As BIM makes risk more transparent and decision-making faster, it will create conditions in which small, flexible "nano corporates" can flourish, says Wes Beaumont of the CIC’s BIM2050 group.
The Built Environment 2050 report, published in September by the CIC’s BIM2050 Working Group, tries to imagine what the construction industry will look in 36 years’ time. The short answer is “very different”, particularly if we identify some of the technological improvements that have made our industry safer and more productive since 1978.
But looking ahead, what can we expect in terms of corporate organisations and construction procurement?
It’s no secret that the industry is fragmented: this often becomes the cause of adversarial relationships, as the needs and wants of one individual may not be aligned with those of another. What we must accept is that we are interdependent.
During our daily working lives as construction managers, how many colleagues do we rely on to ensure that our day is a success? Multiply that by the number of external stakeholders and again by the number of projects we are currently responsible for. The business of handling all these relationships can be challenging; if it is not done well, it can lead to poor productivity and subsequently poor profitability.
These days, hardly anyone who works in construction can go a week without hearing the three letters, BIM. The term “building information modelling” can be misleading, as it isn’t really about buildings; it’s about assets and the creation of structured data for multiple uses.
And BIM means different things for different people. But for BIM2050, it offers an opportunity to change fundamentally the industry in the same ways that the Banwell, Emmerson, Latham, Egan and Wolsthenholme reports recommended. Their messages were consistent: we should create an industry that is collaborative, trusting and profitable, and clients who get what they want for a price they’re happy to pay.
"Removing human interpretation eliminates the negative effects of opinions, discriminatory judgments and illogical conclusions. And as the data we generate becomes more intelligent, we will move to active decision-making, based on trends, analytics and objective judgments."
The use of structured, validated data in BIM offers the opportunity to change our decision-making from subjective to objective. Removing human interpretation eliminates the negative effects of opinions, discriminatory judgments and illogical conclusions. And as the data we generate becomes more intelligent, we will move to active decision-making, based on trends, analytics and objective judgments.
The sharing of this data improves transparency and removes the temptation to employ the underhand tactics that have become associated with our present adversarial culture.
Traditionally, procurement has been seen as a mechanism for shifting risk to another party. But the visualisation of risk enables all stakeholders to understand the landscape they operate in. The increase in confidence and trust will allow procurement routes that use integrated forms of agreement, and share risk and reward more fairly. New forms of contract will emerge that encourage good behaviour and offer improved returns to the supply chain.
As we use data more intelligently, we will be able to make real-time decisions based on real-time information. Today, this ability is being offered by a growing number of start-up companies. As a sign of things to come, consider the number of smart phone apps being developed that use real-time data from public transport providers. The growth of these new kinds of company in east Manchester has helped its digital sector to become the second largest outside of London. Closer to home, BIM-related services in the UK construction industry are expected to hit £30bn by 2020.
So, as procurement and delivery strategies change we will see more nano-corporate entities joining construction, possibly in joint ventures with established players or as part of special purpose vehicles. These new types of association will be underpinned by those new forms of contract, with their superior risk and reward sharing mechanisms.
The most admired companies in the world, according to Fortune magazine, are those that are perceived to be “innovative and forward thinking”. To attract the best young minds, the construction industry needs to convince them that it, too, falls into this category. The lean, agile nano-corporates, with their spirit of innovation and collaboration, can do this better than the traditional industry, which too often has a culture governed by antiquated processes and archaic cultures. We foresee the rise of integrated teams composed of the traditional players and supplemented with the nano-corporates. But our journey towards nano-corporate will be informed by the realisation that we all need each other to survive, and we will be better together than apart.
The Built Environment 2050 report was published on 2 September by the CIC’s BIM2050 group, a working party made up of 18 young professionals.
Wes Beaumont is a project manager with Turner & Townsend. He was a member of the group and led on the “culture of integration”, looking at procurement, collaborative working, innovation and technology sector
