The construction industry is fascinating. There are so many things outside of the actual construction that play a huge part in every aspect of the industry. A fire in Asia could mean that a specific type of wood isn’t available for years. Politics can impact what materials are available for years. Tech innovation can mean that a long-term method is completely obsolete for installing wood. War can impact what raw materials can be found/used. Natural disasters, war, politics, and innovation were not on my mind when I was given my first construction project to manage.
The largest part of construction has always been and will continue to be, labor. Someone has to do the thing in order for it happen. Whether that is cutting wood, diamond cutting metal, applying gold to decorations, painting, operating the machine, or hammering a nail into the shingles of a roof. Machine innovations have obviously made the labor easier and faster, but that human element will never go away. As we have moved away from hand-crafting, there are items and elements that have been slowly phased out. I couldn’t find someone to make me a door with custom carved inlays. There was someone who had a machine that could do it, but there wasn’t a human who could do it. Now, I know how tedious it can be to crave out tiny details for a small project. The amount of time and care that has to go into hand carving a door to then make a perfect inlay is crazy! Finding an artist that would do an inlay chessboard was hard and that is a small item.
Look at the history of the trade industry. There is nearly a whole generation that went to school to join the white collar industry, leaving the blue collar industry to flounder while becoming more indemand. Baby Boomers had a little over 31% of the job market going to blue collar jobs, in industries like constructions, manufacturing, and maintenance, the jobs with a large labor need. Millennials and Gen X dropped that for collage degrees and white collar jobs. Gen Z has started to revive the trades with a stunning 42% of workers going into the trades. Gen Z workers have shifted to the trades for multiple reasons, but ultimately that shift has also pulled more Millennials out of white-collar work to try their hand in the trades when they are unhappy with their career fields.
There are also so many different takes on construction as well. You can build, restore, or demo any given building. There is also the design aspect and how that impacts construction. Logically I know that paint costs money, but the idea that changing paints can significantly impact the cost of the project never occurred to me. Different paints have different application styles they require, which change the labor needed to get the work done.
In our world, politics have a huge impact on the supply chain. Tariff changes could mean that a product or raw material is suddenly no longer available or could be significantly more expensive. On the other hand, the rising prices of some items might mean that substitute materials are suddenly more readily available and desirable. It also highlights some of the things that society relies on from international providers. Air conditioners might be harder to get in America because the company is based in Canada and the governments are not talking politely that month.
Technology also changes how construction happens and what is possible. Laser technology means that we can use materials in ways that simply wasn’t possible even 10 years ago. The ability to make super small precise cuts in next to no time means that things that used to be hard to find are now more accessible to the general public. Custom engraved epoxy wood art is still a coveted art form, but it is much more affordable for the general public to get than it was when people weren’t able to do it in their garages. Laser cut metal can now be customized to put on walls, something that wasn’t possible when I was growing up.
Trying to figure out all of the ins and outs of project management while also having to learn about the nuances of the construction industry was not easy. It certainly made the first few months of the job interesting, to say the least. There were other learning curves too, as with all new projects and jobs. Learning that construction depended on hundreds of other factors that you wouldn’t expect automatically was riveting and a major learning curve.