BEIS and Industry: a deep dive into the Product Platform Rulebook

Fergus Harradence, Deputy Director, Infrastructure & Construction at Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

The construction sector faces many challenges. In the short term, it is buffeted by the impacts of the pandemic on the supply of labour and the increase in energy costs following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has driven significant product and material price inflation. In the longer term, it must adapt to demographic change within the workforce, the need to adapt to the demands of climate change, as well as tackling the perennial problem of poor productivity. Doing this will require the sector to invest in new technologies and techniques, industrialise many onsite operations, and retrain and upgrade the skills of many within the existing workforce.

One of the most promising approaches to the industrialisation of construction is the adoption of product platforms, sets of interoperable components and assemblies that can be used to create many different types of buildings; schools, hospitals, commercial buildings or homes. One of the achievements of the Construction Innovation Hub has been to take this concept from the automotive and aerospace sectors, and apply it in the construction sector, developing the key components, and publishing the Platform Rulebook, setting out how organisations can use product platforms to deliver construction projects.

The scale of the opportunity is significant. It is estimated that over the next decade, product platforms could support the delivery of £35bn of the planned £50bn of government investment in buildings. To capitalise on this, there are three essential actions.

Firstly, there need to be a clear and defined pipeline of projects, which are committed to using platform-based approaches, over the next decade. This should be based on the National Infrastructure & Construction Pipeline, and cover all major social infrastructure and residential construction programmes within government.

Secondly, there needs to be a firm commitment to procure on the basis of the product platform, and for this to be embedded in both procurement for projects and frameworks. Government also needs to be willing to consider changes to the procurement processes it uses, the terms of contracts with the supply chain, and payment schedules, to take account of the different economics of industrialised construction from traditional construction as a service, particularly the need for greater up-front investment in capability.

Finally, there needs to be a greater effort to promote and demonstrate the benefits of platforms, based on the successful delivery of projects such as the Lawrence Calvert Academy, a school in Leeds, and The Forge, an office development in London. The advantages of the platform-based approach, including greater heat and energy efficiency, lower embodied and end of life carbon emissions, reduced waste and better performance, need to be widely communicated, to inspire and engage the sector and its clients.

Product platforms represent a huge opportunity for the UK to pioneer a new approach to delivering better-performing built assets, and drive improved productivity in the sector. Seizing this requires action, and a willingness to drive change across the industry and in the nature of the relationship between the client and the supply chain. Not doing this risks forgoing the potential to change the built environment in the UK for the better.