The future is unbuilt

For bet­ter or for worse, in sick­ness and in health, the for­tunes of the con­struc­tion indus­try and UK econ­o­my appear wed­ded togeth­er.

In 2008, when the UK econ­o­my went down as a whole, con­struc­tion fell faster and fur­ther, but bounced back stronger, in 2009. Cre­at­ing out­puts of £83 bil­lion on the road to recov­ery in 2012, the sec­tor swelled to pro­vide one in every fif­teen jobs at the end of last year.

For growth to be sus­tain­able, how­ev­er, it is not enough sim­ply that order books become fuller and busi­ness more prof­itable – the sec­tor needs to change.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, change does not suit every­one. Retreat­ing to the com­fort zone of “busi­ness as usu­al”, pur­su­ing safe bets and fast bucks is slam­ming the engine of trans­for­ma­tion into reverse. Chair­man of Build­off­site Richard Ogden can already see warn­ing signs in ris­ing mate­r­i­al prices and labour rates.

“There is lit­tle evi­dence that growth is being dri­ven by increased pro­duc­tiv­i­ty,” he says. “An absence means infla­tion and a risk to jobs and aspi­ra­tions. The key is inno­va­tion in prod­uct and process.”

Enabled by mod­ern man­u­fac­tur­ing, dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy and smart logis­tics, the sys­temic inno­va­tion Mr Ogden envi­sions takes place in a glob­al mar­ket­place, where coun­tries and firms com­pete to pro­duce what is essen­tial­ly a con­sumer prod­uct.

It is not enough sim­ply that order books become fuller and busi­ness more prof­itable – the sec­tor needs to change

“I make no apolo­gies for regard­ing the con­struc­tion indus­try as just anoth­er man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor. I want choice in terms of size, spec­i­fi­ca­tion and per­for­mance – in short, I want to be able to cus­tomise my pur­chase,” he says. “I want rapid deliv­ery and assem­bly on-site, right-first-time qual­i­ty, per­for­mance in use that match­es the mar­ket­ing. That is what I expect when I buy a new car and I can’t see why con­struc­tion should be any dif­fer­ent.”

While not buy­ing into the automa­tive anal­o­gy, Shaun McCarthy, chair­man of the Sup­ply Chain Sus­tain­abil­i­ty School, a col­lab­o­ra­tion between 17 major con­trac­tors to devel­op com­pe­tence of more than 5,000 sub-con­trac­tors, still sees lessons to be learnt from man­u­fac­tur­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly around ben­e­fits of inte­grat­ed mod­el­ling.

“The BIM [build­ing infor­ma­tion mod­el­ling] rev­o­lu­tion is com­ing. It can be trans­for­ma­tion­al. How­ev­er, it requires com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent skillsets from man­age­ment and staff,” he says.

The rev­o­lu­tion will be cul­tur­al, not tech­ni­cal. Out go old adver­sar­i­al atti­tudes and in come new col­lab­o­ra­tive ways of work­ing. Cit­ing “intel­li­gent client” roles dri­ving megapro­jects, such as Cross­rail and the Olympic Park, Mr McCarthy argues that, with­out such a gearshift, tech­no­log­i­cal poten­tial may be wast­ed.

“We are see­ing flat-pack hous­es in Swe­den, homes cre­at­ed using 3D-print­ing in Chi­na, con­crete that absorbs car­bon, the list goes on. With­out cul­ture change these inno­va­tions could with­er on the vine,” he says.

Change will depend, of course, not on a mat­ter of either tech­nol­o­gy or peo­ple, but both togeth­er. Head of facil­i­ties man­age­ment and Plan A at Marks & Spencer Mun­ish Dat­ta explains: “I think the government’s Indus­tri­al Strat­e­gy: Con­struc­tion 2025 sum­maris­es trans­for­ma­tive fac­tors rather well: ‘An indus­try that attracts and retains a diverse group of mul­ti-tal­ent­ed peo­ple’ and ‘leads the world in research and inno­va­tion, trans­formed by dig­i­tal design’. One can­not be achieved with­out the oth­er – tech­ni­cal inno­va­tion requires cul­tur­al change and vice ver­sa.”

What White­hall strat­e­gy might promise on paper is not, how­ev­er, being deliv­ered with urgency or cer­tain­ty by Par­lia­ment in prac­tice, accord­ing to John Alk­er, direc­tor of pol­i­cy and com­mu­ni­ca­tions at the UK Green Build­ing Coun­cil.

“The main thing that risks slow­ing the rate of change is the state of gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy – to date, the main dri­ver. Absolute­ly crit­i­cal poli­cies are still in a state of flux, notably reg­u­la­tions for min­i­mum per­for­mance in exist­ing stock and, despite the Queen’s Speech, details of ‘zero car­bon’ for new build,” he says.

For con­struc­tion, Mr Alk­er argues, tak­ing the future of the sus­tain­able busi­ness mod­el into its own hands is start­ing to look like more than just a desir­able option; it is becom­ing essen­tial.

“We have to make the busi­ness case for sus­tain­abil­i­ty in its own right. That means tak­ing into account ‘whole-life’ val­ue, not just reduced resource and util­i­ty costs, but also the ben­e­fit to peo­ple in terms of health and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. This is the hottest top­ic in sus­tain­able con­struc­tion right now,” he says.

Con­struc­tion can yet rewrite its own play­book and Mr Dat­ta at M&S sees grounds for opti­mism.

“I have high hopes the indus­try can learn from the not-so-dis­tant past and define a new type of growth borne out of a very dif­fer­ent near-future land­scape – cli­mate resis­tant, fru­gal with resources, smart, cir­cu­lar, diverse, glob­al and ultra-effi­cient,” he says.

The ques­tion is who will step up to the plate?

“The indus­try needs trans­for­ma­tion­al play­ers,” con­cludes Mr McCarthy. “In the 1960s, the Japan­ese changed the way we thought about cars; Microsoft made com­put­ers acces­si­ble to all; Apple changed mobile tech­nol­o­gy; Tes­la is about to trans­form the car indus­try again. Where is the trans­for­ma­tion­al leader in con­struc­tion?”

The future of con­struc­tion is unbuilt; the call for change-mak­ers is out. Pre­pare for busi­ness as unusu­al.