Adopt new processes to solve old challenges

Applying a product platform approach to the current pipeline of social infrastructure in the UK could save almost two billion annually in capital expenditure and have an estimated £7.8 billion impact on GDP, Trudi Sully from Mott MacDonald told delegates at GIRI’s spring members’ meeting.

Trudi, who is Mott MacDonald’s UK & Europe lead for industrialised design and construction, talked about the use of modern methods of construction as part of a platform approach to address key sector challenges, from productivity to quality, waste, skills, safety, and sustainability. However, she warned that it is not an overnight fix. “It takes time, it is iterative, and you need to keep going and keep investing to realise the benefits.” 

Prior to joining Mott MacDonald, Trudi was a director at the Construction Innovation Hub (CIH), a four-year government-funded programme working in collaboration with industry. “We looked at how construction’s challenges could be addressed by translating and adopting processes from other industries as well as developing better systems for development and delivery within construction. The focus was particularly on social infrastructure, but the results are applicable across the sector.” 

Waste is one of those challenges. Trudi highlighted some key stats: of every 400 million tonnes of material used each year, 100 million tonnes of waste is produced (UKGBC/WRAP); for every house built, seven tonnes of waste go to landfill (Innovate UK).

Another is productivity. “This is getting worse rather than better and is way off other industries. We have an ageing demographic and are losing skilled workers.” Then there’s quality and efficiency. 

MMC is one of the ‘big concepts’ talked about in relation to these challenges. “It’s a term that’s used and misused very widely. What can be delivered through these approaches is diverse. The publicity is often about volumetrics – units built on a factory production line and assembled on site – but it can be much broader.”

She explained that DfMA (design for manufacture and assembly) is about doing the upfront work to enable modern methods of construction. This means looking at the best possible means and approaches, which also enables Lean – doing more with less. 

However, Trudi said that high profile failures of businesses in the MMC space and the recent House of Lords report into these failures has led to a sense that if it failed, it must be wrong. “Any environment going through a revolution will have failures. In every other industry that has developed new production approaches, a lot of companies didn’t make it. They were the pioneers, and we should learn lessons from them and keep moving forward.”

The documentation and policy to support these approaches is already available. This includes the Transforming Infrastructure Performance roadmap, which sets out five action areas for change, one of which is a mandate for a platform approach in social infrastructure, and this led to the development of a report into product platforms and a rulebook for implementation. 

“What is a product platform? It is a systematic approach, looking holistically at what we need to deliver and how to deliver it. A product platform is often referred to as a kit of parts. It includes standardised, repeatable components, repeatable processes, guidance on how to deliver these things, and the people and relationships, because these must be consistent, they must be learned from, and we must build them into that cycle.

“It is also about identifying where repetition is going to create good value and improve safety, predictability and productivity, and balancing this with variability, based on the project, environment and asset type.” 

However, telling people how to do it is one thing, convincing them is another. This is why The Value of Platforms in Construction report provides an extensive macro-economic and qualitative analysis of this approach applied to social infrastructure.

This study was carried out by Mott MacDonald for the Construction Innovation Hub. “We looked at the case for change and how other industries have managed to improve productivity, quality and efficiency. And we demonstrated that on the current pipeline of social infrastructure, this approach could save £1.8 billion a year on CapEx as well as saving and improving lives by reducing risk, improving environments and outcomes, and reducing waste, emissions and energy use.” 

But it will take time. She said that industrialisation means looking more broadly at how these approaches can work not just for high-repetition, high-volume applications but also on one-off projects, by removing unnecessary variation and looking at how DfMA, MMC and product platforms can work within that environment.

“There is a lot happening, there is a lot of change. Please be a part of it,” she urged delegates. “Challenge your organisations on how they deliver and how they might adopt some of these processes, but also recognise that it is an iterative process and that a shift from project to programmes is necessary to realise the true benefits.”

Find out more about GIRI membership.