Breaking down barriers at MMC

It is widely accepted that greater standardization and better use of digital solutions can help construction become a more efficient industry, but there are barriers that stand in the way. Construction News and IFS assembled a panel of experts to examine what’s holding us back

Round table sponsor: IFS

Recent years have seen a push from government, clients and contractors towards greater use of modern methods of construction (MMC), standardized platform approaches and digitalisation.

Whitehall has tried to push these measures through initiatives such as the off-site presumption in public tenders, the government’s construction handbook and the obligation to build information modeling (BIM), at least that’s what says the rhetoric.

The idea is that a construction sector with more standardization, more use of digital processes and more delivery through off-site measures will be more efficient and productive.

But a round table held in central London by Construction newssponsored by software provider IFS, learned that while some customers and contractors are enthusiastic about these initiatives, many barriers remain.

Late commitment

One suggestion why MMC has not spread as much as advocates want is that clients do not introduce contractors to schemes early enough.

“The public sector is starting to get the idea much more than the private sector, which is still in a race to the bottom”

Scott Tacchi, Sir Robert McAlpine

Sir Robert McAlpine (SRM), head of MMC Scott Tacchi, says: “At SRM, we get 80 per cent of our plans to RIBA Stage 3. [once the concept design has been developed] and then we have lost 70 percent of the opportunity to influence it. We’re left picking on the edges.”

MMC’s head of Kier, Andrew Dewdney, says: “A lot of times the way it happens is [a client] it says “I have a problem, something is wrong, MMC will fix it, you can go fix it.” Many times we can, but if we had done it from the beginning we wouldn’t have so much waste. It comes down to maturity and education.”

ISG Group Operational Excellence Manager Brett King agrees that early client-contractor involvement is vital. And it calls for the standardization of measurement benefits and the execution of processes. “One of the problems is that the measure of MMC’s success is a bit mixed – there are some strange claims about how successful it is,” he says. “Sometimes I question the validity of this. Is it always as successful as we say it is?

“I think the industry could benefit from coming together and finding a standardized way to calculate success.”

Public vs private

There is some debate about which types of clients are most useful in enabling contractors to make more use of MMC – and the broader standardization of processes – to be more efficient.

Tacchi, a former head of MMC at the Department of Education, believes that his former employer, along with other government agencies such as the Ministry of Justice and National Highways, outperforms the private sector in MMC and standardization processes.

“The public sector is starting to get the idea much more than the private sector, which is still in a race to the bottom,” he says.

Others aren’t so sure. On some public sector works, the overall project aspirations of the delivery approach can be difficult to achieve with the procurement approach taken, says Ger Hayes, UK South Managing Director of John Sisk & Son. “Sometimes the aspirations of client organizations and what they are trying to achieve through design guides and playbooks aimed at achieving best practices, on closer inspection, do not appear to be aligned with the terms and conditions and the path of procurement, driving behaviors other than this.destined for excellence and collaboration in construction.” He adds that very little social housing is produced with off-site methods.

Dewdney says that while there are a handful of mature clients in the public sector, there are many private sector clients who are more flexible in their approaches and perform well. “When they can see the benefit, they’re happy to talk to us much earlier, and that early engagement is the crux of it all.”

“Do we need to join customers? Is there more we need to do with our supply chain? We have to stop going out in thousands [of subcontractors] and streamline the supply chain?”

Tim Embley, Costain

Having consistent procurement criteria enables the planning needed so that contractors are “able to streamline, standardize and deliver a better outcome for the client,” says Tim Embley, Costain’s group research and innovation director. This is particularly true for customers such as water utilities, which have five-year asset management plan (AMP) periods, he adds.

A long-term, consistent, early workload from major customers is helpful, but to reap the benefits of standardization, they need to be consistent with what they’re looking for from contractors. “I think through the different AMPs and how the requirements changed, there’s been a lot of change in the industry [but] Consistency is key,” Embley says, adding, “Do we need to bring customers together? Is there more we need to do with our supply chain? We have to stop going out in thousands [of subcontractors] and streamline the supply chain?”

However, shrinking the supply chain too much could introduce new elements of risk, warns IFS key account manager Colin Beaney. “One of the things that manufacturing did was reduce a single-source supply model. But then when you have supply problems like after Fukushima [nuclear disaster] or with [semiconductor] chip suppliers, that’s a problem because nobody else is available to supply your product,” he says.

Architect problems

The behavior of other parties is also vital if contractors are to better standardize their processes, especially those who design buildings in the first place. “I think architects have a lot of the blame for the lack of standardization at the moment,” says Tacchi.

He says that in the six hospital projects he has been working on, there are 572 different sets of doors. “A hospital had 36 doors and 30 of them were different. And out of those 572, I have 4.6 million color permutations, that’s crazy.”

But apart from customers, architects and supply chain partners, are contractors themselves the real blockers to increased standardisation, digitalisation and efficiency? After all, the sector is not exactly famous for having a highly digital culture, eager to normalize or open to change.

IFS vice president of construction and engineering Kenny Ingram sees construction as very different from the other industries his company sells software to, such as defense and manufacturing.

Defense customers that build aircraft carriers, for example, digitally track every item that goes into the production of the warships, he says.

“Why are there no part numbers under construction?” add. “How can you track things if you don’t have an ID? You can’t properly. These are really simple things that are difficult for us to understand. It’s just grown to be [people saying] “We do things differently on every project.” We just took the Excel spreadsheet out and created a new set of processes every time.”

Tim Lohmann, director of strategic engineering at Keltbray, questions whether this is a by-product of the low margins in which the industry operates, although Ingram questions whether low margins lead to a lack of digital awareness or whether that lack of awareness causes low margins .

But Lohmann responds, “If the culture is working on low margins and you can’t afford to innovate or change, then you’re going to keep doing what you’ve always been doing.”

Hero problem solvers

On the other hand, perhaps it is the type of people who work in the industry that is driving the rejection of standardization and the desire to do things differently on every job, argues Yogesh Patel, director of quality, improvement and innovation at Vinci Construction.

“Most of us around this table are engineers in some way, so we like to be the problem-solving heroes, rather than doing the same thing we did last time in terms of design and construction “, he says. “We like a challenge, that’s what makes us engineers, so we like to do things differently.”

Bringing people into the industry who can offer fresh perspectives is important to overcoming a culture of reluctance to change, says Emily See, Amey’s highways market director, advisory and analytics.

“If we’re not changing digitally, we’re not going to attract young people who have grown up with iPhones,” he says. “If our culture doesn’t change, the workforce won’t change either because we’re not facilitating a culture they want to join.”

He also urges moving away from blaming architects or clients and looking at how contractors can work better with them.

Do not touch the surface

Several panelists believe that digital processes offer considerable possibilities to radically improve the construction sector.

Sisk’s Hayes is excited about the prospect of artificial intelligence (AI), comparing the possibilities of the developing technology to that of smartphones.

“Can you imagine going back 15 years and telling yourself what your iPhone would be able to do now?” he says.

AI, he adds, will be able to track people on site, check the correct number of toilets, examine specifications, track materials in factories and more. “I think we’ll be able to embed things into components and control how they behave. We’ll be able to ask questions like if things need maintenance or if the pumps are working. I don’t think we’ve even begun to scratch the surface of what we can do digitally.”

Hayes believes this will not be driven primarily by boardroom executives, but by younger innovators coming into construction. “Some of the people coming in at the grassroots level who are already making the biggest difference with digital, they’re young, they’re technical,” he says. “We need to attract more young and diverse people to the industry.”

Alun Griffiths pre-construction manager Simon Dunn says his company is seeing great results after recently introducing telematics to monitor vehicle data.

He explains that after the rise in fuel prices and the removal of the red diesel rebate last year, the company made better use of the technology and the rewards have been “amazing”.

Dunn adds: “Being a civil contractor, we do a lot of our own earthmoving, so we have all our own equipment and the amount of data we have is amazing.

“We have had it [the kit] for years and had never used it. Now we start using it, our productivity goes [right up].

“We even track things like whether the machines are running in power mode, which is the equivalent of having an extra controller, or in eco mode.”

Lohmann says Keltbray uses similar technology and offers incentives to drivers to reduce idling times, which saves fuel, money and carbon for the contractor.

The current and future benefits of going more digital and standardizing are tangible. Will contractors, along with other industry players, understand them?