Industrialised, Integrated, Intelligent sustainable Construction - I3con

SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION HANDBOOK 2
Fragmentation of the industry has stifled value for money as each party wants to meet their own goals
and priorities. Each party will have their own agenda and will mobilise their resources, knowledge
and practices, as part of the project, to meet their interests. These interests are mainly financial to
achieve a competitive edge over their competitors (Elmualim et al. 2009). The goal within
construction is to deliver a well designed, quality product to meet clients’ requirements, on time and
within budget (Adamson and Pollington 2006). However, this is rarely the case.
The evolution of the industry
Construction has for centuries been the work of independent craftsmen working for a client. New
forms of construction have required new organisation to cope with massive demand, such as the
organisation of the process by the general contractor. Today, the industry relies heavily on
subcontracting which has prevented effective teamwork and communication between the parties to a
construction contract. Demand is very different to other industries as clients define their requirements
and the building is built to their specification (Morton 2008).
Design Status Quo
“The industry continues to design resource inefficient buildings, utilising polluting materials,
overspecifying inefficient equipment, with poor attention to long-term communities” (Halliday 2008).
The problems of poor industry performance can be associated with the common model for UK
construction. The client commissions an architect who designs and then builders are found to build
(Layard et al. 2001). The architect then relies on the services engineer to make them habitable
(Turrent 2007). Although there has been a shift towards construction managers taking control of the
whole design and build process, work is still predominantly based on this common model. Issues of
buildability are restricted at the design stage which inhibits speed, effective learning and cost control.
Cost saving has dominated the construction industry’s decision making which does not always
provide value (Halliday 2008).
The traditional design method of construction gives little thought to the operational phase particularly
from sustainable design point of view (Sassi 2006). The client finds it hard to imagine how they or the
end-users will operate within a building. Without engaging the end-user, the creative design process is
lost, which often leads to long term dissatisfaction. A common industry complaint is that members of
design teams act independently of each other or may act against each other (Blyth and Worthington
2001).
The need for change
Clients and end-users argue a building takes too long, costs too much or is of poor quality standards.
“Why when so much has changed has so much stayed the same?” (Morton 2008). The most
documented examples include the early reports by Sir Michael Latham titled ‘Constructing the team’
and Sir John Egan titled ‘Rethinking Construction’ which both demand the ultimate goal of further
satisfying clients’ requirements. The Latham report of 1994 aimed to make the customer the leader of
the process. Prior to the 1990’s, he saw the industry as fragmented and hierarchical with a reluctance
to introduce innovative solutions to customers’ requirements. Clients did not always get what they
asked for. Recommendations aimed to align the design function with the interests of the client, with
particular regard to the organisation and management of the construction process (Adamson and
Pollington 2006). Latham gave a significant role to clients in promoting good design to provide value
for money in terms of both cost and cost in use. A well designed building may not require a high level
of specification, yet many buildings in the UK are over specified at an unnecessary cost. Problems
emerge through lack of co-ordination between design and construction (Latham 1994, Egan 1998).
Following the substantial critique of the Latham report, the Egan report of 1998 proposed a change
revolution. There was deep concern that the industry was under-achieving in terms of meeting its own
needs and those of the client. Egan found there were too many clients that still equate price with cost
driving them to select designers almost exclusively on the basis of tendered price. The drivers for
change include:
216