Construction is by no means alone. The discontinuous nature of work and the requirements for flexibility have also been faced by other industries. But their response – adopting integrated design and flexible manufacturing systems – shows what needs to be done in construction to raise levels of productivity and product quality.
The BSRIA's 1997 report, Improving m&e site productivity, set a benchmark of 66% saving of time for site operations. The subsequent report by Sir John Egan, Rethinking Construction, concluded that the cost and delivery time of the construction product must decrease by 10% year on year.
To achieve these targets, industry must adopt manufacturing and design techniques being used within other industries. It will also require new procurement methods, but more importantly of all it will require a change in managerial methods, business approaches and social structure.
The role of manufacturing
All buildings are an amalgamation of manufactured products, arranged in a specific manner to form a unique design. Therefore any progress to offer added value must occur at the manufacturing level.
Recently the manufacturing of construction products has passed to the subcontractor or specialist. Current procurement systems, including those of partnering, have concentrated on the main contractor.
As the hiring of plant, labour and the buying of materials has shifted away from the main contractor to subcontractors, so the knowledge base previously held by the main contractor has disintegrated. The integral knowledge of maker-craftsman has also been segregated by the manager coming between designer and maker.
To gain maximum benefit and facilitate production, designers must either be fully conversant with the manufacturing process, or have continuous access to knowledge. This has lead to the call for greater integration of designers and manufacturers.
Previous research has identified key issues that will affect integration:
Research at BSRIA has shown these can be simplified for on-site operations into four critical categories: material logistics, information, workspace organisation and equipment.
Components must be designed for on-site manufacturing in a standardised and systematic manner. Reducing complexity should make components more reliable, cheaper to produce and therefore more valuable on-site. The resulting simplicity of the component will incur less steps in manufacture and design and fewer discontinuities in the system.
Standardisation of the product processes should enable site operations to become simpler and less labour intensive, although site operatives will need to be retrained to learn transferable assembly skills. While this will require a digression from current craft training (see factfile "What happens abroad?"), the benefits should be higher levels of production, together with greater financial return for the operatives.
Changes in management will also be required, as on-site assembly of standardised components is very different from the motivational management required for site labour. But perhaps the greatest change required will be in the management structures themselves. Management structures that are traditionally dogmatic and conservative will need a tremendous amount of lateral thought, forward planning and other initiatives.
Essentially this should reflect a shift away from the craft culture to that of manufacture and production. The professional teams that have always striven to separate themselves from the culture of construction must begin to install a team culture and abandon some of their traditional class hierarchies.
Latest research findings
The 1997 BSRIA report listed the findings of an extensive four year research programme benchmarking UK building services site processes against the rest of the world. It concluded the m&e installation work on each UK project monitored was on time and budget. However, the average level of overall productivity on these projects was 37% when compared to observed best practice.
The research also concluded that m&e companies were unaware of their level of performance, due to inefficient and inaccurate ways of measuring construction performance.
Since that report, BSRIA's Process and Productivity Unit has taken the research further. The Unit has put forward seven demonstration projects for the Movement for Innovation, to demonstrate how simple benchmarking of on-site performance can improve the entire construction process.
Initial findings demonstrate the need for performance improvement. For example:
Data on pre-construction performance is unavailable because no-one is measuring it.
So what are the factors for success? The BSRIA has identified four critical issues: materials, tools and equipment, information, and workforce time management. The first three are directly responsible for a 29% loss of productivity on UK construction sites, while good time management of the workforce can enable a threefold increase in installation performance.
The latter is a complex topic because problems related to this issue do not always manifest themselves as delays. The problems can, however, significantly reduce production or the ability to complete defect-free work in a single visit.
Steps for improvement
A step change in installation performance can be achieved by using innovative systems and components that are inherently quicker to assemble than traditional solutions.
First, retain but improve traditional practice by keeping delays to a minimum and optimising work area control. Second, use innovative systems and components that are inherently quicker to install.
Third, minimise the amount of activity on site by making the factory improvements and using prefabrication/pre-assembly. Finally, create real multi-disciplinary teams, with an approach to design, manufacturing and installation that includes architectural and structural features with services components.
All of these elements interrelate and can be approached in any order, but construction is an environment that needs to be stabilised before it can be effectively improved. In other words, improve in the order given above.
What happens abroad?
Although British industry is world class at invention, it has been unable to convert this invention into innovations. The United States building industry has demonstrated that small innovative practices can result in total cost savings of 20-30%, even though each individual saving has been in increments of 1-8%. Research has also shown that the value of a building will fall with lower levels of site efficiency. Reading University has claimed site performance efficiency to be around 40% and inefficiency in production processes to reduce production outturn by 25%. BSRIA’s work in building services has shown this inefficiency to be as high as 80% in certain operations. Success in the US and Japan is attributable to repetitive working – using simpler and fewer operations. American construction is largely based upon semi-skilled labour using high levels of mechanisation to assemble prefabricated components on site. By contrast, the UK’s component selection philosophy has traditionally been driven by spreadsheets, with materials purchased purely on a cost basis.BSRIA, building services and the Movement for Innovation
In Rethinking Construction, Sir John Egan set definite targets for improvement. As figure 1 shows, five drivers of change form the backbone of the report and the strategy of improvements. This leads to four target areas of process improvements, monitored using seven performance targets. The building services industry has been investing in product development and producing components. What it now needs to do is focus on partnering in the supply chain and project implementation. The supply chain, which delivers the functional system of building services, needs to be linked within a concept of a virtual network. Individual suppliers, designers, engineers and contractors would then be able to deliver a complete product to the client. In other words, building services must be delivered as a product. Project implementation must also include the building services’ contractor. Installation strategies based around improved processes – including the use of standardisation prefabrication and pre-assembly – need to be considered at the outset. Rethinking Construction did not contain specific guidance on ways to make these changes, but it did call upon the industry to totally reform its processes. A key principal behind the reform is the use of demonstration projects to promote how improvements in the construction process are actually being obtained. The Movement for Innovation (M4I) is inviting bids for its third round of demonstration projects. These projects are intended to promote best practice examples of the Egan principles. BSRIA and M4I are calling for the building services industry to put forward examples of building services excellence. At a recent meeting, Ian Huntington, the M4I executive director, stated that projects particularly being sought are those that demonstrate best practice and innovation in site based processes. Projects are also being sought that demonstrate innovations in components and off-site fabrication. Other best practice lessons will cover ‘respect for people’ issues: safety, training, site facilities, equal opportunities and ethnicity.Source
Building Sustainable Design
Postscript
Glenn Hawkins CEng is head of the process and productivity section at the BSRIA.
