Out of the Construction Crisis

The Win-Win Solution

The same win-win management philosophy that transformed manufacturing in post-World War II is now available to construction. Two thousand years ago Seneca taught that if you want to change thinking, show a tool. Building CATALYST (www.buildingcatalyst.com) is a tool designed to change thinking – based on W. E. Deming’s management philosophy.

Owners, you have the most to gain this year by eliminating waste and improving value. Likewise, builders, you have the most gain next years…but should go ahead and get started.

The Offer

Building CATALYST enables planning and cost analysis to be performed in real time rather than the days and weeks it would otherwise take. That enables us – CATALYST’s parent company Agile Integrated Solutions (AGILIS) – to diagnose and offer treatment options for your project1 . We are pleased to perform this at no charge in hopes to earn the right to lead you through the treatments options that make the most sense. The 3-step process can take less than week:

  • Step 1 – You will provide an overview and goals for the project. We will prepare and present one or multiple data models based on your space program or design (conceptual to final). There are also a handful of attributes that need to be selected.
  • Step 2 – We will evaluate your current project information and documentation, including agreements with your team members, budget estimates, etc.
  • Step 3 – We will present the insights derived from comparing the data models to your information. We will then present an menu of course correction treatments together with our services.


Please contact us at info@agilis.build to discuss further. Otherwise, continue to explore this site. It captures 30 years of study and research on how to change a fragmented and complex industry using Deming’s management philosophy, grounded in systems theory.

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How the Win-Win Solution Works

America’s builders produce the world’s most remarkable and complex “products”. That they have to “reinvent-the-wheel” on every one requires an extraordinary and unnecessary amount of time and effort resulting in excessive and continued runaway costs.


A Win-Win solution to significantly reducing waste in time and cost is ready for adoption. It will take leadership from both owners and builders. Builders will play the primary role in the long run – but it starts with the owner.


Why does the course correction have to start with the owner? Three primary reasons:

  1. Owner’s have the most to gain in the short term because they are paying the price for the excessive time and cost it takes to produce buildings.
  2. Construction’s “reinventing-the-wheel” problem starts in planning and continues throughout the space programming and early design – before the builder is typically engaged in the project.
  3. Architects and engineers play a key role but won’t likely take a lead, initially. Their paying customer, the owner, and they’re using customer, the builder, create the demand and define the requirements. The paying customer wields the greater influence initially.


Building CATALYST provides the data and technology breakthrough – and Agile Integrated Solution (AGILIS) provides the vision, playbook and training – for owners and building teams to adopt the Win-Win Solution.


This website and www.buildingcatalyst.com describes how facility planning, design, construction and operations can be transformed – reducing layers of waste starting with projects currently in the planning and early design process.

Win-Win Overview for Owners

Owners and/or their representatives lead the transformation in three major ways:

  1. Planning, Budgeting and Cost Management – Building CATALYST jump starts the transformation process by automating the front end, and bringing a powerful knowledge resource to make better informed decisions. This page – (insert link) – outlines the many benefits that CATALYST brings to owners, including impartial budget analysis.
  2. Win-Win Contracting – Impartial budget analysis enables owners to flip the profit motive for architects and builders. This page – (insert link) – describes how the project team becomes financially motivated to eliminate waste – and provided with the standards and tools to make it happen. Its through measurable quality and process improvement and automation throughout the project life cycle.
  3. Total Cost of Ownership – Design and construction services are just a fraction of the total project life cycle cost – but have a major impact on it. This page – (insert link) – describes how total cost of ownership (TCO) optimization generates a return on investment that far exceeds first cost only focus.

Win-Win Overview for Building Teams

Exciting times are ahead for building teams who are already intrinsically motivated – and now financially motivated – to drive out waste through innovation and automation.

Building CATALYST, together with a robust data system, three progressive steps emerge to transform the building process:

  1. Inter-organizational Transformation – This page – Transition from a Siloed to a Systems-based Organization – uses builders as the example for transitioning from a silos to a systems approach to automation and innovation. Since most technologies include a work breakdown structure (WBS) capability, all that’s needed is for company leadership to lead the change.
  2. Building Team Transformation – This page – Transition from a Siloed to a Systems-based Building Team – describes how the supporting services can be automated for custom buildings by standardizing and systematizing at the space, component, and assembly levels.
  3. Manufacturing-inspired Construction – This page – Transition to a fully Integrated Production System – describes a long-envisioned, manufacturing-inspired, vertically integrated, turnkey building solution is possible.

How is this possible?

The Win-Win Solution transforms construction from it’s silos to a systems state. Figure 1, shows how critical project data – currently residing in a menagerie of disconnected silos – becomes networked into a comprehensive system. This enables all essential information blocks, processes, technologies, and people to operate as a system. Likewise, so can departments, organizations, and building teams.

Figure 1 – The Transition from a Siloed to Systems Approach to Construction

The implication is profound. We transition from our manual, “reinvent-the-wheel” state to an integrated and automated solution – if all critical components and relationships are “prepared-in-advance” in a system. The space program, design parameters, schedule (time), and cost can all be known in the earliest planning stages – because the owner’s business case (purpose) and key attributes (constraints and cost drivers) should be known.


A system is defined as a network of interdependent components working together to accomplish the aim of the system2. For building, the aim is synonymous with the building purpose, made up of functions (i.e., CT Scan) organized by departments (i.e., Radiology). All building component groups are networked into a cause-and-effect relationship. The purpose and attributes are the causes. The program, design parameters, schedule (time), and cost are the effects of outcomes.


Building CATALYST solves our “reinventing-the-wheel” state throughout the planning and budgeting process. Furthermore, it provides a complete data and technology platform and set of standards needed to transform the programming, design, procurement, construction and facility operations. And, finally, it enables a breakthrough by making process and value improvements measurable. We can’t improve what we can’t measure.


CATALYST was first inspired by W. Edwards Deming, the statistician and physicist credited with transforming manufacturing starting in post World War II Japanese industrial reconstruction. The Toyota Production System is an example of how Deming’s systems theory was applied. CATALYST was also inspired by Steelcase – a world leader in the manufacturing of building interior systems. Steelcase, as you will learn more about, developed a forerunner to today’s vision for manufacturing-inspired or industrialized construction.


Agile Integrated Solution (AGILIS) helps owners, owner reps, and building teams to develop Win-Win strategies described throughout this site.

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This short essay: Be Transformed by the Renewing of Your Mind describes Deming’s management philosophy as applied to the construction process, and two seminal Deming concepts: The System of Profound Knowledge and the 14 Management Points. 

End Notes:

  1. With good underlying data, this offer applies best toward ground up healthcare, commercial, educational, multi-unit residential, and mixed use building types. Other building types require supplemental data recording and analysis that would need to be commissioned separate from this offer.
  2. Based on Deming’s definition
  3. AGILIS is the assumed name for the 1999 formed company, Genesis Building Systems