Creating a responsive industry

By - , Build 99

The need for active investment to ensure that our construction industry can respond quickly and effectively to future trends was highlighted at a CIB symposium in Rome in October 2006.

There is a burgeoning global realisation of the need for construction industries worldwide to actively prepare for the future. Countries such as the United Kingdom have begun researching their strategic direction on this issue and the New Zealand industry would benefit from taking steps to ensure it is able to respond quickly and effectively to the future needs of our society.

Predicting the future

A key part of this process is to identify any potential future trends as accurately as possible. This involves two main steps – summarising past/current trends and predicting future needs. Although predicting the future is a difficult and often unreliable process, there are research procedures that can be used to ensure a greater chance of success and provide a holistic analysis.

While the identified future trends may not be 100% accurate, at least the New Zealand industry will have transformed itself into a forward-thinking entity, and in doing so increased its ability to change and take on new ideas.

One useful research technique for identifying future trends is ‘scenario analysis’. This is currently being used in the first stage of a large multi-disciplinary collaborative research project led by Loughborough University in the United Kingdom. It aims to develop future scenarios for the industry for the next 20 years.

Robert Soetanto discussed this project at the symposium and highlighted such trends as the increasing use of prefabrication, a greater requirement for sustainable building techniques and a tightening restriction on the number of skilled workers that are available in most developed countries. Such projects would be useful as a template for a New Zealand industry-specific analysis.

Industry culture needs to change

The industry is often accused of being unsuccessful at planning for its long-term future. There is a perception that it lags behind other industries in its adoption of new technologies, working practices and processes. It is commonly seen as a complex, somewhat inflexible entity comprising many different operatives, and shrouded by tradition. Practice philosophies are seen as deeply entrenched.

A variety of exciting concepts already exist that would significantly improve the performance of the industry, such as ‘lean construction’ and collaborative agreements, yet they are only being applied in a minor way in New Zealand.

Either industry culture needs to change, or governing industry organisations must make a concentrated effort to support the implementation of novel initiatives. The industry as a whole is too content to stick with standard traditional practice rather than branch out – even if the new practice is superior and would greatly improve performance. This is particularly prevalent in smaller construction projects. As the majority of New Zealand industry operatives are small and medium enterprises and work mainly on small-scale projects, the uptake of new technologies and practices is often painstakingly slow.

Strategic niche management

One concept for improving the uptake of introduced technologies is that of strategic niche management (SNM). This approach advocates the creation and management of niche markets in which new technologies are given the opportunity to incubate and mature through gradual experimentation by networks of producers, researchers, users, government and other organisations. Research shows that new technologies that are historically successful often had initial protection and support.

SNM is useful for technologies that are promising but are unsupported by the wider market because of high uncertainty, initial costs or lack of awareness by society of the technology’s benefits. SNM was successfully used in introducing a new method of house building to Costa Rica and Indonesia. The key factor was the effective promotion of the technology to individual companies outside the incubating network.

Involvement leads to success

Involving all industry participants is another way of integrating innovation into the construction industry. A new Danish programme (BygSOL) aims to achieve this by ensuring all members of a building site, from labourer to foreman and project manager, are informed of project objectives and involved in the planning and coordination of their work.

This programme effectively implements the principles of ‘lean construction’. The underlying concept of lean construction is that production flow is stabilised by making decisions at the latest responsible minute and that these decisions are made by people with the best knowledge on the topic (often the tradespeople directly involved in the building process). Practitioners on site are therefore more involved in the planning and coordination of their work.

It is essential that trust exists between the different trades as they organise the work and agree on a short-term work plan. BygSOL, through workshops, continual learning and regular meetings, encourages and reinforces this trust and planning ability. Initial findings from the project suggest it is a very successful concept.

It’s up to you

As well as the implementation of overarching industry initiatives, each operative in the New Zealand building and construction industry can take steps to ensure a high quality of industry responsiveness to the future through their individual business processes and strategy. Improvement in the industry’s response to current and future trends in society, such as the uptake of new technology, application of new contract methods and innovative building techniques, is crucial to its future success.

For more

The symposium illustrated a number of concepts that would be beneficial if applied to the New Zealand environment. A fuller report on some of these issues can be found at www.buildingresearch.org.nz/cib-sponsored-conference-in-rome

Financial assistance was provided by Building Research for Emily to attend the symposium.

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