The tale of two underpasses
Rather strange blog coming from a technophile, you might be thinking!
I was reading the newspaper this morning and this rather interesting table caught my eye
MALLESHWARAM UNDERPASS | CAUVERY JUNCTION UNDERPASS |
| Construction | Conventional | | Total Length | 180 meters | | Estimated Cost | Rs. 16.41 Crore ($ 4M) | | Actual Cost | Rs. 26 Crore ($ 6.5M) | | Work Started | July 2006 | | Status | Incomplete | | | Construction | Pre-Cast | | Length | 20 meters | | Estimated Cost | Rs. 1.5 crore ($ .37M) | | Actual Cost | Rs. 1.8 Crore ($ .44M) | | Work Started | January 16, 2008 | | Completed | February 20, 2008 | |
The accompanying article talks about how the Bengaluru Corporation Public Works is considering to bid adieu to the conventional method of constructing underpasses because of the obvious gains and less pains and the speed at which the works could be completed.
The gains that are discussed are these
1. Speed of completion of work - Imagine an underpass being completed in 35 days straight as opposed to 600+ days!
2. Save Money by avoiding dependencies on contractors who perpetually up their rates on various pretexts
3. According to estimates, the Malleshwaram underpass could have been completed using the precast elements in 60 days at a cost of less than $ 1.25 M. thus reducing the burden of citizen, road users and saving enormous amount of time, fuel and impact on the environment.
So what does it means to us - technophiles???
Here is the lesson - World is moving away from custom built, ground up solutions. More and more people are using technology to ensure that solutions are composed of pre-built blocks that could be assembled to suit the need on hand.
This is big lesson for software engineering. This shift towards low cost off the shelf components is certainly going to be more pronounced in the days to come. We are already seeing it.
1. Many more companies are implementing some sort of ERP system like SAP. They feel that it makes better sense to get something up quickly and customize it is fairly easier as opposed to invest in ground-up IT development and spend $$ and Time.
2. SharePoint as opposed to custom ASP.NET is another example. 81 of Fortune 100 are on SharePoint today. Obviously all of them cannot be collectively wrong on this.
3. Time is Money - A solution that is available now - is far useful than something that will come say 9 months later. Its like a bird in hand is worth two in the bush
4. Being able to start from Level 3 as opposed to ground zero has its own advantages
What does it all mean to us. Why should we be trying to quote this example and spending time reading this blog...
Good Question! I feel we as systems teams, should focus mainly on building these blocks that can be reused across. We should strive to get out of the project scenarios. We should think services, we should think what is the next pre-cast block that i can design and implement? How can i ensure that what i design today, can be easily reconfigured to do something else for someone looking for similar solution? How do I contribute to reduce the time involved in overall solution delivery (from conception to deployment).
We do have great technology examples for thinking about pre-cast blocks. SharePoint Features, Encapsulating app functionality behind Web Services, Service orientation of your software landscape are all great examples of this bent of mind. Our Core Platforms are designed to be your pre-cast blocks. Lets get an example out there to supplant the data in the table above with something that we did for E&D, that would be worth the while.
-Raja-
