Key to the long-term survival of all living things is our ability to adapt to changes in our environment. As humans and technology-makers we have the ability to anticipate and control changes far into the future with strategic actions in the here and now. Our challenge is to develop the knowledge and strategies we need in order to evolve with the anticipated changes we foresee in technology and business practices. If we prevail, significant competitive advantage is ours.

There is a well-founded belief in the inevitable acceptance of truly enabling technologies. Many tools have fundamentally changed the ways projects get designed, built and operated. But over time, incremental changes continually refine these innovations until they become indispensable to us.

As it happens, enabling technologies have the unexpected benefit of also enabling smaller players to compete where they otherwise might not have the resources to do so, causing larger firms to extend their search for competitive advantage in areas beyond the reach of smaller players. Such advantages may not necessarily come in the form of access to emerging technology, but merely as experience with the process of change itself. This value added to projects by more established firms comes to bear when topics like “best practices” and “industry standards” are discussed, as they were at the DaratechPLANT2001 conference in January. The esteemed Francisco Domingo reviews the panel discussion on Process Industry Standards in this issue of AECVision.

Project management is another area in which attentive firms can gain competitive advantage if they take timely, appropriate action. Management theory offers a variety of solutions designed to equip project managers with new insights to cope with increasing competition. But, according to the venerable Gregory Howell, a new theory is called for. In this issue he asks us to consider that construction projects cannot be effectively managed as isolated or nested task sets—we need a more responsive, more deliverable-oriented means of adapting resources to the fluctuating demands and variable event-sequences characteristic of complex projects.

Also in this issue, preeminent researcher Lili Eylon of Jerusalem reveals the management challenges of some of Pittsburgh's biggest Brownfield projects. “The project manager here,” she says, “has a gigantic job. He must: formulate a set of criteria for selecting Brownfield development sites…determine funding sources, evaluate marketability, supervise public relations and sales campaigns, estimate potential business and residential clients, balance potential income with real and potential cost, balance the concerns of developers and those of the community, evaluate potential community benefits, such as jobs, tax revenues, aesthetic improvement, increased property values, community services, human health impacts, and target and prepare as priorities for redevelopment those sites which are likely to bring the greatest benefits based on socio-economic factors…” And you thought you had it tough.

Thus, it is with the best interests of the project in mind that we embark upon this, the premier issue of AECVision. AECVision welcomes you to tour the concepts and strategies explored herein. I invite you to revisit these pages each month, and to enjoy whatever benefits you may from the presentation. It is my sincere wish that AECVision might become a valued informational resource to you, helping you to achieve prosperity and success in your enterprise for as long as you choose to seek out the competitive advantage of those who can discern important industry trends before they arrive—and make critical informed decisions about them.

David Clendenen is the Editor of AECVision and Managing Editor of AECCafe.com

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