The construction industry is quite possibly the most archaic in the western world. On the operations side of things, not much has changed since the dawn of the industrial revolution. I recently came across some photos of a construction project taken in 1908.

They depicted the use of derrick cranes and concrete hoppers with sluice gates.

In an over-arching, broad-strokes, look at the comparison of construction operations at the turn of the century and present day construction practises reveal little difference between then and now. The surprising, in fact the astounding thing about this is that we live in a time of unprecedented technological advances. The gap, that being the spread between the way things are presently being done on the construction site, and the existing, ready-to- implement technology is greater in construction, than in any other industry.
At the start of this talk I stated that construction is that most archaic industry in the western world, now I would add that, because of this, it is also the most vulnerable industry in the western world.

There is a universal truth about change in any given industry, and that is that change comes from…