What a difference 25 years makes in the world of construction industry research and development. In 1980, there was a dearth of information available on how to make construction quicker, better, safer and more profitable for everyone involved. The Business Roundtable, representing major owners of industrial and manufacturing projects, decided to do something about the situation with its landmark, multimillion-dollar Construction Industry Cost-Effectiveness research project. Today, the ripples and benefits are still being felt.

CICE for the first time tried to address some of the painful issues that had dogged the industry for years, starting with the role of project owners in general. Its first report in November 1980 focused on the impact of scheduled overtime on projects. Over the next two years, the 20 reports that followed covered such items as improving safety performance, the impact of collective bargaining and exclusive union jurisdiction on projects, contractor supervision, absenteeism and turn­over, use of subjouneymen, training, contractual arrangements, codes and regulations and the industry’s great need for technological advances.

All of these reports still have great value today and should be reviewed, but Report B-2 in July 1982 set the stage for what would shortly become the Construction Industry Institute, an industry-supported research organization designed to identify areas of need, raise funding and coordinate and execute the research with the help of member firms and academia. As CII celebrates its 25th anniversary, the results are clear: Firms that have examined the research and implemented the findings on their projects have saved many billions of dollars by avoiding costs, waste and inefficiency.

Success provides the impetus to do more research. The potential benefits can be huge, as this week’s issue of ENR demonstrates. A trio of alternative-energy power stations is using new power-storage technology involving graphite blocks to give the stations base-load capability, while researchers at Penn State explore new polymer technology that could replace compressors, coils and gases in refrigeration devices. And a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has made a breakthrough in energy storage by developing a process that more efficiently uses alternative-source electricity to reduce water to hydrogen and oxygen, which will later be recombined in a fuel cell to make electricity when needed.

The possibilities are endless, as long as there is the will and resources to press on. The payback from research can be many times the cost.