MCBAINS COOPER
PROPERTY & CONSTRUCTION CONSULTANCY
PRESS RELEASE
July, 6, 2011.
CONSTRUCTION MUST LOOK TO CARMAKERS FOR INSPIRATION AS CABINET OFFICE CRITICISES INEFFICIENCIES.
The UK construction sector should be looking to the revitalised domestic car manufacturing industry for inspiration to drive efficiencies and cost savings without compromising quality.
Mark Leeson, a director of property and construction consultancy McBains Cooper, says that criticism in the Cabinet Office’s Government Construction Strategy document of the efficiency, value, fragmentation, poor procurement processes and chaotic supply chain relationships hint at stretched patience with the UK construction industry.
“We saw it before with UK car manufacturing – but look where we stand now: more and more foreign manufacturers are investing in car and parts production in the UK, and, what’s more, if you take the car manufacturing sector globally, then there is no longer any such thing as a ‘bad’ car,” said Mark Leeson.
“Design, procurement, production and delivery of perfectly constructed and massively reliable cars is a seamless process. Construction is in many ways as logistically and technically demanding, so perhaps we as an industry should be looking to the UK-based car manufacturing plants for inspiration.
“We need to act, though. There are big hints of growing government intolerance that the construction sector is underperforming and grossly inefficient, with duplication, poor supplier/resource planning, bad communication, high levels of waste and lost opportunity because of chaotic processes and relationships. The Public Sector is not a cash cow or a golden goose, and the government wants better and better standards of delivery at keener and keener prices.
“Quality of process is plain to see in some projects, but many are disjointed from end-to-end. The government is going to drive costs down come hell or high water, and the construction sector has to realign itself accordingly.
“Every organisation in construction needs to take a deeper and more committed stake in the process from end-to-end – suppliers need to understand the implications of a bad or disorganised start to a project, clients need to appreciate the impact of inefficient design, planning, construction and over-budget finished product. Standardisation is a crucial developmental requirement.
“But, in contradiction, there is a strong case for building up to a standard rather than down to a price; it needs a fundamental change in approach - both driving cost-efficient standardisation, and improving quality - perhaps we need look no further than the car industry to see that mainstream manufacturers are designing and producing cars to a standard in 2011 that even the premium brands could only dream about just ten years ago.
“Perhaps a fact-finding mission into the car manufacturing industry to see how they’ve dealt with the efficiency, standardisation and improved quality issue is long overdue. Perhaps the construction sector should swallow its pride and invite the car industry in to look at inefficiencies we don’t even notice.
“The answer is in technology: a root and branch revision - paid for by tax breaks or grants for innovation - of the technologies used in design and construction, maybe even developing a standardisation in software across the entire industry to ensure collaborative design and planning, plus procurement and duplication avoidance, are of a common standard.
“But, crucially, what the report is saying is that there’s a need for what we would describe as a seamless interdisciplinary approach across the industry.
“But there is also a polarisation occurring where consolidation at the top is creating behemoths that are unfriendly to all but the largest of departments or clients and are organised on discipline or sector-based structures, and at the bottom, greater and greater numbers of SME’s - 300,000 businesses with 2,000,000 employees, an average of 6 people per business - who lack the critical mass to deliver significant projects but might have the ‘common’ touch crucial to creating the icing on a construction project cake, or a very specialist strand in an important development.”
Ends
Further information:
Iain Macauley
Notes.
McBains Cooper
McBains Cooper is an inter-discipline consultancy, specialising in property, infrastructure and construction, offering a wide range of consulting and design services including architectural, aesthetic or technical design, problem solving, budget management, facilities management, health and safety, sustainability consultancy and on-the-ground civil engineering. Driving and supporting projects ranging from minor works to major contracts worth more than £100 million, McBains Cooper operates across a variety of sectors throughout the
UK, Europe and
Latin America. McBains Cooper is committed to environmental, social and economic sustainable development and their integrated approach means they deliver effective, award-winning solutions to their clients. The Group employs 150 people. McBains Cooper has regional headquarters in
London (head office),
Birmingham,
Glasgow, Leeds,
Manchester,
Oxford,
Windsor,
Athens,
Lima (
Peru),
Miami and
Mexico, with associate offices in
Belfast and
Dublin.
www.mcbainscooper.com
