Tom Barton Award 2023 - winner announced

The Institution of Civil Engineers has announced that Professor Perry Shard of John Sisk & Son is the winner of the 2023 Tom Barton Award. 

The award, which was created in memory of former GIRI executive director Tom Barton, celebrates engineering and construction professionals who have demonstrated excellence in implementing initiatives to improve quality, productivity, safety and sustainability by eradicating mistakes. 

Perry's work was a response to John Sisk & Son’s chief executive who, in March 2021, challenged the business to identify the cost of quality for the previous year.

Over the following 12 months, Perry led and managed a project to develop a new process around non-conformance reporting and increased visibility of error. Reviewing historic data, he suggested that the estimated figure was a fraction of the likely true cost, and established a plan to collect detailed data and improve the quality of that data.

Combining his experience of business level reporting, and GIRI's own research, Perry developed the 'PowerBI' dashboard to drive visibility and ownership, and ran trials to gain operational credibility for this significant change programme, embedding the project through engagement, education and empowerment.

A key driver was the importance of language and messaging to help move the prevailing culture from one of perceived blame to one that is learning-centric.

One of the project successes was the clarity of the information produced, access to focused data sets and making it available across the business to support more informed decisions. 

The awards will be presented at the ICE on October 13th; you can find information about other ICE award winners on the ICE website.