Construction as biological cells: implications of the biological cell cycle for managing construction

Construction as biological cells: implications of the biological cell cycle for managing construction

The concept of a cell as a unit of construction is advanced exploring the notion of construction as biological cells metaphorically, inspired by the striking similarity of a biological cell as a building block of a multicellular organism with the hope of finding new ways of solving perennial construction problems given also that many have benefitted by learning from nature. As biological cells procreate through cell division, it follows a unique cyclic process with an astonishingly error-free cell division process despite the complexity of the process. This cyclic process consists of four phases with three checkpoints including a forced rest state. A critical incident with a quality problem was selected in order to examine the relevance of the biological cell cycle. Study finds that checkpoints at mobilisation and completion are invaluable. Results suggest there is potential for further exploration of the cell cycle to establish its value, reliability, and validity with the hope of developing a suitable cell cycle control mechanism for construction including the form and nature of the embedded design and cell control checkpoints.

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