It is understandable that any mention of change in the construction industry is met with scepticism. A few civil engineering surveyors will remember the Banwell Report1 of 1964, more will remember the Latham Report2 of 1994, the Egan Report3 of 1998, and even early career surveyors will be aware of the Farmer Review4 from 2016. All incredibly sensible, but the change these reports called for was never fully realised. In 2009, the Wolstenholme Report5 assessed the lack of progress since the earlier reports. The key reason for little change was the acceptance of the status quo by investors and suppliers.
There are signs that things are different now, and mechanisms are starting to drive change. The first real enabler of transformation was the 2011 UK government’s mandate for centrally procured construction projects to be delivered using BIM by 2016. This was followed in 2020 by the Construction Playbook6, which specifically calls on contracting authorities to use the UK BIM Framework7 of standards and guidance, and to support the adoption of the forthcoming Information Management Framework, which will sit behind the National Digital Twin.
These requirements need change to happen. The Infrastructure and Projects Authority’s Transforming Infrastructure Performance: Roadmap to 2030 (TIP)8 calls for a “step change in productivity and efficiency in the ways we plan, design, manufacture, construct and operate infrastructure.”
For this step change, “successful delivery will require clients and suppliers to develop and adopt new ways of working across the board; to share information and embrace new technologies that deliver better performance and more balanced outcomes across the asset lifecycle. Project leaders will need to steer innovative delivery in line with the government’s complex policy objectives, and embrace responsibility for the delivery of outcomes as well as outputs.”9
Added to these industry and government movements are two societal impacts; the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. The pandemic brought the benefits of autonomous and remote technology on site to the fore, with video communications and augmented reality replacing site visits, whilst further minimising the associated safety risks of being on site. The UK government’s Build Back Better commitments are centred on sustainability and carbon economy. It is impossible to achieve change using traditional approaches. Increased digitalisation, offsite assembly and manufacture, and modern methods of construction are seen as key to reducing carbon emissions. Balfour Beatty, Costain, Laing O’Rourke, Skanska, Kier, Galliford Try, BAM, Amey and many other major contractors all have net zero pledges with dates ranging from 20302050 requiring them to embrace digitalisation as a carbon-cutting benefit. All these things are happening now. There is no room for scepticism as change is finally underway.
Where does the civil engineering surveyor fit in this changing landscape? As civil engineering is chiefly from public funds for public good, change is largely going to be driven by government mandates, policies and procedures. This doesn’t mean it will be without its challenges – as the TIP states, the government’s policy requirements are ‘complex’. One common theme that came through workshops with geospatial surveyors was that clients don’t always know what to ask for. For example, a client will ask for a ‘drone survey’, without any prior discussion with the surveyor over what the purpose for the survey is and what data and accuracy is actually needed. One surveyor used the term ‘digital handholding’ to describe the client/surveyor relationship throughout this transformational period. The geospatial surveyor is ideally placed to offer advice on the most efficient survey method to get the data that is needed and can ‘hold the hand’ of the client as they become more familiar with data-driven construction and asset management.
This kind of early communication is called for in the Construction Playbook, which stresses the need for early supply chain involvement when developing the business case for projects. Civil engineering surveyors, both commercial and geospatial, must be a part of this.
Within civil engineering surveying, as within construction as a whole, there is a huge variability in size and digital capability throughout the supply chain. There is a wealth of expertise and experience in some of the smaller links in the construction chain that should not be overlooked. The risks and responsibilities of information management need to be carefully managed by those higher up the supply chain to ensure the contributions of smaller, less digitally astute and equipped businesses, are transformed to fit the world of digital engineering.
In a joint repor10 from the Centre for Digital Built Britain and KPMG in 2021, the importance of SMEs in realising the productivity gains and cost savings of information management was highlighted. According to the analysis, direct labour productivity gains are potentially between £5.10 and £6.00 for every £1 invested in information management, and direct cost savings are between £6.90 and £7.40 from reductions in delivery time, labour time and materials. However, the report states: “The wider economic returns we have estimated rely on the productivity gains of IM [information management] being realised by organisations of all sizes, including the sector’s ‘long tail’ of SMEs... there are particular barriers for smaller firms adopting IM which still need to be overcome.”11
Tier 1 contractors can play a part in overcoming this hurdle as role models and by providing training on data management software to their supply chains. The interfaces of software systems should be clear and tasks should mirror those in widely used systems such as Microsoft Excel, to reassure those who have worked on these systems all their working lives and encourage them as they move to more collaborative and interoperable platforms.
Expectations need to be realistic, and many will employ dual systems for a short time while they build up trust in new systems. Commercial surveyors are by their nature suspicious – that questioning and fact-checking trait is one of the chief skills that they are employed for and will play a key quality assurance role in the construction team of the future. However, telling a commercial team to use a new system without any prior engagement and understanding of their concerns will delay change and could build resentment.
Leaders need to play a role in giving their teams time to explore new systems and become familiar with them. Contracting is incredibly fast-paced, and while it may be quicker for a quantity surveyor to download data into a spreadsheet and work on it independently, it is not an efficient use of that data. In this changing world, contractors cannot lose sight of the fact that data efficiency is as, if not more, important than cost.
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1 The Placing and Management of Contracts for Building and Civil Engineering Work, 1964
2 Constructing the Team, 1994
3 Rethinking Construction, 1998
4 Modernise or die: The Farmer Review of the UK construction labour model, 2016
5 Never Waste a Good Crisis, 2009
6 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-construction-playbook
7 https://www.ukbimframework.org
8 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/transforming-infrastructure-performance-roadmap-to-2030
9 Page 6, Transforming Infrastructure Performance: Roadmap to 2030
10 The value of information management in the construction and infrastructure sector, 2021
11 Page 5, The value of information management in the construction and infrastructure sector