The project is the project side of the construction project and not construction side of the construction project =D
Typically, in construction projects, 90%[1] of the challenges are encountered and resolved in the design office by a multi-disciplinary, multi-organisation design team effort across multiple years...
[1] - Anecdotal evidence drawn from my experience as a structural engineer.
My point is that the "project" side is not really a "temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product" [1] in the majority of cases.
Sure the environment, circumstances and result differs for every construction project, but the variance doesn't justify to call it a project in most cases in my opinion.
We've built millions of modern bridges that are in operation and we've been doing it for more than 3000 years. The number of environments, configurations and requirements we've not already encountered is very limited and these are the real construction projects that - no doubt - do exist.
Now, contrast this with the number of CRUD apps we've built and for how long we've been doing it. There is still a lot to learn there.
That's the reason why more bridges are on time and budget than CRUD apps, in my opinion.
I sort of understand what you're saying but I'm struggling to agree with your examples in the comparison.
Even if you're working on a "project" comprising hundreds of near identical houses, there could be massive differences in the project constraints and their solutions for adjacent plots for any given selection of houses.
There could for example be a large tree with root protection zones on site where you would have to carefully design the foundations to account for this and their future effects such as heave due to volume change potential of the underlying soil.
My point is that there are many "hidden" problems solved by the design team during the project / design phase even for seemingly insignificant or simpler "projects". In my experience of analysing and designing hundreds of buildings for over a decade every project was unique and as such treated like a "project".
I think there is a spectrum and I think most construction projects are more similar to mass production than real projects. I'm not a civil engineer and maybe I am wrong and it is not the best example.
The point I am trying to make is that there are more unknowns in most IT projects than in many other endeavors because it is still a young field. If construction is the best counterexample, I'm not sure.
Thanks for linking augmenta. I was wondering if you know of other similar companies? I'm an experienced structural engineer who's just completed an MSc in Comp.Sci. I want to combine the two disciplines and so far I've only been looking for consultants who utilise parametric design (Rhino + Grasshopper).
I don’t know of any other multidiscipline generative design companies, but for process plant design there is OptiPlant and PipeStream. There are a lot in the architecture space but these are mostly for high level conceptual design.
In my experience many structural engineers code and use simple parametric models. Finding a company using actual generative design algorithms is still rare but there are definitely engineering teams out there who value comp.sci skills.
Perhaps not incidentally there's no double bank holiday weekend over Easter. I had lectures on a Bank Holiday Monday which in England generally means everything is shut.
I don't know how much longer this Christian stranglehold will have on England.
Yeah,.the majority of the bank holidays in Scotland are different too and some of them aren't even actual holidays by law. As in some companies will continue trading as it's not restricted. For example, one of the companies I've worked for actually rearranged bank holidays throughout their various office to ensure that some people were working within the company during any holiday.
