Building On 25 Years
Since CII was formed 25 years ago, tremendous improvements have been realized in the construction industry, and many of those changes are founded on the work of CII. Today more than 110 major companies are aligned to continue that great work. We have many solid examples of the positive changes that result from such alignment, and the dramatic improvements in safety culture and performance are obvious beneficial results. Nevertheless, 25 years later, the construction industry is still challenged by fragmentation, impacted by weather and the business cycle, and is experiencing significant shortages in highly skilled technical and trade personnel. Amazingly though, in 2006 our industry contributed almost five percent to our nation’s GDP and employed 11.7 million persons, over eight percent of the nation’s work force. As 25 years ago and still true today, construction activities affect nearly every aspect of the U.S. economy and are vital as an engine for economic growth.
The forces that led to the creation of CII 25 years ago – increased shareholder demands, globalization, and computerization – are growing ever stronger and the industry environment is evolving rapidly as the pace of business accelerates, uncertainties grow, and capital project delivery becomes more complex. In the next 25 years the transformation to a truly global economy and the burgeoning explosion in technology will create an environment where distance is no longer a constraint, communication is instant, resources will be traded on a global scale, visual communication will overcome language barriers, and complexities will continue to grow. In addition to the existing forces that led to the creation of CII, this new enormously challenging environment for project delivery will have new drivers acting upon it that must be considered in construction research. Emerging now and certainly to be among these new drivers are sustainability and environmental security, homeland security, disaster resilience, infrastructure renewal, information technology, and robotics.
The visionaries who created CII recognized that a highly collaborative and inclusive industry organization, embracing research and the derived products, would improve the safety, cost, schedule, and quality of the capital delivery processes and create significant value for the institute’s member companies, individual participants from member companies, academia and the U.S. construction industry. This will also be true over the next 25 years. CII’s focus on research creates continual value for all stakeholders. CII members place a premium on safety, ethics, continuous improvement, and leadership. This value and this trust are the foundation that will make CII an ever growing leader in this increasingly demanding industry. Dr. William W. Badger has forecast, “We will build more things in the next 30 years than in the last 2000.”
CII’s contributions are many but have only just begun.
