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Mike Pitts is Deputy Challenge Director – Transforming Construction at Innovate UK. He calls for the construction sector to implement with speed the Construction Innovation Hub’s raft of programmes.
The Transforming Construction challenge programme has shown what is possible. It is up to everyone in the construction sector to now go out and implement this as fast as possible. The solution to many of the huge issues facing society today lies in the hands of the sector. You are the heroes of this story. So, keep writing it.
This journey began five years ago when I was tasked to write the business case for Transforming Construction as part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.
I am not from a construction sector background and, listening to the experts involved, it was clear the sector knew what it needed to do to transform. However, it was missing the important catalyst of funding to trial new approaches on builds and to share risk in working with aligned sectors such as manufacturing and digital.
This, of course, is what Innovate UK does. We help remove the barriers to innovating faster. It is also precisely why the Construction Innovation Hub was needed: to bring together experts in construction, manufacturing and digital.
In 2018 we kicked off the £170m government funded programme with a competition for the Hub for £72m.
The system for how we produce buildings has favoured cheap construction over value delivered. That is crazy when built infrastructure underpins almost half of our GDP. The construction sector is responsible for outputs that affect a huge part of our economy and society including our health and energy needs.
The Transforming Construction challenge supported pioneering projects to demonstrate we can deliver projects 50% faster at a third of the whole life cost.
The construction sector isn’t productive enough to deliver the necessary UK infrastructure pipeline with its existing workforce. So, it was critical to demonstrate that we could boost productivity to levels that close the 15% gap with the rest of the economy.
We also wanted to produce better buildings. Industrialised methods have shown that cutting embodied carbon by half is very doable.
Better quality buildings produce an enhanced performance and the work done with the Active Building Centre we funded has shown that net zero can be achieved for essentially the same overall cost as a traditionally built, less energy-efficient building.
It is a scandal that it is possible to construct any building today that is not net zero. The cost of retrofitting these buildings in the future will be higher.
For me, the biggest lesson from the past five years is that the construction sector has held itself back. It has been stuck in a system that means every building is essentially a prototype and that cheapness is prized over value. The transfer of risk has been more important than whether the asset does the job it is supposed to do.
Clients, contractors and supply chains all understood the system – but it didn’t work for any of them.
We have supported a huge suite of examples that show this is no longer the case.
The Transforming Construction programme has been a huge joint success. It wouldn’t have worked without the commitment of industry and without the determination of government to change how it procured. The leadership of the CLC and the efforts and vision of innovators have underpinned the programme. So, too, has the belief of government departments that we could deliver better hospitals, schools and homes.
With a platform approach to designing and assembling buildings and infrastructure we can shift our focus.
Structural design can be automated, speeding up project implementation and allowing architects and design engineers to focus their time on delivering value to the user.
Supply chains can focus on material innovation to reduce carbon and improve quality and manufacturability rather than producing the same product at slightly different size and spec from project to project.
Contractors can focus on having the most efficient sites, operating like factories, boosting productivity, making them safer and completing faster with fewer defects and the end product performing as it was designed.
Most of all, the users benefit. Teachers and pupils are able to concentrate longer in more pleasant teaching environments. Doctors and nurses can spend more time with patients because wards are laid out better and more consistently. Patients may enjoy faster recovery times due to more calming surroundings. Transport infrastructure can be built and repaired with minimal disruption.
If you would like to learn more about the successes of the programme, visit the UKRI website.
Please see some photos from our legacy reception at the House of Lords in September 2022:
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