I have been involved with numerous large single family homes that have taken well over three years from concept to completion. I have even had a few that took over three years from groundbreaking to completion.
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Why does it take so long to complete a Disney project
- Thread starter POLY LOVER
- Start date
danlb_2000
Premium Member
I think for most people, especially average guests, construction time isn't an issue, what it is an issue is the rate at which new attractions are being added. If we were getting a new e-ticket every year then most people wouldn't care if it took 5 years to build each one.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
Have you ever looked at a good construction document set? Ratatouille is probably around 1,000 BIG pages of drawings. To go along with that is an equally voluminous set of written specifications. Just getting that switched from metric to imperial and vetting it for Florida is the sort of thing that would take six months. That’s just to build something, it doesn’t include all of the story work that goes into developing what you see, be it physically or in media.
Sounds like some very difficult and indecisive people to deal with.
Phonedave
Well-Known Member
I submitted my 2018 capital business cases a month ago. That means that my capital expenditures for 2018 are all set (well, I don't know if I have funding yet or not, but I know what I asked for). that means that if some wonderful new opportunity came along this afternoon, at the very least, I would not be starting it utill 2019 - thats over 400 days until I can even begin to START the project. Unless I wanted to try and get more 2018 money. However that money has all been allocated, so if capital management decides that I deserve an extra $10M for that super special project, quess what, it means someone else gets a call that they just had $10M cut from their budget. How do they deal with that? You are a Manager, thats what you get paid to deal with. Fun times.
-dave
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs took about 3 years from idea to grand opening. That was a ground-breaking monumental achievement that obviously had never been done before. The company added hundreds of workers. Huge amounts of money had to be borrowed. Entire technologies had to be invented to make it work. An entire story had to be written. Characters had to be imagined and developed. And no one knew if it would be successful or if it would flop.
Ratatouille is under a similar timeline, yet Disney has been in the amusement ride business for decades, the land is already owned, the movie upon which it was based was made years ago, and a SIMILAR ATTRACTION ALREADY EXISTS. Truly, the timelines just seem ridiculously long compared to what the company used to do. We've beaten this dead horse too long already, but I doubt that anyone could truly convince me that 3 years is reasonable given what this great company has achieved in the past. Again, if one attraction now takes 3 years, building Disneyland or the Magic Kingdom would probably take 10 years given today's mindset. Perhaps the prior bosses in the company were simply miracle workers. OR, the current company is so wrapt up in bureaucracy that achievement is on a much longer timescale. I personally believe the latter.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
You keep invoking greater and greater generalities. Disney is most definitely larger and more layered but that has also combined with an increased complexity in the building process.
K&KDizFreaks
Active Member
I am guessing Universal used somewhere between an etch a scketch and finger paint to design and duplos to build their rides and water park so quickly.
That is precisely my point. Yet the best large companies can still be responsive to initiatives and market opportunities. Size and layering are exactly what a great company can overcome and still be great. Disney seems to have become so layered and bureaucratic that much of its original greatness has been stifled. In short, Rat and Disco Yeti are symptoms of a company that has lost much of its red tape cutting unbloated greatness. It seems to have embraced bloating, layering, committeeing, over-budgeting and excuse-making, and many on these Boards find that inevitable and/or okay. I do not.
TXDisney
Well-Known Member
While I see your point... I highly doubt the ratatouille ride will be identical to DLPs. Same as GoG won't be the same a DL. The only new ride I can see being very similar is Tron.
trainplane3
Well-Known Member
Rat is going to be identical. I believe Martin was asked if it was being "plussed" at all and the answer was no.
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
That I agree with wholeheartedly. Bad management was in not keeping up over the last decade. Now they are spending buckets to get up to date and be relevant like before. However, that isn't what everyone has been talking about, they have been talking specifically about how long it takes to actually physically build one after it is given the go. One cannot count the time between thinking about a project and completion of that project. There are to many variables in the scenario to ever know what is going on. I thought about building a house long before I had it built. I planned it and fine tuned it and then had it physically built. In my case an easy 8 years passed from decision to completion. The time proceeding actual physical building is totally irrelevant, but, that seems to be the focal point in these discussions. And, of course, they would care from the moment they knew it was going to happen all you would have heard is "Why isn't it done yet. Those damn accountants."
Although I understand that everyone is anxious to have something new, rushing that process is never a good idea. It's sort of like rushing into building a theme park that was a combination park and working studio without doing the necessary planning to understand that the studio thing wasn't going to work, and many did feel that way. Yet, the lets hurry and beat the competition to the punch, was a very costly decision over time.
danlb_2000
Premium Member
I think Disney could be delivering the same quality at a faster pace if they really wanted to. Having worked at a company the size of Disney I found it crazy how long it took to get the simplest things done.
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
In the words of Shrek... layers, it's all about layers. The bigger the onion the more layers there are. Also I don't think that a place like a theme park has a simplest thing. It is all very complex from beginning to end. Someday there will be a Modern Marvels show on the complexity of theme park building. Personally, I don't think they take long at all to actually build something. Decision making takes up most of the time.
Universal Orlando is finding that it takes as much time to sorta-clone Fast & Furious from Hollywood to Orlando as it took them to build a brand new ride in Kong.
DisAl
Well-Known Member
If you want to build a railroad, you order your standard diesel electric locomotives from a factory with a production line and order your standard rails from a steel mill.
Even if all the engineering is done and even if every part is identical to something previously built, (almost) every part is still a custom build for Rat or most any other ride or attraction. That takes TIME.
trainplane3
Well-Known Member
Agreed. I only meant it from the riders point of view. If I go to DLP and then come to Epcot, the rides will be the same from the riders point of view.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
I would say Slinky Dog Dash is a great example since it has more immediate comparisons available. Silver Dollar City is also opening a Mack launched coaster next year. Both coasters are coming from the same factory in Germany but Missouri is further inland so shipping is likely more expensive. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, construction labor costs are higher in Missouri than Florida. The site in Missouri is also on a wooded hill versus flat, open space in Florida. Despite all that, Slinky Dog Dash is about double the cost with a longer build time. Other coasters come in closer to Herschend's cost than Disney's.
Some of those layers get involved because they can and do provide important information. That's the challenge with layers, knowing what and when to cut. You also can't cut through everything that has made the general building process more complex.
There are vendors who build all sorts of components that go into attractions. Custom work is nothing new or unusual for them.
That is part of it. I saw one house sit for a year waiting for a particular craftsman to do the marble floor. Saw another sit for almost two because the owners could not agree on colors. I have seen a ton of small churches sit forever due to funding issues.
The running theme for nearly all of them is they were being built with cash. Removing the interest that accumulates from day one on a construction loan really removes the majority of the incentive to work quickly.
I see the point about some layers providing valuable information, but my delvings into bureaucracies tell me that most do not. Yet every layer of bureaucracy can finger-point when things go wrong. Walt, Roy and even Eisner had the luxury of being invulnerable to nearly everyone other than the customers. Iger doesn't seem to have such teflon power. Yet that is one of the problems with so many layers and so much potential for little fiefdoms and "I told you so" at every ridiculous meeting.
Going back to Expedition Everest--I imagine the broken yeti now results in even more committees and sign-offs with every initiative. The hairy monster doesn't work, and Monday Morning Quarterbacks certainly abound with, "I never would have okayed that project." Thus, in a vain attempt to eliminate all possible mishaps, dozens more checks, studies, sign-offs and committees have to put in their two cents. Plus, those sign-offers have to justify their jobs, so they demand more info, cast an occasional veto, take a month or two to write up a study that no one wants to read and says nothing but otherwise covers your tail, and ultimately delays and stretches an actual accomplishment.
That, my friends, is today's bureaucracy. And the vast majority of it is pointless.
Going back to Expedition Everest--I imagine the broken yeti now results in even more committees and sign-offs with every initiative. The hairy monster doesn't work, and Monday Morning Quarterbacks certainly abound with, "I never would have okayed that project." Thus, in a vain attempt to eliminate all possible mishaps, dozens more checks, studies, sign-offs and committees have to put in their two cents. Plus, those sign-offers have to justify their jobs, so they demand more info, cast an occasional veto, take a month or two to write up a study that no one wants to read and says nothing but otherwise covers your tail, and ultimately delays and stretches an actual accomplishment.
That, my friends, is today's bureaucracy. And the vast majority of it is pointless.