Fast Track Pros and Cons: Considerations for Industrial Projects

Abstract

Several years ago Tom Peters produced a video discussing the benefits of reducing durations. He talked about how Motorola was able to reduce the time it took to build a beeper from 40 days down to 2 or 3 days. He went on to talk about how this was the wave of the future and how this would be the savior of American business. We in the business of building industrial facilities passed it off as another fad. We were already building facilities as fast as we could. We could not improve our times significantly. These numbers Peters described, of reducing times by 50%, 60%, or 70%, were a pipe dream, at least in our business. Or were they? After recently completing a fast-track project of our own we learned some valuable lessons. We learned what is attainable, what it takes, and what it will take to do this kind of project on a more routine basis.