Construct IT Spring 2007 Members' Meeting in conjunction with CIOB and RICS

Summary

The Spring 2007 Members' Meeting was held in conjunction with CIOB and RICS, 16th & 17th May at the CIOB Headquarters, Englemere, Ascot. The theme of the meeting was Supply Chain Working.

Day 1

Chris Blythe, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Building opened the meeting by welcoming all CIT Members and guests to 'Englemere' the home of the CIOB.Chris is not afraid of 'challenging' the Construction Industry and in his regular column in the Institutes’ monthly journal (Construction Manager) he often takes the industry to task voicing both personal, public, industrial and academic opinions. In his opening remarks he reflected upon his time in the engineering industry some 20 or more years ago and the way his organisation engaged with its supply chain; often resorting to sharing information in collaborative working environments; participating with both clients and sub-contractors by tele-conferencing; exchanging without difficulty data and design information. So, he mused, where is the construction industry in the 21st Century? Why do we appear to be so excited about doing the same now? What is new? Why is it apparently taking so long for our industry to catch up? Although many of his comments were spoken with ‘tongue-in-cheek’ they nontheless echo some perceptions in the industry. Chris called for more visibility and a greater sense of urgency in applying advanced technologies in the workplace.

The focus of the first day was on a facilitated workshop concerned with 'e-Tendering'. Joe Martin (BCIS) opened the session with a discussion on the feasibility and benefits of an industry e-Tendering solution. This included defining e-Tendering and emphasis on e-Tendering not being reverse auctioning, but rather reverse auctioning could form part of the e-Tendering process. This was followed by an overview of two straw poll surveys of the views of QSs. The first of these surveys was undertaken in 2004 of what their practice was with e-Tendering, while the further survey which was carried out in 2005 related to the dissemination of CAD drawings. Jeff Hobden (ECL) then provided the experiences/aspirations through a Case Study of a large main contractor as they have changed their work practice of the subcontractor tender enquiry process through the adoption of a Document and Process Management system. Jeff discussed the existing process and the associated issues of time and cost of the manual standalone paper-based system. This was then followed with the new process being presented along with the time and cost savings realised, i.e. 70% faster process and 99% cost reduction to distribute a typical M&E package. This followed with Joe presenting the RICS guidance notes on how to do e-Tendering which covers tendering methodology, technology (methods of exchange; web-enabled technology; reverse auctions), security and the tendering procedure (preparation checklist; preliminary enquiry; tender documents; time for tendering). Next, Joe presented a more recent survey undertaken in 2006 with Partner/Director members of the RICS Construction Faculty. The survey focused on the exchange of contract documents, client demand for e-tendering, interest in web-based portals for e-Tendering, reduction of timescales, effort in analysing and administration costs, improving access for contractors/subcontractors, and enhancing the service of organizations. Joe concluded the session with a look at the true cost of paper-based tendering, the current barriers in adopting e-Tendering - the biggest being cost but also including the natural barrier of inertia, and the RICS 'pay per use' e-Tendering service which is soon to be launched. The discussion that followed raised a number of issues including clients wanting to own the information, wanting to bolt any solution onto existing EDMS, customers automating current processes rather than making better use in adopting the technology through the reengineering of processes.

Day 2
The 2nd day began with a CIOB keynote from Saleem Akram (Technical Director, CIOB) in which he discussed the challenges of the construction IT industry in terms of what the construction sector is not good at, e.g. change, and what the construction IT sector are, e.g. not providing what the industry needs.

Paul Mallinder (Urban Vision - construction procurement advisors to Salford City Council) then followed with a presentation on how Salford City Council are incorporating their local social and economic sustainability objectives into their construction procurement and supply chain management. He began by explaining sustainability and social sustainability, the regenerative impact of construction and local authority investment, and achieving social sustainability. Next, the weaknesses of the established procurement custom and practice were discussed, followed by the national drivers for change (which have not had any real leadership) and the introduction of new practices in procurement. Procurement policy and strategy was next discussed in terms of EU procurement legislation, the Salford Construction Framework and Salford City Council's supply chain strategy in securing the availability and training and recruitment of local people and using local supply chains throughout the contractor selection and construction process. The session concluded on how IT supports the process. Paul's final statement was that creating sustainable communities is about people not buildings.

Next, David Leonard (Taylor Woodrow) introduced and provided an update of the EU FP6 project Manubuild which commenced in 2006 with €10 million funding. The project is targeting a radical breakthrough from the current 'craft and resource-based construction' to 'Open Building Manufacturing', combining ultra-efficient (ambient) manufacturing in factories and on sites with an open system for products and components offering diversity of supply in the market. The session presented the vision, objectives, strategy and drivers of the project followed by the transition and targets from the current state towards the future state (vision) via the proposed ManuBuild system, work programme structure, approach (through building concepts, business processes, production technologies, ICT support and demonstrations), and management challenges for ICT support through interdependency mapping. The ICT vision and strategy was then introduced in terms of what is in and out of scope from the perspectives of the project partners. David then discussed realising the challenge for flexible and open building manufacturing through novel open system and European-wide standard for buildings, new value driven business models and processes, new ambient and scalable technologies and methods for manufacturing and assembly, and new ICT methods and tools. Finally, the proposed/target system was presented followed by the demonstration projects in Madrid, Sweden and UK to validate the results and key scenarios using real and full scale buildings.

In the last session before lunch, Simon Jones (Cisco) discussed the evolution of intelligent buildings focusing on productivity, people and the environment. The session presented how their commercial and public sector organisations are managing their estates over longer life cycles in a more effective and inspirational manner. Simon began by introducing the start of IP building convergence followed by discussing the drivers for property transformation and technology being an important part of a sustainable estate strategy. Next, from an FM perspective, changes in the workplace were presented in terms of the key areas of people and cost, forces driving these changes, opportunities for cost reductions, extending availability/mobility, and changing workplace design, the evolution of the office environment and the technology supporting this vision. Simon then focused on the sustainability aspects of global trends, government policy and regulations, UK carbon footprint, increase of the energy consumption of IT equipment in buildings, private sector responses, and the alignment of operations (i.e. green building standards, environmental management systems, citizenship and corporate responsibility reporting and environmental initiatives). Simon next discussed how their commercial and public sector organisations are improving their environmental performance through a converged IT & building solution by reducing the consumption of materials
and equipment, emissions and travel, space needs, and electronic and office waste, and improving energy efficiency. Finally, Simon concluded by presenting where we are heading in regard to transforming spaces towards the flexible workplace and the futures of FM and ICT.

A panel session followed lunch focused on the IT skills gap. Julie Feest (e-Skills) kicked the session off by setting the scene on the current and future key challenges facing the industry in terms of the IT skills gap as organisations embrace new innovation/ technologies /practices along with an insight across other sectors. Julie discussed how e-Skills are involved in a broad range of sector organisations through a number of programs with a focus on developing the existing workforce. Julie stated that there are not many differences in the issues between various sectors. Furthermore, it is wrong to reply on education to address these issues. She went on to say that 70% of the workforce today will still be working in 2020 and that every one of us at sometime will have to upskill, therefore there is a need to increase skills including IT professionals having to increase their high-level skills. e-Skills are concerned with 'fit for purpose' training that is focused on how training fits into career progression along with levels of assessment for training courses. Julie emphasised that as well as technical skills, there is also the need to focus on the softer issues associated with professional image and career progression, i.e. business needs and customer focus. As a result e-Skills have developed a Competency Model. April Hewitt (Styles&Wood) next provided the first industry perspective by discussing her cross industry experience between the construction and pharmaceutical industries and in particular whether client expectations differ between the industries. She then discussed why IT training is so difficult to implement within construction due to the constraints of time (tight timescales between projects, limited availability of trainer, etc.), budget (lack of budget, training budget sucked into other IT requirements/licenses/etc., etc.), diverse groups (one size does not fit all, etc.), and resources (limited training, no dedicated training facilities, limited/no cover when staff attend training, etc.) before finally comparing these constraints with the pharmaceutical sector. Mark Hardcastle (Gleeson Building) followed by discussing the Gleeson Building e-Skills story. He first of all provided their definition of e-skills and where they believe the real gap lies along with the background and history to the organisation, before going on to present both their business and IT strategies. An overview of the solutions they have implemented and the resulting challenges they faced were discussed. Mark then introduced how Gleeson Building approach e-Skills emphasising that training was focused on last following communication, selection and implementation, and business ownership. Furthermore, they are moving away from 'traditional training' into 'engagement by the project team'.

In the penultimate session of the day David Haynes (Atkins) and David Walker (Business Collaborator) presented the 3 year €16 million EU eCoSpace project which commenced in 2006. The project pursues the vision that by 2012 every Professional in Europe is empowered for seamless, dynamic and creative collaboration across teams, organisations and communities through a personalised collaborative working environment. David Haynes introduced the project vision, objectives, partners, research approach, and benefits to both the participants and the wider community. He then discussed the objectives from Atkins perspective and some of the lessons that they have learnt to date from the project in terms of knowledge management, technology, process and cultural issues. David Walker followed by presenting the technology aspects to the project. The collaborative working environment was introduced along with examples of project usage, i.e. construction projects, utilities and docklands light railway. The project objectives of Business Collaborator were then presented along with the R&D aspects of the project, the eCoSpace layered system architecture, i.e. services, technologies, etc., 'technical' challenges, changes to the current Business Collaborator collaborative working environment and the benefits to BC and its clients. In concluding the session service-based architecture was emphasised as the future way forward.

For the final session of the day Matt Richards (Redstone) and Sonia Hamilton (Head of ICT, Royal Ascot) provided delegates with a presentational tour of the new Grandstand at Royal Ascot Racecourse. The focus of the tour was on how the IT integrates at a physical layer, Management Systems and the impact on the user experience.