Roofing

Contractor’s Column
An Integrated Supply Chain
where does the contractor fit in?
Tony Burke, Managing Director at Avonside Group Services
Similarly, organisations throughout the supply chain
are looking creatively at security of supply and also
ways in which they can align production resources. At
face value this approach should be welcomed – but
again, if this brings about conflict and disruption to
the supply chain, and looks to fragment the way in
which the industry operates, stripping resource rather
than increasing it, then the long term impact will be
disruptive rather than positive.
The existing supply chain, of manufacturer, contractor
and client, has worked well and served the industry
over many decades. It has only failed to deliver where
industry and government have in the past taken a
short term view and allowed house building
programmes to suffer on the winds of uncertain
economic conditions.
I would contend that this is not because of the way
the supply chain operates, but that it has had to self
regulate, with the loss and abandonment of a massive
skills base that cannot be quickly or easily replaced.
The existing route to market works best where an
integrated approach is developed between all parties,
sharing medium-term plans, working closely to
accommodate new regulations and working standards
and sharing expectations so that all parties can deliver
and prosper together, In short, an interdependent
existence.
So whilst new innovation will always be welcomed,
we should not look to make change for changes sake,
but instead continue to invest in greater numbers and
increased skills across all areas of the supply chain –
nowhere more so than in the contracting sector where
companies large and small provide the manpower to
actually deliver the build programmes for new housing,
The call to all other parts of the chain is to work with
us, not against us. Keep us informed of material supply
issues so that we can help manage the process with
clients, and if, as looks likely, there is inflationary
pressures coming into the supply chain, accept that
those are legitimate cost rises, rather than squeeze the
contractor who sits in between manufacturer and
client; because the unfortunate consequence of such a
change is likely to be a reduced, rather than an
increased, contractor base to meet future demand.
Enquiry 3
So, a few months after the Brexit vote, the UK economy continues to defy the
naysayers within the Westminster/City bubbles. Whilst the devaluation of Sterling will
ultimately bring inflationary pressures to bear, Mr and Mrs Average Briton quietly go
about their business as usual, with no discernable deterioration in consumer
spending, which includes larger ticket items such as motor cars and even new
houses.
The UK Government, whilst saying little publicly about its intentions ahead of the
Autumn Statement and, more tellingly, the Brexit negotiation stance, has been widely
trailing the intention to prime the UK economy through a Keynesian approach that
will include accelerated investment in UK infrastructure – including housing.
Indeed, in the new housing arena we are starting to hear suggestions of some
different approaches: some, such as the encouragement of modern methods of
construction are not new, but to see some tangible evidence of a government policy
that actively encourages this type of solution is to be welcomed. Other, more recent,
suggestions, that we are to embark on a strategy to replicate the post war ‘prefabricated
home building’, are particularly interesting, partially because it suggests a
scheme of some scale, but also to hear how government anticipates building the
supply chain that delivers such ambitions.
As one of the many trades that make up the delivery element of any house building
supply chain, roofing contractors have a key role to play. We have exercised the
arguments and routes to new recruitment and training many times in this column,
and elsewhere, over the last years, so it is not my intention to rehearse them again.
Instead, I would like to explore what the role of the contractor should, or could, be, in
an integrated supply chain.
As the ‘jam in the sandwich’ between manufacturer and developer, we are the first to
have to cope with issues such as supply shortage, although we are often the last to
find out about any such problems – surely we can play a more positive role in
managing this kind of issue; if we are part of the conversation we can be part of the
solution.
Enquiry 36
Enquiry 5
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