Automation: Power Tools for Design

Welcome back to A Bicycle for Design, a newsletter that explores how architectural and engineering design is being transformed by software and computers! Today's edition looks at similarities between design automation and woodworking with power tools.

In woodworking (one of my hobbies), there is a tension between hand tools and power tools. Some enjoy the peace and tranquility of working exclusively with human-powered tools, but the vast majority are hybrid workers, using both power tools and hand tools whenever each is most helpful to the work.

One big difference between the two ways of working is that when you are working with hand tools, almost all your time is spent working directly with the project piece - marking, cutting, shaping, sanding, finishing, etc... There is a direct and continuous interaction between you - the woodworker - and your creation.

Power tools introduce some distance; while you are still creating the project's pieces, much more of your time goes to setting up and tuning the tools and building jigs.

So why do people use power tools, if they take us away from our projects? Here's the dynamic: despite spending a lower percentage of time working directly on our project pieces, the project gets done more quickly! It feels anticlimactic! You spend 20 minutes setting up a cut that takes 10 seconds - but it might have taken an hour by hand.

The more sophisticated our design tools become, the more our time will resemble power tool woodworking. The percentage of our time spent directly on project deliverables will decrease, but we will still get them done faster (including tools creation, setup and other overheads).

If we are spending less time directly on projects, but are still doing our work faster, we can expect to see the bewildering juxtaposition of decreasing billability and consistent or increasing bottom-line profitability.

One possible outcome for design firms (which may appear first for those that do a lot of similar work) is that the key business metric will no longer be return on staff time (measured by billability), but return on the cost of the design platforms that the firm buys or develops.