BC 2014 - Construction Principles 1

Congratulations! You've successfully completed your degree and have just been hired, along with several of your other VT BC classmates, to work for Buildings, Inc., a mid-sized firm specializing in <system> construction. Buildings, Inc. has offices in Roanoke, Atlanta, and Pittsburgh, has been in business for over 30 years, and is a family-owned business interested in growing into new products and markets.

The CEO of Buildings, Inc. is a solid leader who is an extraordinarily strategic thinker as well. At the end of your third week with the company, he summons you to his office along with your other VT classmates for a meeting. His son Jack, a recent University of Virginia graduate who will eventually take over the company, is also present.

"I've been thinking," he says, "about the future of this company. We've been very successful to date with our focus on <traditional system type>, but I've been getting calls nearly every week asking about <emerging system type> for projects on which we'd like to bid. Frankly, it makes me wonder what else is on the horizon that we don't know about. I'm considering the mid- to long-term prospects in our market, and I'd like to appoint you all to do some background intelligence gathering to support my decisions. You're fresh out of school from a fine institution like Tech, so you've probably learned about all these cutting edge kinds of systems. I'd like you to work as a team and build me a brief that answers these questions."

He hands you a sheet of paper, and as he does, Jack scowls. As you read the questions on the sheet, you realize that in addition to the brief he's requested, you will also need to back up all your summaries and recommendations with solid details and analysis, since Jack is going to be following your every footstep, just waiting for you to make a mistake...

On the sheet of paper are three questions:

1)    What's the future of our company if we continue to focus on <traditional system type>?
2)    What are the pros and cons of developing a capability in <emerging system type> in the next 3-5 years?
3)    What will the <system type> field look like in 5-10 years? What should we ultimately be preparing for?

Your goal for this semester is to build answers to these questions so that you can deliver a compelling argument one way or the other at the end of the term in your final presentation. You will investigate four different types of considerations associated with the two systems: their technological performance, their human performance, their ecological performance, and their economic performance. You will also evaluate what other types of systems might be out there in the near or long term future that could further change the market for your system type. You'll perform your analyses and document your results on this wiki in a page dedicated to your system type, and you'll present your findings on each type of performance consideration as we go along.