Dive Brief:

• A Seattle construction company is speeding the building of a 13-story office building by using old-fashioned processes to simplify the job.

• For example, because most of the dozens of iron workers on the crew are right-handed, the company ordered steel fabricated for right-handed workers. It is using just two sizes of bolts, and it is operating two cranes instead of one to lift the many heavy components that need to reach the top of the building.

• Almost 350 huge shipments came to the building in September, in a system the manager called “a motion economy” that allows the crews to work more efficiently and has kept the project, called Block 45, about a month ahead of schedule. The manager expects the building to open next August.

Dive Insight:

Pre-building components off-site has helped speed the job. But Project Manager Chris Heger said on-site crews are “almost like surgeons, so they’re like knowledge workers. A lot of times in the past, we didn't always give them the knowledge of where does something go. With this system, that's what we're doing."