Presentations

Four industry leaders debate what owners should do differently on data center and infrastructure projects, challenging assumptions about contracts, administrative burden, decision rights, and the fundamental difference between project management and production thinking.

Roberto Arbulu presents five minimum requirements for effective data center supply chains, showing how lead time analysis, transparency systems, redundancy strategies, and production system thinking can close the gap between construction capability and the one-year technology refresh cycle driving demand.

A fourth-generation mechanical contractor explains why moving work offsite isn’t an easy button, sharing hard-won lessons on production system optimization, the limits of transparency with owners, and why modularization decisions require rigorous engineering, not assumptions.

The Project Production Institute presents its first-ever dual Technical Achievement Awards to Ed McCann and Will Lichtig, recognizing their exceptional contributions to advancing project production management through industry leadership, lifelong learning, and practical application.

The Boldt Company shares 25 years of lean evolution and recent production system optimization results, demonstrating how self-performing contractors can break schedule constraints, challenge resource assumptions, and bring production engineering into early design phases for faster, cheaper, better project delivery.

Ed McCann traces 30 years of learning that product design and process design are inseparable, showing how research into construction error, material waste, and production system thinking is now shaping projects from Olympic venues to nuclear site factories.

Petronas shares five years of PPM implementation results, demonstrating how integrated digital construction solutions, WIP control, and production system thinking have delivered over $400 million in value and transformed project teams into active believers.

Todd Zabelle challenges the industry’s century-old administrative approach to project delivery, showing how AI is already displacing knowledge work and why the future belongs to those who treat projects as production systems rather than contract management exercises.