What is a Construction Integration Company?

There have been a lot of crazy graphs in the news lately, and while this one isn’t political, for those of us in the world of design and construction it should be terrifying.

If you’ve ever built anything, you’ve probably experienced the pain of this graph in real life. Risk posturing, CYA, and the standard tension of a project meeting reinforce the reality of the situation.

Many have hypotheses for how to fix it: better digital platforms, advanced AI, new construction methods and materials. And they all have merit. Surely the industry will need all of them, but what if we’re overlooking a more fundamental challenge:

The human tendency toward fragmentation and the need for radical integration.

There are few industries where the manpower needed to achieve the end result is more fragmented than construction. That fragmentation’s tendency toward misaligned incentives, litigation, and waste drives up cost and drives down productivity. The results are becoming more untenable as labor and supply chains are getting more strained.

We call ourselves a “construction integration company” precisely for this reason. Design and construction need human-level integration first. Where those that own the building, design the building, and build the building work together from the beginning to drive better outcomes and build deeper trust.

Our process is called Omega (read more here) and it's a call to radical integration at the human level before we ever begin to build. If this process has taught us anything, it's that the importance of integration and relationship-building extends far beyond its impact on construction. Maybe—whether we're building a structure, talking to our kids, or starting a new partnership—we ought to focus on the relationships first.