Call to Action

This is the initial 'Call to Action' document published in 2016 when GIRI was established.

Construction errors cost the UK industry billions every single year. The annual spend due to error is estimated to be around 7 times the total annual profit of the UK Construction Industry.

The Get It Right Initiative came out of discussions at the Institution of Civil Engineers Best Practice Panel and has been developed with the single aim of significantly reducing error in construction. The Get It Right Initiative is currently led by a number of major construction companies and clients and has received welcome support from the CITB through their Growth and Innovation Fund.

Our first piece of work has been to undertake thorough research to identify both the most economically significant errors and their causes. Our study group involved seventeen major construction organisations including Clients, Consultants, Contractors and their supply chains.

Construction errors cost the UK industry billions every single year. The annual spend due to error is estimated to be around 7 times the total annual profit of the UK Construction Industry.

When unrecorded process waste, latent defects and indirect costs are included, the situation gets much worse with estimates of total costs of error ranging between 10% and 25% of project cost or between £10–25Bn per annum across the sector.

Working with our study group and members of their supply chains our research identified and ranked the construction activities which generate the most losses through error. In doing this we differentiated between building and civil engineering projects.

We also explored and ranked the root causes of error.

We have developed a strategy to address these root causes. This Strategy is set out in detail in “A Strategy For Change” published by the Get It Right Initiative in November 2015, and summarised below.

Strategic Aim

To reduce error significantly in the UK construction industry.

Goals

• To change the attitudes of those involved in the sector so that they care about and focus on reducing the number of errors and improving the quality in what they do.
• To improve the knowledge across the sector so that all involved properly understand the ways that design and construction processes can be disrupted and how this can and often does lead to error and waste
• To improve the decision making and planning skills across the sector so that all involved are able to react and adjust to unavoidable process disruption.

Activities

• Develop and implement a skills development program.
•  A campaign to change and align attitudes across the sector.
•  Process and system improvements.
•  Technology innovation.

We hope that you are interested in getting involved with or knowing more about the Get It Right Initiative.

Why not become a member of GIRI and really make a difference https://getitright.uk.com/membership

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