Driving forward the Farmer Review and proposals for an offsite transformation

Report of the Constructing Excellence members’ forum on 14 February 2017

 

1. Introduction

Sixty members and guests attended the CE Members Forum on February 14^th to hear from Mark Farmer on his report Modernise or Die (#FarmerReview), Darren Richards of CE Midlands on the state of the offsite manufacturing sector, and two speakers on application in the education sector, Richard Crosby of Blacc and the Education Funding Agency and Simon Reid of Lungfish Architects and the Scape integrated team. The agenda is attached as Annex A, attendees are listed at Annex B, speakers’ slides are available here[1], and we thank everyone for their participation.

 

2. Objectives

The objectives of the event, beyond providing the usual learning, sharing and networking benefits of Constructing Excellence’s pan-industry forums, were to:

• Understand the drivers and opportunities for a step-change in offsite/pre-manufactured industrialised solutions in the sector;
• Develop a work programme to support the implementation of Mark Farmer’s report, and in particular to inform members’ strategies for high-productivity pre-manufactured propositions.

A discussion session invited roundtable discussion on five questions which emerged during the afternoon. This report summarises the feedback from this last session as well as some of the drivers and challenges discussed during the afternoon, and develops an outline work programme to be delivered in collaboration with other partners.

 

3. Opportunities and barriers

 

• Drivers for change – or why now?

A number of factors are convening to make offsite construction a more attractive solution than ever before.  These include:

• Housing Shortage – a shortage of good quality affordable homes and the growth of the Private Rented housing sector (PRS);
• Skills shortage – an ageing workforce with traditional skills, lack of new entrants to the construction sector and limitations on labour mobility caused by BREXIT;
• Technology – opportunities to fully exploit the emerging digital agenda around BIM and big data;
• Client demand – increasing client demand for project certainty and predictability as well as performance transparency.

Government has responded to these drivers with a range of policy interventions including the Housing White Paper and the Industrial Strategy with its focus on productivity and high value manufacturing as championed by the Construction Leadership Council.

The Farmer Review specifically looks at industrialisation and delivery through pre-manufactured methods. These can help address systemic failures including low productivity, low predictability, low margins, adversarial pricing, lack of collaboration & improvement culture, lack of R&D and investment in innovation and poor image.

• Barriers

A number of barriers have held back the wider take up of offsite construction:

• Scale – factory production requires consistent/high utilisation of capacity in order to be cost-effective;
• Visibility of forward pipeline to de-risk investment in production facilities there needs to be a high degree of confidence in future demand;
• Disruption to the status quo of the usual design/procure/construct process is perceived to add risk and uncertainty;

Quality –clients require confidence and assurance of quality (especially with regard to gaining insurance) this can be done through standards and certification.

 

 

4. Proposed work programme

The following five questions emerged during the speakers’ sessions, and breakout groups convened to discuss each one.

1. The Influencing the need for a common pre-manufacturing ‘interoperability’ protocol. Avoiding the ‘VHS versus Betamax’ choice. We need to progress as a systems engineering challenge.
2. Collaboration led procurement models to enable true BIM enabled & integrated pre-manufacture led working.

• Appetite for ‘calling people/firms out’ for poor behaviour – ‘name & shame’ to help drive behavioural change

1. Contributing to what needs to be in Construction’s “Sector Deal” as part of Industrial Strategy response – CLC interface
2. Developing a quantified benefits case(s) for clients to commit to higher levels of pre-manufacturing including data / feedback / evidence system.

A plenary feedback session captured the views of these groups, and towards the close of the event a number of attendees volunteered to meet again as a task group to take forward this feedback and discussion to develop a detailed plan of work. The following is a starter for 10 for that group to develop.

 

 

Activity	Output/measure of success	Lead/proposed partners
Demand pipeline	A forward 3-year+ pipeline by sector in which supply chain has confidence, from public (HCA, EFA etc) and private sector where possible	IPA (existing govt pipeline) Others TBC
New delivery model	Set out the new delivery model, the integrator role, integrated business model and procurement processes	CE theme groups RIBA digital plan of work
Better articulation of the business case	Better evidence on the benefits for customers, suppliers etc – predictability, productivity, skills, data transparency; time, cost, quality; profitability Develop KPI and baseline data for ”Pre-Manufactured Value (PMV)”	Cogent, BRE
Case studies, demonstrations and awards	A set of regionally-sourced sectoral case studies, and demonstrations where new approaches have strategic significance. A new category in the CE annual awards programme from 2018, eg Offsite Project of the Yr.	CE Regional Network Univerities BRE
Influence the ‘Sector Deal’ under Industrial Strategy	Support CLC to get the best deal with HMG	CLC
Influence Construction ‘Catapult’ to support sector innovation	A new centre and focus for innovation in the digital and industrialised built environment. To feature a hub and industry supply chain ‘cluster’	BRE Manufacturing Technology Catapult Universities Other Industry
Influence the investment community	Dialogue with investors, insurers etc	BuildOffsite (BOPAS) CML CE Funding & Finance TG
Events – factory tours, conferences	A coherent sector-wide programme of learning events delivered mainly by pulling together third-party organisations	Radar Explore Offsite BuildOffsite BRE CE Regional Network
Comms plan	Web page, blogs, social media, press etc	CE/BRE Radar
Resources for the above activity	A resourced impactful plan of work by CE	Existing CE theme groups, Univs (CEHE), BRE Trust

 

 

Constructing Excellence
February 2017

Annex A. Agenda of the CE members forum on February 14^th

Supporting the Farmer Review – how to implement offsite solutions

Constructing Excellence Members’ Forum

14^th February 2017
Pinsent Masons, 30 Crown Place, London EC2A 4ES

Agenda

1.00                 Networking lunch

1.30   Don Ward, Constructing Excellence and Graham Robinson, Pinsent Masons – intros and welcome from host

Mark Farmer, CEO at Cast Consultancy and author of the Farmer Review

Darren Richards of Built Environment Hub on the current state of the offsite market

Networking/Tea and coffee break

Richard Crosby, Partner, Blacc Consulting LLP on the challenges of pre-manufactured solutions

Simon Reid, Managing Director of Scape’s Lungfish business “5 years and counting – Our modular story, the highs and lows of delivering school places”

Breakout session on adding value
– how should Constructing Excellence add value in this space?

Plenary feedback and prioritisation of a work programme for Constructing Excellence

5.15     Close

Annex B. Registered attendees

Name	Job Title	Company
Madoc Batcup	Managing Partner	Synaps Partners LLP
Mark Beirne	Director	Birch off site Solutions
Andrew Bell	Director	Kier
David Bleicher	Principal Research Engineer	BSRIA
John Blyde	Director	Module 200 Limited
Vaughan Burnand	Managing Director	VEB Lean Ltd
Tim Carey	Director	Willmott Dixon
Roy Casey	Director	Success Train
Jackie Casey	Director	Success Train
Paul Cooke	Director	Higgins Construction Plc
Andrew Cowan	Real Estate and Property Consultant	BRE
Richard Crosby	Partner	Blacc Consulting LLP
Ken Davie	Head of Offsite & MMC Research	Carillion
Adrian Farley	Commercial Director	Polypipe Terrain
Mark Farmer	CEO	Cast Consultancy
David Ferroussat	Infrastructure Procurement Director	Heathrow Airport
Ian Fletcher	Director of Policy	BPF
Paul Greenwood	Managing Director	Greenwood Consultants Limited
David Hawkes	Policy Manager	CIOB
Richard Henman	Programme Delivery Manager	nationwide Building Society
Phil Henry	Market Development Director	Polypipe Terrain
Jasmine Hui	graduate engineer	waterman
Peter Jackson	Quantity Surveyor	Kent County Council
Craig Johnson	Regional Account Manager	Trimble/Tekla
Milica Kitson	Chief Executive	Constructing Excellence in Wales
Robert Knight	Operations Director	igloo
Martin Lawton	Director – Public Sector	Blacc Consulting LLP
John Lorimer	Director	JLO Innovation Ltd
Julia Lydall	Co-Chair	G4C
Paul Marsden	Specification Sales Manager	Baxi Commercial
Peter McDermott	Constructing Excellence NW	University of Salford
Charles Mills	Head of Stations Renewals & Enhancements	Transport for London
Brendan Morahan	Director	Invennt Ltd
Alison Nicholl	Associate Director	Constructing Excellence
Kevin Payne	Project director	Westfield
Ben Pritchard	Consultant	Invennt Ltd
Colm Quinn	Project Manager	Constructing Excellence
Dale Rees	Southern Construction Framework Manager	Hampshire County Council
Simon Reid	Managing Director	Lungfish
Tim Renwick	Director	Blacc
John Rich	Partner	SRA Architects
Darren Richards	Director	Built Environment Hub
Graham Robinson	Global Business Consultant	Pinsent Masons
Mick Tetley	Performance Improvement Manager	Galliford Try
Jenny Tippetts	Senior Project Manager	Nationwide Building Society
Keith Waller	Senior Advisor	Infrastructure & Projects Authority
Don Ward	Chief Executive	Constructing Excellence
Paul Wilkinson	Director	pwcom.co.uk Ltd
David H Williams	Chairman	Management Process Systems
Clive Winkler	Consultant	ECI

 

[1] https://constructingexcellence.org.uk/presentations-14th-february-members-forum/