, or the work done sooner, but not all three—only two!”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“Think about earned value—you get credit for spending more money because higher expenditures signify a higher rate of project completion. How does that affect inventory? This incentivizes spending as much money as possible. The more you spend and the faster you spend it, the better, because that shows progress.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“In light of the movement from big-and-centralized to smaller-and-decentralized construction, given the role it plays in building the infrastructure for society to function, it must also adapt. Green energy and the turn away from fossil fuels, digitalization and the internet, and small-batch production are reshaping human life and economic activity. For example, instead of one big plant making a large number of the same thing, let’s make custom products in smaller, localized facilities. That’s a mode of production that will become predominant in the twenty-first century.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“Therefore, the first step is to decipher between a schedule that in the world of operations is used to set the demand for the production system, and the production system that delivers to the demand.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“Besides simply organizing a project and ensuring timeliness, Gantt’s intent, like Taylor’s, was to figure out scientific, systematic ways of getting more work out of each individual worker. The problem with how bar charts are used today is twofold: (1) it now reinforces the separation of planning from doing, because the people creating the charts are too far removed from the actual work on-site, and (2) it does not depict the time work is waiting to be processed (what, in the world of operations science, is termed queue time—later in the book you will learn why this is so important).”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It

“Incorporate effective control of capacity and inventory instead of attempting to predict in advance what will be needed.”
― Todd R. Zabelle, Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It