1970-1975: The foundation phase

The foundation phase
The foundation phase

Organization

The foundation phase
The period immediately following the foundation of Drees & Sommer (Consulting Engineers) is very special. What started with three people in 1970 has, by 1975, grown to just 12 employees. Everyone handles their own projects as a one-man band, more or less as they please and at their own pace. Some prefer to cut out critical path stickers, others to develop schedule concepts with a thick marker. Mechanical typewriters, Tipp-Ex correcting paper, countless carbon copies and huge calculating machines provide support. Office organization is simple, contracts are well paid - whereas employees' pay is more average. As compensation for the low pay, Drees & Sommer engineers enjoy freedom - either for a dip in the spa at in Bad Berg or for an extended lunch at the Yugoslavian restaurant. For a whole decade, a single floor in the Mozartstrasse is home to the young engineers - with the pungent aroma of the neigboring coffee roastery always hanging in the air.

  • 1970 Professor Gerhard Drees and Volker Kuhne found an engineering office
  • Services: Critical path analysis, production planning, operational organisation, building consulting
  • 1973 Hans Sommer becomes a partner
  • Office in Düsseldorf
  • 12 employees handle orders totaling DM 1.2 million

Focuses

Calculating and controlling schedules
At the beginning of the 1970s, as the Apollo crew are celebrating a triumph of achievement with the lunar rover, a new method is causing furor in the construction industry: critical path analysis. It allows complex and nested schedules to be calculated. But correct inputs for duration, capacity and interdependencies are still required as a basis for these calculations. This results in a special role for construction engineers: they master the interdependencies in construction, and critical path analysis puts them in a position to professionally control construction processes.
Drees & Sommer now uses critical path analysis for project control for the new SDR Funkhaus (broadcasting house) in Stuttgart. The engineers get a handle on a highly complex network of sophisticated equipment: both the administration and studio and broadcasting facilities are completed on schedule.
And the next major projects are not long in coming. Gradually, the engineers move from manual calculation of critical paths to the use of mainframe computers, but with punch cards as the input medium.

  • 1971 Berlin exhibition halls, ICI Europa Fibres GmbH in Offenbach
  • 1972 Schorndorf district hospital, personnel quarters
  • 1973 Am Predigerstuhl holiday park in St. Englmar
  • 1974 Bleichpfad Krefeld, residential buildings with business centre, Bergkamen city centre, development of Marstall pedestrian precinct, Ludwigsburg
  • 1975 Süddeutscher Rundfunk (South German Radio) "Broadcasting House" in Stuttgart, headquarters of the State Central Bank, Stuttgart