Module 01 / The Wall
Sixty years of flat to falling productivity.
Output per hour has stalled at the sector, subsector, building, and task level, across forty countries. The direction never changes.
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NLT143 Research · Open application to NavigateAI
Sixty years flat.
Autopilot for the field.
Construction is the great productivity holdout. Output per hour has been flat to falling since the 1960s while the rest of the economy roughly tripled. The binding constraint is not materials, tools, or even robots. It is the field itself. I am David T Phung, trained in the field of architecture and construction, and an operator by practice. I have lived both halves of what NavigateAI is building. This is the case, with the data.
1.1×
Construction output per hour, 1947 to 2010 (McKinsey)
16.1×
Agriculture, same window
8.6×
Manufacturing, same window
~20K
US permitting jurisdictions
60%
Of a new home’s price is construction cost
1 task
Got meaningfully faster in 60 years: insulation
The dossier
Six modules. One thesis.
Modules / 06
Module 02 / The Diagnosis
The constraint is the field itself.
Variability, tacit knowledge in a few heads, coordination failure across subcontractors, and rework. A software-shaped problem inside a hard-hat industry.
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Module 03 / Prior Waves
Why CAD, BIM, cloud, and modular missed.
Office-bound, or cost-adding, or capital-heavy. None reached the worker at the point of work, so none moved the aggregate needle.
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Module 04 / The Lever
Autopilot for the field.
The rare move that raises productivity without importing a new cost. Four NavigateAI pillars, four diagnosed constraints, one to one.
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Module 05 / The Operator
The coordination layer, by hand.
Eight years compressing exactly what the research names as broken, plus a 1M-user platform shipped on the software side.
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Module 06 / The Conversation
Thirty minutes, builder to builder.
The fit, the ask, and the routes. join@navigate.ai.
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The companions
Four short reads, alongside the dossier.
Companions / 04
Companion · Product
DATUM. A working prototype of the agent.
The proposed NavigateAI copilot for construction administration. Eight live demos. The full prototype.
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Companion · Candidate
Forward Deployed. The hybrid candidate brief.
A standalone brief for software teams shipping into the physical world. Four FDE-shaped moves with evidence.
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Companion · Method
Process. How I think. Five phases, one loop.
The Design Thinking loop, run in the field, with the actual artifacts each phase produces.
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Companion · Design
Breakdown. The design decisions behind DATUM.
A short essay walking through the eight decisions that shaped the prototype, with comparison demos.
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Enter
Sixty years flat. The constraint is the field. Prior waves missed the worker. The lever is autopilot for the field. And I have been the coordination layer by hand.