Category Archives: improvement

on getting out, learning and sharing, unconference style

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As I plan another ‘benchmarkwalk’ for tomorrow in the English Lake District, I realise I haven’t described my benchmarkwalks approach here on the blog.

In some ways I now realise this approach is very much like an outdoor unconference – delegates choose the themes for discussion and, rather than standing in a lecture hall, or hotel room to present, people can talk on their topic in a way that engages very differently to the more traditional front of room or around the table discussion.

The following is the original concept from my website, (which has now been long overtaken by using this blog as my main presence).

Benchmark Walks – talk the walk in landscapes to fire inspire

Aimed at improvement individuals and teams, Benchmarkwalks has been compared to doing business on the golf course but more stimulating and rewarding by far. Many leading organisations are beginning to realise the benefits of outdoor or walking-based meetings as a way of encouraging open discussion and getting away from office environments.

From the Benchmarkwalks home base within the Forest Of Bowland, itself an area of outstanding natural beauty, we organize and facilitate your business or improvement team away day. We make use of a local inspiring venue within the Forest of Bowland for events and as a base for a local benchmarkwalks

Benchmarkwalks can be tailored to suite individuals looking to improve business improvement knowledge on a unique one to one arrangementâ

You set the topics – Benchmarkwalks assembles the experts, so you can learn from improvement experts in inspirational landscapes. Find out what works and what hasnt worked from leading UK benchmarking experts.

Choose from easy, low-level valley and woodland walks through to challenging mountain days, whatever; the chance to talk the walk and learn cannot be bettered. Walks can range from an hour stroll as part of a days facilitated event through to whole days on the hill.

Benchmarkwalks have formed partnerships with leading walking and guiding organisations to arrange and lead our mountain walks

Business Improvement has often been compared to a journey where the journey itself is the reward as well as the destination. With Benchmarkwalks you will reap benefits from both the physical journey and discussions on business improvement topics

Benchmarkwalks can cover any business improvement topic, for example: benchmarking, sustainability, quality management, value management, customer relations, excellence and EFQM, collaborative working, supply chain management… Any, all or none just ramble and learn.


more information @ benchmarkwalks

2008 KPI’s

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Constructing Excellence issue 2008 KPI data

The latest UK Construction Industry KPI data is now available interactive and on-line at KPIzone (http://www.kpizone.com). Supported by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), KPIzone contains over 700 graphs and charts, together with industry standard KPI definitions and methods of measurement.

In the age of open source, and the fact that these KPI’s are a key measure behind the UK Sustainable Construction Strategy is it correct to charge for access to this data and KPI material? Surely if Constructing Excellence and the Government are serious about change in the sector then these should be open to all to encourage greater use. Of course the CE business model would be then around benchmarking and sharing, ie a support service rather than selling a product.

rethinking construction still requires massive system change …

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Collaborative working champion colleague Henry Loo posted the comment below in response to my recent posts on rethinking Egan.  This short response article is so spot on, going to the heart of the matter I have elevated it to a full post to give it more prominence.  Thanks Henry.

Egan didn’t emphasis one important pre-requisit to his message: to deliver the kind of vision he is talking about require a massive system change.

When we went to Japan last November, we saw how Takeneka, Shimizu and Kajima successfully translated the efficiencies that Egan was talking about in Rethinking Construction from manufacturing into construction. It was just like the book.
Their critical success factor was the ability to combine Design and Construction operation as seamlessly as possible.
In UK, we can’t possibly deliver that level of success because of the steep Consultancy/Contracting divide, and until such time that we can successfully come up with a breed of people under one organisation that can do both successfully together, we would never be able to deliver Egan. This goes straight to the heart of Lean Thinking because no matter how hard to try to squeeze out waste, the inherent system is not design to be efficient in the first instance (type 1 Muda is inhibiting efficiency!)
The car industry is efficient because it is output driven.

The construction industry is still inherently input driven – note when a client needs a building, rarely can he go directly to a prime contractor and gets everything under one roof; whereas that is exactly what you do in buying a car! note when a Japanese manufacturer needs a new plant, they go straight to Takenaka and Takeneka can wheel out in chapter and verse what a modern manufacturing plant would look like and reasonably accurately forecast productivity based on their research activities gathered worldwide.

Kajima spend over £200million on R&D last year, 4.5% of its annual turnover. They see R&D as their USP & innovation is where the future of their business lies. No innovation=no future. Little wonder why Egan’s vision is still less than half way?

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time to re-read rethink construction…again

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Following my post yesterday and having had chance to read the transcript of Egans speech on 10 years of rethinking, I am convinced that this is a must read for all in the construction, and indeed in the built environment, to understand What the report set out to do?; What’s going wrong?; and how do we fix it?.

I am sure Egans comments will be picked up and discussed by many in the UK built environment blogging fraternity,  giving a wider view – for example take look at Mel’s comments over at Elemental

Egan cites the successes within the demonstration projects, producing some 20-30% cost savings.  In addition I am aware of and work with projects that have achieved similar benefits that are not demonstration projects. Yet for many the understanding of Egan, the Rethinking Construction report and targets just isn’t there. KPI’s derived from the Egan Report are seen as a nusaince, something to get through for bidding, rather than used or real improvement.  At mosts events and training sessions I lead I have to distribute copies of Rethinking Construction.  (A copy can be downloaded through the documents link on the left hand side panel on this page)

Egan’s recommendation for the future is to … go back and read Rethinking Construction and try and get it right second time around.  The key for me, ever since first reading back in 1998 (although I must admit to providing some input, albeit remotely) was in the title Rethinking Construction.  And I think ever since I have used the Einstein quotation of not being able to solve todays problems with the pattern of thought that created them. Those that have embraced new patterns of thought with in the industry are those who see benefits in winning work, in profit and in working conditions generally.  Those who haven’t still fight for work in competion on lowest cost, (ie on lowest profit) struggle to make margins and profits and generally have a hard time of it.

Egan on productivity:

The activity rate on a building site is still probably I guess no better than 30-odd per cent, and yet 60-odd per cent is quite easily attainable with good pre-planning and having everything available when you want it on the site.

Egan on lowest cost

I think lowest cost tendering (and I think the government is absolutely the culprit here, they were very bad as the main buyer of projects, still buying the education department with lower cost tendering) is absolutely ridiculous.

Egan on collaboartive working:

And the point to remember is that it’s a team that does it – a designer, a construction team a supply chain and so on. Working hard together they can produce a good cost. But they can’t do it if they work separately. And lowest cost tendering starts them off as separate groups.

And on how to fix it:

So, I think if anybody wants to know how to reduce the cost of what they do a lot, they could read the ‘Rethinking Construction’ report all over again. Any of the steps you miss out will cost you. I think if you don’t do all of the steps you’ll fail. But in the mean time, I think there should be the concept of two teams of target costs with plus or minus 15% gained or pained between the client and the industry, and perhaps then we might start seeing some real improvements.

egan: four out of ten for effort

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As reported on Building today, Sir John Egan Author of Rethinking Construction speaking at a reception at the House of Commons to mark 10 years since the publication of his report said he would rate the construction industry’s performance since as “four out of 10”.

Egan particularly criticised housebuilders for failing to follow the guidelines laid down in his report. “[Housebuilders] have made no cost improvements at all. Absolutely nothing. Also, their productivity processes actually generated much less than half of the demonstration projects.”

“I just don’t think they were trying. In this ‘nice decade’, as the Bank of England called it, they really didn’t try. And now they’ve got their comeuppance. It’s very, very sad.”

Egan said that housebuilders could have made progress with simple productivity and design improvements and more off-site building. “the houses could be costing a great deal less than they do, and there would still be a market.”

Egan went on to say that the government was partly to blame for “not trying” to be a good client in its construction projects.

Summing up the lasting impact of the report, Egan said: “We have to say we’ve got pretty patchy results. And certainly nowhere near the improvement we could have achieved, or that I expected to achieve.”

I would concur with Egan on this one, with some very successful exceptions, the principles and targets set by the Rethinking Construction report have not been understood or adopted let alone met. Many in the industry are not even aware of these targets. It continues to amaze me the lack of knowledge, in some cases of the existence, of the Egan report, across the industry and in education.

With a score of four, questions must surely be asked of the effectiveness of the organisations established, with government funds, to deliver Rethinking Construction.

sustainable connectivity

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A new look for isite with a new image on the top banner(*). I like this design as it includes a RSS button – to get isite delivered to your desktop, and a search facility to search back through isite items.

But a little more too. After reflection on this blogs contents and direction, I have slightly amended the purpose of isite.

Yes it will continue to be a news views and comments blog for the built environment, poking here and there when things dont seem quite right or dubious, or indeed covered with greenwash. It will continue to be a voice to the online world for the Lancashire Best Practice Construction Club and to a lesser degree the CKE, and will continue to focus on collaborative working, integrated working, facilities management, futures and improvement towards excellence. The emerging web2.0 or even 3.0, and I include second life here, is an important theme that links and enables allot of what we, what I do, so will remain a key element of the posts and comments.

isite is also of course the outlet to the world for my business – fairsnape.  (the name was taken from the local hill in the Forest of Bowland visible from my base here)

However, more importantly I see isite starting to look at connectivity with the natural environment. A number of activities I have been involved with lately has made me realise we may be where we are today because we have lost, and struggling to regain connectivity with our impact on ecology in its widest sense.

What does this mean? – Ecological footprints more than carbon footprints – as John Muir said when we tug on a single thing in nature we find it attached to everything else . – natural materials rather than harmful – renewable energy rather than fossil fuels, community based FM rather than endless target driven fm, about responsible sourcing rather than supply chain bullying, all putting a new direction to CSR.

I have long used the triptych of fit for people purpose and planet (before it became enshrined into the triple bottom line concept I like to think) . It is what Patrick Geddes would call folk, work and place, nearly a century ago, and reading Satish Kumar over the weekend – he described our modern trinity as needing soil, soul and society. Soil for the environment. soul for a spiritual dimension and society for justice.

Kumar a great walker – now based at the Schumacher college in Dartmoor, that incidentally run courses on Zen and Construction, talks about never trusting ideas that you never worked through whilst walking. “when you walk you are connected with nature, when in a car or a building your are disconnected, you walk to connect yourself”.

A while ago I started a benchmark walking programme to do just this – getting workshops and learning sharing events out of a training room or hotel into the countryside. With a loose agenda that emerges to deal with peoples real improvement needs, benchmarkwalks allows real learning and sharing, I likened it to doing business on a golf course – but this is business improving on a walk.

So all this as a preamble to a new thread for isite – connectivity – one I hope that will give it more scope, depth and importance as we address the sustainability issues, the soil, soul and society issues facing the built environment.

(* taken at Beacon Fell, Forest of Bowland, Lancashire recently – a location for many benchmarkwalks)

Sustainability Code for non domestic buildings

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Following the Code for housing which seems to be setting the sustaintainbility agenda the industry, the UKGBC UK Green Building Council today launched a report on behalf of the government that starts to set out an agenda for acheiving zero carbon non-domestic buildings by 2020
From the press release at UKGBC:

Key findings in the report are as follows:

1)   It IS possible to reduce carbon emissions from energy use down to zero in the majority of new non-domestic buildings, as long as on-site, near-site and off-site renewable solutions are employed

2)   There is a cost associated with building to zero carbon. Cost varies widely with both the form and the use of the building. However, preliminary modeling suggest that the premium could range from over 30% down to as low as 5 or 10% of current baseline costs.

3)   A challenging yet achievable time-frame for achieving zero carbon new non-domestic buildings along the lines set for housing is needed. With a trajectory in place similar to that adopted for the Code for Sustainable Homes, then a deadline of 2020 could be adopted.

Will this report, like the code for housing and BREEAM will now shape the direction for construction and the built environment for the next decade.  As fellow blogger Phil over at Zero-Champion points out in his review of this report – a move from rhetoric to reality.

My initial thoughts on the costs associated with moving to carbon zero is that the ‘preliminary modeling’ figures are similar to the figures used to describe the ‘waste’ in the industry, (ie total waste or muda. – time, costs, lack of integration, non value-adding,  unproductive activities, reworking, delays, as well as material waste).

Therefore a renewed drive on business improvement and collaborative working would pay for zero carbon buildings and facilities.  (this is to some degree supported in the Strategy for Sustainable Construction which includes the Strategic Forums target for an integrated industry to support a sustainable one)

I shall be returning to this  with further posts when I have digested the report

getting to zero

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One of the excellent articles on the new Building Sustainability site is The Year to Zero.  putting many of the important targets and objectives being set for our industry in a chronoligical count down to carbon zero, neutral or ‘sustainability’. (or wherever its is deemed we need to be)
The article, in conjunction with Fulcron Consultaing will be updated as and when more targets are set, so definelty one to watch.

I use a similar approach, looking into the ‘planned future’ for our sector, helping organisations set their own strategies and targets, on green and other related topics.  How do your business or improvement plans map onto this timeline?  Will you be ahead of the game, prepared, or lagging and playing catchup? Do you even have a route-map to get you there?

Construction carbon calculator – no more excuses…

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As mentioned before the topic with the highest hits and searches here on isite is a carbon calculator for the construction process.

I have been reviewing the calculator from the Environment Agency which come close, very close, to removing any excuses for not knowing the construction process carbon footprint, in setting a stake in the ground as a measure for improvement and in benchmarking across sites, companies and clients to drive real improvement.

In my opinion the positive points are:

  • written by a major client of the built environment for the built environment
  • not linked to carbon offset programmes (a big tick !)
  • based on spreadsheet (Excel) with visibility of data used in calculation.
  • appears easy to use with guidance, references and further reading
  • ‘open source’ in that the EA encourage its use by others
  • provides a great basis for carbon footprint benchmarking (watch this space!)
  • ability to add activities and materials to the base set up
  • deals with personal transport in a sensible and straightforward manner

The only (very) minor concern is the detail required to complete fully ( but then who said carbon diets were easy! and it would be good to see this tool as part of all site processes) and the materials element could be double counted – in the construction process footprint and the building footprint.

The EA will use the calculator on all of their projects from November

Read the Edie news link here

Capable People – a new blog on the block

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I have added another blog to the blogroll – down there on the right somewhere – capablepeople is a new blog on the block and while it isnt a ‘built environment’ or ‘sustainability’ blog, is an entertaining and readable blog on general business improvement themes.

The first batch of posts covers a wide range from EFQM and ISO 9000 to  Leadership via Joy Division and Formula 1.

One to add to your RSS or igoogle.