Interdependence and Uncertainty

A study of the building industry

Charles Crichton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780415264372
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136429842
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

Tavistock Press was established as a co-operative venture between the Tavistock Institute and Routledge & Kegan Paul (RKP) in the 1950s to produce a series of major contributions across the social sciences.
This volume is part of a 2001 reissue of a selection of those important works which have since gone out of print, or are difficult to locate. Published by Routledge, 112 volumes in total are being brought together under the name The International Behavioural and Social Sciences Library: Classics from the Tavistock Press.
Reproduced here in facsimile, this volume was originally published in 1966 and is available individually. The collection is also available in a number of themed mini-sets of between 5 and 13 volumes, or as a complete collection.

Part 1: Operational research

The present situation

The research project could not encompass the whole building process in detail. But because of the emphasis on communications it was necessary to see the parts played by all members of the building team.

The analytical side of the work was related largely to the open and selective tendering systems, although other contractual systems were studied. Investigations were countrywide and embraced attendance at public seminars, lectures, and conferences; private meetings with architects, surveyors, and builders and others, in addition to conducting a number of detailed case studies.¹ In selecting projects for study we concentrated on those which seemed likely to go well. No purpose was seen in criticizing projects which were obviously inefficient.

Throughout, informants have emphasized that what was observed was normal and that the contracts studied were regarded as ‘good’ by those concerned. Yet none of the projects studied seemed to live up to expectations. The experience of the team has been of an industry in which misunderstandings, delays, stoppages, and abortive work result from failures in communications, and impressions of confusion, error, and conflict have provided the starting-point for an analysis of the operational characteristics of the building process.²

It was found, for example, on one particular case study, that each time a design decision was taken it set in train a chain of consequences which could and did cause the initial decision to be changed, a clear example of how decisions and actions depend on one another (see Appendix 2). Since the full implications of any decision or action can seldom if ever be forecast with absolute accuracy, a communications system which assumes that they can will simply not work.³

The first important characteristic to be recognized therefore is interdependence.

It was found, too, in all our case studies, that doubts about planning permission, about ownership of land, about approvals and finance bedevilled the briefing and design phases. Uncertainties about the availability of materials and labour upset any attempt to plan an orderly flow of work. Late, faulty, and misinterpreted information also created confusion. Extracts from case studies in Appendix 2 illustrate these findings.

The second important characteristic to be recognized therefore is uncertainty.

Communication channels

These twin aspects of interdependence and uncertainty have been interpreted in terms of communication and information flow. (We are concerned here only with the form of communications channels that exist or should exist, not with the actual content of communications.)

In the existing situation there are two main ‘planning activities’: the process of design and the organization of contruction.

In the development of each of these activities three principal stages can be identified:

(a) analysis (collection and classification of data);

(b) synthesis (setting up possible solutions or hypotheses);

(c) evaluation (choice of solution).

In construction planning, which is the central operation of the building process, the contractor must take stock of information relating to his own resources and to the resources of others (labour, supplies, equipment, and finance). He must also relate this information to the needs of the building as expressed by the design information he has been given. He must then:

(a) decide what courses are open to him;

(b) make a choice from these;

(c) formulate his choice in terms of a constructive plan.

There are two broadly similar kinds of information flow in the building process. First, at the brief and design stage and, second, at the construction planning stage. In the open tender system the sequence of operation is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Generalized information flow in the open tender form of the building process

Figure 2. Information flow in an idealized system.

The facing diagram shows information in an idealized system. As in Figure 1, the two analysis-synthesis-evaluation circuits are shown linked. The construction phase, however, is divided into two important stages; the plan itself, and the performance measured against the plan in terms of time output, etc. There is naturally full flow of information between these two stages, with the plan being controlled by and partially controlling the performance.

A functional ‘box’, resources, has been added within the framework of the construction planning and construction phases. Information must flow from here to the analysis stage of construction planning to enable the contractor to formulate his plan. Ideally, information should flow to the analysis stage of brief and design, since any design will depend upon resources for its execution, and information and resources would seem to be one prerequisite for the eventual choice of a suitable design.

The other flows of resource information are the ‘feedbacks’ to resources from the performance measurements of the construction phases of this and other building processes.

Further ‘feedback’ loops necessary to an ideally interdependent process are shown on the left.

The contract planning activities may reveal aspects of construction not previously considered. Such information should certainly be taken into account in the design phase by introducing modification to the design if necessary. For this reason, a communication channel between the synthesis stage of construction planning and the synthesis stage of brief and design is shown. This should ensure that designs are formulated that incorporate the necessary requirements of the contractor who is to carry out the work.

The other ‘feedback’ loop carries information back to the analysis stage of brief and design concerning the performance characteristics of the construction phase. Again this idea is to allow knowledge of eventual circumstances to influence design.

Finally, another input has been added to the analysis stage of the brief and design phase—that of experience from other building processes.

This sequence of operations in the open (and in the selective) tender form of the building process implies that the flow of communication and information is only in one direction. Thus while design affects construction planning, construction planning cannot affect design. The construction planning phase is therefore necessarily constrained to fit the output of the earlier phase. One must inquire, however, whether the information flow of the construction planning sequence might not have had relevance to design; might, in fact, have modified the choices made in design—if the building process had made this possible.

In considering a rational structure for any planning operation (including building) one must suppose that the organization allows for the flow of information that is relevant in a technical sense, from any functional group to any other functional group. One must recognize functional interdependence.

Interdependence

The essence of interdependence in the building process is the relevance of different streams of information to each other in particular contexts. Nothing is more wasteful than the commonly held acceptance of the premise that each task—whether it be briefing or designing, or construction planning or building—should be started afresh from first principles. An ideally interdependent building process is shown, diagrammatically, in Figure 2 on page 20.

Why doesn’t this ideally interdependent system work?

First, the box labelled resources does not fall within a single building process with the result that the links to and from that box can be used to channel only information of a very uncertain nature. Second, the structure of the open tender system, and to a certain extent that of the selective tender system, imposes a division in the building process which blocks the all-important ‘feedback’ channels of communication. Third, there is no input of commonly shared experience of other building processes: each member of the building team brings little more than his own accumulated experiences—and prejudices—to bear on current problems.

Learning—in the sense of adaptations brought about by experience—is therefore a slow and uncertain process which takes place at an individual level rather than at industry level.

Organizational grouping

When communication flow is broken or blocked, different organizational groupings arise from those that arise when the communication flow is integrated.

In neither case is there a static organization. The organization evolves as the process itself generates needs for different kinds of information. Figure 3 illustrates the evolving organizational pattern with broken communication flow when the brief and design stage is uncoupled from the construction planning phase.

Figure 3 Evolving organization pattern in the divided case

A: Architect C: Client CONS: Consultants QS: Quantity Surveyor NS: Nominated Subcontractor CONT: Contractor SC: Sub-contractor S: Supplier

The dotted links represent the attempted establishment of communication channels by the contractor with building-team members who were introduced in the design phase.

The evolving pattern when idealized channels of communication are all present is shown in Figure 4. In this case, the communication channels between members of the building team emerge at the time demanded by the operations themselves. There is therefore no artificially introduced time-lag in the process since the dovetailing of design and construction planning will clearly shorten the total time of the whole building process.

Figure 4 Evolving organization pattern in the integrated case

Some of the relationships in this figure are already the subject of further research and the diagram should be interpreted flexibly.

AIDA (Analysis of Interconnected Decision Areas)

The sequential nature of decision-making in the present situation at design stage and, indeed, during the construction stage, has already been commented on on page 22. It is exemplified by one of the case studies (see Appendix 2). While they were engaged on this particular case study, it became clear to the research team that the decisions the design team were attempting to make sequentially were, in fact, affected, not only by what had gone before, but by what was yet to come. The tea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Glossary
• Background to the Report
• Part 1: Operational research
• Part 2: Sociological research
• Part 3: Indications for future research
• Part 4: Appendices