Strategy for Change
Our first piece of work was to undertake a thorough piece of research to identify both the most economically significant errors and their causes.
The results of our research are set out in detail in the Get it Right Initiative Research Report.
Key international studies suggest that the measured direct costs of avoidable errors are in the order of 5% of project value. This equates to approximately £5 billion per annum across the sector in the UK and is higher than average profit levels across the industry (around 3%).
When unmeasured and indirect costs are included the situation gets much worse with estimates of total costs ranging between 10% and 25% of project cost or between £10-25 billion per annum across the sector.
Our research identified that the top ten root causes of error were:
- Inadequate planning
- Late design changes
- Poorly communicated design information
- Poor culture in relation to quality
- Poorly coordinated design information
- Inadequate attention paid in the design to construction
- Excessive commercial (financial and time) pressure
- Poor interface management and design
- Ineffective communication between team members
- Inadequate supervisory skills.
We have developed a strategy to address these root causes and this is set out below.
Strategic aim:
To improve construction productivity and quality by eliminating error.
Goals:
• Create a culture and working environment to get it right from the start.
• Change attitudes and harness leadership responsibility to reduce error and improve quality and productivity.
• Engage all stakeholders in eliminating error from inception, through operation, to completion.
• Share knowledge about error reduction processes and systems.
• Improve skills across the sector creating a positive approach to pre-empting error.
Activities:
• Develop and implement an error reduction skills programme across the sector.
• Deliver a strategic awareness campaign to improve sector attitudes to error.
• Develop improvements to processes, systems and technology to remove error.
• Provide opportunities for members to share experience and to network.
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