The Innovation and Future of Scotland’s Construction Industry

William McBride FRICS, FIoD, MBA Chair Construction Scotland Innovation Centre

Understanding The Past

Analysing The Present

Creating The Future

Presentation Overview

Reaching for the skies (1934)

Understanding The Past

The Simon Report (1944)

The Barnwell Report (1967)

“a challenged industry, each project being bespoke,”

“a world of opportunity and profit for those who can overcome inherent and sometimes intractable problems”

“one could be mistaken for thinking that nothing much has changed, the country needs a better construction industry”

The Latham Report (1994) Constructing The Team

Understanding The Past

The Egan Report (1998) Re-thinking Construction

Government Construction Strategy Report (2011)

“ineffective’, ‘adversarial’, ‘fragmented’ and ‘incapable of delivering for its customers”

“Disjointed short term thinking, different incompatible agendas at work”

“construction underperforms, poor and inconsistent procurement, fragmented approach, poor value for the public purse”

What Has Curtailed Transformational Industry Improvement

• The authors expended significant time defining the problem – with hindsight that was in essence the simple part – executing solutions has proven far more difficult.

• The suggested solutions worked on the basis of a common agenda in a fragmented industry – making things better meant different things to different parties.

• In such a fragmented industry there needed to be a follow through with joined up intelligent design – that infrastructure was not yet in place..

• It is very difficult to solve a problem from within the model that created the problem.

• There was not enough industry leadership.

Analysing The Present

• Global Construction is forecast to grow to $15 trillion by 2017.

• In 2025 it is estimated that construction will account for 13.5% of the World’s GDP.

• Much of this activity will be focused on Asia, Latin America, the Middle East. Africa and Eastern Europe.

• House building in North America alone is predicted to grow at a rate of 1.5 million new houses per year to 2025.

• Brazil and Mexico together are predicted to need 27.5 million new houses by 2025.

• However less than 2% of indigenous Scottish construction companies export outside the UK – indeed only 4% export outside of Scotland.

Source: Global Construction Perspectives & Oxford Economics Publication “Global Construction 2025” July 2013

From a Global Perspective

Analysing The Present

• The 2020 Vision report on future UK construction identified key areas of growth as

offsite construction, energy efficiency measures, infrastructure and ICT. • Accordingly the UK National Infrastructure Plan has a pipeline of projects identified

over the next 5 years that will deliver £411 Billion worth of investment in the built environment infrastructure.

• The UK Construction Products Association indicated in August 2015 that construction output is forecast to increase by 4.9% this year, almost double the rate of the economy as a whole.

• It is estimated to increase by 21.7% by the end of 2019

Source. HM Government publication “Construction 2025” October 2013 Office for National Statistics September 2015 Construction Scotland publication “Building for the Future 2013-2016”

From a UK Perspective

The Key Scottish Numbers

Analysing The Present

• Building technology and energy management sectors alone and forecast to

support 15,000 jobs in Scotland by 2020

• Scottish investment into the low carbon retrofit market for buildings is expected to be worth £400m over the next 5 years

• The strategy is to grow the construction sector GVA for Scotland by some £800m some 9% within 2 years

• Export growth in construction is one of the Scottish Governments key objectives for the sector with resources being allocated to assist businesses to grow in this manner.

From a Scottish Perspective

Creating the Future

• There are wonderful opportunities open to Scottish construction businesses,

however to optimise the possibilities, our industry will need to evolve from its present state by looking both inwards and outwards.

• If we continue to operate in the same way, we will as an industry not achieve what we are capable of and in 10 years time the words of our illustrious predecessors, Simon, Barnwell, Latham and Egan will be repeated yet again.

• The means to evolve Scottish construction in a controlled and sustainable manner is through transformational Innovation.

• Which has led the Scottish Government to make innovation a core theme and invest some £120 million in a family of 8 Innovation Centres covering Scotland.

• One of which is the Construction Scotland Innovation Centre.

From a Scottish Perspective

Creating the Future Through

Recognising That Construction Is Part Of A Bigger Picture

Construction Innovation Centre Targets

Construction Innovation Centre Targets

Innovation Centre Achievements To Date

Innovation Centre Achievements To Date

Creating the Future Through Working In Industry Partnerships

13 HEI Partners:

Creating the Future Through University Collaboration

P.Sector/Gov/Support Partners:

Creating the Future Through Working In Public Sector Partnerships

Creating the Future Through

• To be a catalytic and compelling force for change.

• By encouraging a change in culture towards transformational construction innovation

• Using a more data driven & informed approach • Thus helping to develop a more efficient & productive industry • At the same time advancing a more entrepreneurial construction sector. • Through building a more collaborative industry, focused on win – win outcomes • Thus growing a more internationally ambitious industry • Thereby creating a more dynamic industry of choice for future employees from across

entire talent pool

Clear Strategic Objectives

Creating the Future Through

Focusing Expertise on Industry Need & Demand

Developing a Pan-Scotland connected Network

Creating a 3 way Industry, Academia, Public Sector Partnership

Creating the Future Through Clear Focus

5 Focus Areas:

Advanced Construction

Energy & ICT

Environment

Infrastructure Design & Performance

4 innovation support streams

Service Process Product Business

PEOPLE

Creating the Future Through Support Transparency

First Understand The Past

Then Analyse The Present

Then Create The Future Together

Some Points To Leave You With

• Scottish construction must innovate to evolve and thus improve.

• To evolve Scottish Construction we need to innovate on 4 fronts

① Our Businesses choosing to deal with each other in a fair and

collaborative manner always without bias to gender or ethnicity

② Choosing to move our Construction Processes into the 21st century.

③ Choosing to Increase the scope of our Product Development

④ Choosing to Increase the range of our services and export potential

• Underlying all of these innovation themes is people and at the

end of the day the evolution of our collective mindset and our current construction culture is the most important innovation of them all.

“We are not constrained by our circumstances – we are made free by our choices”

Jim Collins – Good to Great