ISSUE 2 2016

£22M boost for student accommodation at the

University of Edinburgh

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News

Comment The Green commitment, BSIA Chief Executive, James Kelly

Comment A productive workspace, Michelle Labrosse, Cheetah Learning

Comment The impact of insolvency on payment entitlement, Peter Sheridan, Sheridan Gold LLP

Comment Contracts Matter! Mark Clinton, Thomas Eggar

Comment Duty of Care by Michelle Dixon, Humphries Kirk LLP

Comment Pushing up the profit, Benjamin Dyer, Powered Now

Comment How does BREEAM measure sustainability?

sportscotland National Centre Inverclyde

Active House : A holistic approach to sustainable construction

Exclusive Interview – Raj Chawla from BIM4SME

Re-engineering the M&E industry, Ainscough Industrial Services

Comment Outstanding billing and the impact on cashflow, Euan Bell, Ultimate Finance

Head of OperationsGareth Trevor-Jones

Publications EditorVictoria Maggiani

DesignerJames Ormerod

Publications OfficersRobert AthertonAbigail Burr

Sales AdministratorAlecia Rowe

Approvals Beka Patterson

General ManagerIan Parker

Product DevelopmentSeamus Norton

Marketing ManagerAndy Bloor

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£22M boost for student accommodation at theUniversity of EdinburghWork on the £22M Buccleuch Place & Meadow Lane Student Accommodation Project for the University of Edinburgh is now underway following GRAHAM Construction’s appointment as Main Contractor.

GRAHAM began preparatory work on the site in Scotland’s capital in December with the project completion expected by summer 2017.

The project involves the conversion and refurbishment of two Grade B-listed tenement blocks and the construction of four new build accommodation blocks in the city’s Southside conservation area.

The conversion and refurbishment will see the current office accommodation at 1 - 6 and 7 - 13 Buccleuch Place transformed into 246 student bedrooms, split into cluster flat arrangements.

Meanwhile, to accommodate the construction of the four new build accommodation blocks at Meadow Lane, the existing site will be cleared and converted into a further 138 bedrooms (within 22 cluster flats), complete with common rooms, laundry facilities, warden’s flat, energy centre and stunning landscaped courtyards.

Whilst keeping in tune with the surrounding area, this student accommodation offering will be a contemporary take on the city’s traditional tenement design and will be constructed using natural stone, glass and zinc.

Once completed, the project will create an outstanding centralised student accommodation at the heart of the University of Edinburgh.

Regional Director at GRAHAM Construction, Neil McFarlane, said: “Securing this contract with one of Scotland’s most respected universities is a real boost for GRAHAM Construction, and the two-part dimension of refurbishing existing premises on site coupled with a new build construction poses an interesting challenge – one the team is looking forward to.

“This latest project further underlines the strong relationship forged between GRAHAM Construction and the University in recent years.

“We are confident the completed project will provide truly first class facilities that the students of the University of Edinburgh will be happy to call their home away from home for decades to come.”

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£30M to be saved for Scotland on public sector energy billsA major programme to make public sector buildings more energy efficient is underway.

The Scottish Government announced in summer 2015 that improving the energy efficiency of all of Scotland’s buildings will be designated a National Infrastructure Priority. The cornerstone of the National Infrastructure Priority will be Scotland’s Energy Efficiency Programme which will support the delivery of energy efficiency by cutting energy and maintenance costs and reducing carbon emissions across all building types.

A total of 12 suppliers have been appointed to a procurement framework to deliver energy efficient retrofit works

and services that will improve the energy performance of the public sector.

The scale of the retrofit opportunity across Scotland is estimated to be £300M, with associated savings to public sector energy bills of up to £30M per year.

The scheme will be accessible by all Scottish public sector organisations, registered social landlords and third sector.

Energy Minister Fergus Ewing said: “This scheme could transform our public sector buildings and has the potential to save taxpayers millions of pounds.

“These projects pay for themselves as energy savings will, over time, pay for the installation costs and will also deliver a variety of wider community benefit including employment opportunities and business growth opportunities for the Scottish supply chain.”

Iain MacLean, Head of Service at East Renfrewshire Council said: “Having been directly involved in its development, I am very encouraged by the proposed launch of the national non-domestic energy efficiency framework next month. Energy efficiency retrofit provides a real opportunity to explore estate wide improvements that will ultimately pay for themselves.”

Edinburgh Marina development finally gets the green lightPlans for around 450-500 much needed homes have been revealed as part of a wider residential led development proposal on a former brownfield site.

CALA Homes have proposed a ‘Waterfront Plaza’ development on disused land by Forth Ports, located opposite Ocean Terminal, which has already gained support from the shopping centre owners, Resolution Property.

The Company has submitted a Proposal of Application Notice to The City of Edinburgh Council relating to an application for Full Planning Permission, and is planning a Public Consultation Event in April.

The development would provide a substantial economic boost to the

local area, as well as regenerating land and adding a further contribution to encourage the expansion of the Edinburgh trams project.

The proposed plans for Waterfront Plaza would include a variety of one- to three-bedroom apartments, townhouses and colonies to include 25% on site provision of affordable homes.

Local ward councillors, Leith Harbour and Newhaven Community Council have been informed, and CALA are keen to understand the views and opinions of the local community and key stakeholders early in the design evolution process.

Dennis Jones Centre Manager at Ocean Terminal welcomes the residential proposal, which would

support the shopping centre through the regeneration of the immediate surrounding area. He said: “Leith is an area full of character and a development of this nature will add to the continued regeneration, making it one of the most vibrant parts of the country to live, work and visit.”

Commenting on the development, Stuart Paterson, Chief Financial Officer at Forth Ports, said: “Forth Ports welcomes CALA’s housing development plans for Waterfront Plaza. The area of land is not currently used to the maximum benefit of the local Leith community and we are keen to ensure that this is changed. This is great news for the local area and will help address Edinburgh’s current housing shortage and support the Ocean Terminal retail development.”

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Cabinet Secretary visitsShieldhall Tunnel projectThe Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities visited Shieldhall Tunnel project to see how work is progressing on the largest wastewater tunnel to be constructed in Scotland.

Situated at the Craigton Industrial Estate in south west Glasgow, the tunnel, measuring 3.1 miles long and 4.7 metres in diameter, will be five times longer than the Clyde Tunnel.

Cabinet Secretary, Keith Brown, was on hand to check on the progress of preparations to allow tunnelling to begin.

The tunnel is a vital piece of Scottish Water’s £250M, five year programme of work to tackle flooding and improve river water quality and the natural environment.

The open cut technique will be used on the first 250m of the tunnel and the launching chamber, involving excavation between concrete piled walls bored into the bedrock. A state-of-the-art Tunnel

Boring Machine is expected to arrive on site within the next few weeks with construction beginning on the tunnel between Craigton and Queens Park.

Once complete, it will give 90,000cu m of extra storm water storage and the increased capacity of the waste water network will provide better screening of overflows into rivers and reduce the risk of flooding in parts of the Mount Florida and Giffnock areas.

Mr Brown commented: “I’m delighted to be here to see how the Shieldhall Tunnel project is progressing. This project is the biggest upgrade of Glasgow’s sewer network in over a century and is a central part of Scottish Water’s investment programme to improve the area’s drainage and sewerage infrastructure, which is essential to the Greater Glasgow area’s economic prosperity.

“It is another fine example of Scottish Water’s determination, as a public sector organisation to deliver for

its customers and the Scottish Government is fully supportive of this kind of investment in key infrastructure projects in Scotland’s biggest city.”

Douglas Millican, Scottish Water’s Chief Executive, said: “Much of the Greater Glasgow area’s existing waste water infrastructure was built in Victorian times and the modernisation of the system and construction of new underground assets, such as the Shieldhall Tunnel, will protect the natural environment, reduce the risk of flooding and meet the needs of growth, economic development and regeneration.

“It is also supporting jobs and employment opportunities, including a number of apprenticeships.”

The Glasgow Tunnels Partnership is a commercial joint venture between Costain and VINCI Construction Grands Projects (corr.) called CVJV and will be responsible for building the Shieldhall tunnel.

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http://www.interplanpanelsystems.com/

Clyde Gatewayto get extra fundingAn additional £3M funding has been awarded to Scotland’s largest regeneration the Housing Minister Margaret Burgess has announced.

The funding will support further development of the Clyde Gateway by regenerating vacant and derelict areas in Dalmarnock, Rutherglen and Shawfield.

The 20-year Clyde Gateway project started in 2008 and is a partnership between Glasgow City Council, South Lanarkshire Council and Scottish Enterprise, supported by funding from the Scottish government.

So far, the Scottish government has provided more than £140M, and is working with Clyde Gateway to identify other sources of funding to ensure the continued physical, social and economic transformation of the area.

The project includes plans that will see local employment opportunities created with the construction of new business units and factories. It is envisaged that this will create sustainable, social and economic growth.

Mrs Burgess said: “It is vital we continue the regeneration of South Lanarkshire and Glasgow’s east end, which will serve to maintain the long-term legacy of the Commonwealth Games.

“Since long before the Games took place, we have witnessed a steady transformation of an area once viewed as one of Scotland’s most deprived.

“We have taken care to ensure the transformation is more than an urban makeover. Its purpose is to tackle inequalities, create jobs and opportunities, ultimately improving the lives of those who live in the area.”

Chief Executive of Clyde Gateway, Ian Manson said: “This additional funding from the Scottish Government, together with the commitment given to our long-term future, will be welcomed right across the east end and South Lanarkshire.

“This is a reward for the hard work we have been putting in, together with our two council partners, Scottish Enterprise and with the support of the local community, to ensure the Clyde Gateway regeneration has a clear and immediate impact.

“At the same time, it also acknowledges just how much more still needs to be done to address continued challenges around worklessness, educational attainment and poor health, all of which must be overcome if we are to deliver a lasting, meaningful and sustainable legacy.”

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The Defence Secretary has visited with a number of leading Scottish based companies that are providing the MOD with the latest technology.

The Defence Secretary Michael Fallon visited with software developer SeeByte who provide the Ministry of Defence with state-of-the-art software for piloting underwater unmanned vehicles (UUVs).

SeeByte has integrated its software onto three Iver3 underwater unmanned vehicles, currently undergoing trials, following the MOD giving the company a £1.1M contract in December 2014.

SeeByte received funding in 2012 through MOD’s Centre for Defence Enterprise (CDE), which seeks to remove obstacles for innovative small companies to enter the defence supply chain.

SeeByte CEO, Dr Bob Black said:

“We are very proud of the work we have conducted with the UK MOD, and we look forward to continue this working relationship to enhance the future autonomy of unmanned maritime robotic platforms.”

The Minister also visited Finmeccanica Airborne and Space Systems Division, a specialist electronics, communications and radar company, that is currently working with MOD on present and future radar programmes for the Typhoon fighter aircraft. The Company are also developing cutting edge radar system, E-scan, which is sustaining around 500 jobs at the Edinburgh-based firm.

Norman Bone, Managing Director of Finmeccanica Airborne and Space Systems Division, Edinburgh, commented: “In Finmeccanica, our commitment to investment in the UK’s defence and security sector is seen in

our research, in developing our people, and in the partnerships we build with companies across the UK and in export.

Mr Fallon’s visit comes on the heels of the launch of the government’s £800M innovation fund that hopes to utilise the private sector to keep Britain’s defence operation ahead of the curve.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said: “Britain’s defence relies on Scottish brainpower. We’re backing that brainpower by increasing the defence budget every year of this decade, meeting the NATO two per cent spending commitment and investing £800M in innovation.

“Together with our pilots at Lossiemouth, our submariners at Faslane and the Army regiments, that puts Scotland right at the heart of the nation’s defences.”

Defence Minister visits leading defence technology companies in Scotland

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The Winners and Highly Commended entrants for the National Government Opportunities (GO) Excellence in Public Procurement Awards 2016/17 celebrated their achievements at the sparkling Hilton Manchester Deansgate on Tuesday 8 March.

The sell-out event was hosted by TV presenter Sarah Heaney, who led the way in the grand finale to the National GO Awards’ biggest ever event, which demonstrated in style just how much the GO Awards have evolved over the past few years.

The GO Awards supported the Realising Dreams Foundation – a registered charity, set up by BiP Solutions in 2014. The Realising Dreams Foundation helps to remove barriers for children and young people so they can achieve their full potential, expand their horizons and exceed their own ambitions.

Opening the black tie event, Grahame Steed, Managing Editor of GO and Chair of the Judging Panel said: “This was our third year back in Manchester and what a truly tremendous night it’s

been! The standard of submissions and amount of entries was staggering, so much so that we had to increase the number of award categories on the night to cater for the huge number of sectors involved. Well done to everyone involved this year, you really were testing yourself against the best of the best!”

Sally Collier, Chief Executive Officer at the Crown Commercial Service said that “procurement is the lynch pin in devolution”. She was a passionate member of the panel of judges, made up of experts in the UK procurement and commissioning which included Ainslie McLaughlin, Director of Procurement and Commercial at the Scottish Government.UK Construction Media were proud to be a sponsor at the event.

The evening saw Horsham District Council win the GO Sustainability / Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative of the Year Award, while The City of Edinburgh Council won GO Contract Management Initiative of the Year Award and GO Procurement Innovation or Initiative of the Year Award – Local Government and Consortia.

The GO Small Business/Third Sector Engagement Initiative of the Year Award was won by the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, who have an excellent reputation for delivering high quality patient care.

Peterborough City Council won the GO Best Service Award – Health and Social Care, and MAP Chartered Surveyors took the award for GO Best Service Award.

Other winners included Derby Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Lincolnshire County Council – Homecare, Scotland Excel, Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, London Borough of Waltham Forest, Crown Commercial Service, and STAR Procurement.

The Hilton was home to an abundance of laughter and applause, and a true celebration of the very best that public sector procurement has to offer as a career, as a market sector and, most importantly, as a means of delivering more efficient and effective public services.

National GO Awards a night to remember

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Robertson Homes has released the first CGI images of the completed restoration of Gleann Mor House, a Victorian hospital that was damaged by fire in 2007 and will be converted into 56 new luxury homes.

The £13M proposal presents the vision to rebuild the 19th century Victorian hospital, and will be discussed by Highland Council’s planning permission committee shortly.

Gleann Mor House sits within the 120 acre Westercraigs development just outside Inverness city centre. Robertson Homes has built a significant number of homes to suit a range of modern lifestyles elsewhere on the site, which features woodlands, green space and the world-famous Great Glen Way footpath.

The project will create around 100 new jobs including senior managers and experienced tradesmen.

John Murphy, Managing Director of Robertson Homes, said: “We are really pleased to release these images, which clearly show our dedication to maintaining the integrity of this beautiful building, believed to be one of the biggest structures in the north of Scotland.

“The luxury homes in Gleann Mor House, with an abundance of bay windows, turrets and a raft of unique features, will offer something new in the Inverness market and will complement the modern, spacious family homes we are building elsewhere on the site.”

The first phase of the restoration project, 12 luxury apartments, was completed in 2011, and Robertson Homes have since reconfigured its place to replace many apartments with townhouses, maximising open space and landscaped gardens.

If plans are approved, the first of 26 luxury townhouses and

30 executive apartments will be ready to move into next year.

The Chief Executive of Inverness Chamber of Commerce, Stewart Nicol said: “After many years of a slow housing market and a lack of jobs in the construction sector we are starting to see major projects get underway, which I believe shows a real confidence in Inverness and the surrounding area as well as a boost to local businesses.

“Westercraigs has become known locally as a ‘village in the city’. Our intention is to create a sustainable semi-rural community at Westercraigs, including play facilities, green space and a community. We are also moving forward with plans to upgrade the link road to the A82.”

With the near completion of the West Link Road which will improve road connectivity to the area, the homes are expected to be in significant demand.

First images of £13M investment to restore hospital into new homes

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Scottish businesses benefit from billions in infrastructure investmentsThroughout Scotland during 2016, infrastructure projects totalling £6Bn will be under construction.Major infrastructure projects such as the first phase of the A9 Dualling Programme, the new Acute District General Hospital in Dumfries and Galloway and the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh all commenced construction last year, with others set to begin later this year.

The Forth Replacement Crossing, the electrification of the Edinburgh-Glasgow rail route and two new college campuses (the City of Glasgow College City Campus and the Ayrshire College, Kilmarnock Campus) will become operational this year, and will deliver benefits to the people of Scotland.

The Scottish Government’s bi-annual Infrastructure Investment Plan

(IIP) project pipeline was published recently, and provides an update on the progress of major projects set out on the IIP. The Government also published its annual IIP progress report which records those projects that were completed within the last year.

The Scottish Government’s renewal of the contract to run the Public Contracts Scotland web portal – a vital tool linking Scottish SMEs with work opportunities up and down the country, came alongside the reports.

They are also working with the UK and Welsh governments to introduce a new series of joint events where businesses have the opportunity to learn about the opportunities available from all public infrastructure projects.

Following on from the work of the

Steel Task Force to support the steel industry, the potential steel requirements will be published.

Infrastructure Secretary Keith Brown said: “This is an extremely exciting time for infrastructure development in Scotland, which means good news for the businesses who can bid to deliver these projects.

“Contracts mean jobs, and we’re doing all we legally can to help Scottish businesses access those contracts.

“Our Public Contracts Scotland (PCS) web portal will continue to be run by previous operator, Aberdeen-based Millstream, for the next five years, meaning that SMEs throughout Scotland have a one-stop-shop for finding all of this potential business.”

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A new guideline issued by the Communist Party of China Central Committee and China’s State Council could see an end to the country’s trend of eccentric architecture.

In February, China released the guideline on urban planning in an effort to deal with problems associated with increasing urbanisation and rapidly expanding city sizes.

The government wants an end to “bizarre architecture that is not economical, functional, aesthetically pleasing or environmentally friendly,” and instead see buildings that are “suitable, economic, green and pleasing to the eye”.

Construction methods that generate less waste and use fewer resources, such as prefabricated buildings, will

be encouraged by the government. It is hoped this will lead to dramatic changes to China’s city skylines and improve the urban layout to prevent uncontrolled rapid expansion so that cities can no longer grow beyond what their resources can support.

The guidelines predict that in ten years time, 30% of all new buildings we be prefabricated.

In an effort to keep an eye on urban sprawl, the report says that the government should utilise a number of methods including remote satellite sensing to find buildings that violate existing urban planning policies. A map containing all offending architecture will be created within five years, with action being taken against those who break the new regulations.

More green areas and parks will also be created as China looks to tackle shantytowns and run down buildings.

There will also efforts made to limit the number of copycat buildings in China that ‘borrow’ their design from other famous buildings and landmarks around the world, such as the Eiffel Tower and the White House.

China is home to a number of eye-catching buildings including the headquarters of China Central Television (CCTV), likened by some to pair of trousers, which won the Best Tall Building Worldwide from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat in 2013.

Another example is the world’s tallest circle-shaped building, the Guangzhou Circle, which stands at 138m situated by the Pearl River.

China in ‘bizarre’ architecture ban

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Since September 2015, all new cars registered are required to meet Euro-6 standards. This European Union legislation aims to make cars environmentally cleaner by reducing the levels of harmful vehicle emissions such as nitrogen oxide (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons (THC and NMHC) and particulate matter (PM).

The very first Euro-1 legislation came into force in 1993 and was introduced for cars, trucks and buses leading to a significant reduction of emissions produced by these vehicles.

The new Euro-6 regulations are the most stringent to date and are binding for all new models launched since September 1, 2014 and for all new vehicle registrations from September 1, 2015.

The new regulations have different implications for petrol and diesel powered vehicles. Diesel cars the permitted level of NOx emissions has dropped to a maximum of 80mg/km compared to the 180mg/km level that was required for cars to meet the previous Euro 5 emissions standards.

NOx emissions for petrol vehicles have remained at the previous Euro-5 standard of 60mg/km.

Older models of diesel cars are known to produce high levels of NOx and PM and have faced criticism from environmental groups. The government had previously encouraged motorists towards diesel-powered vehicles with lower vehicle excise duty and company car tax structures that reward low CO2 emissions but that will soon no longer be the case.

Transport for London’s plan to introduce an ultra low emission zone in central London in 2020 will see a crackdown on diesel with no new black cabs being allowed to be powered by the fuel. Drivers will also be incentivised to switch to electric powered cars from their existing diesel engines.London Mayor Boris Johnson said: “The taxi and minicab trades have a crucial role to play in helping to improve London’s air quality.

“This is why we have made them a central part of our ultra-low emission zone plans. We understand this will take time and that is why we are

giving financial assistance to help clean up these vehicle fleets.”

As part of the ultra low emission zone, older diesel vehicles that don’t conform to Euro-6 emission standards face being hit with an extra £10 to enter London in addition to standard London congestion charge.

Such is the backlash against diesel vehicles that the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) launched a campaign last year to raise awareness of clean diesel technology to prevent people from ignoring clean diesel cars.

Chief executive of the SMMT, Mike Hawes, commented: “Today’s diesel engines are the cleanest ever, and the culmination of billions of pounds of investment by manufacturers to improve air quality. Bans and parking taxes on diesel vehicles therefore make no sense from an environmental point of view.

“We need to avoid penalising one vehicle technology over another and instead encourage the uptake of the latest vehicle technology by consumers.”

For commercial vehicles, the latest models of heavy-duty vehicles such as trucks and buses have already had the Euro-6 standards in place since the end of 2013.

To meet these standards, vehicle manufacturers have examined a number of options that include reduced vehicle weight, reduced compression ratio and more efficient drive-trains.

However, new after-treatment system technologies such as Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) and diesel particulate filters (DPFs) have proved most effective in reducing harmful emissions.

Selective Catalytic Reduction work with a reduction agent, typically known as AdBlue, and the Lean NOx trap, which is used instead of a normal oxidation catalytic converter.

AdBlue is continuously sprayed into the exhaust gas and helps to breakdown NOx, turning nitrogen oxide into safe steam and nitrogen. As it is consumed in proportion to engine usage, it will require regular monitoring and checking.

Consumption of AdBlue can differ enormously depending on the vehicle type and model, load, environmental conditions, and the manner in which the vehicle is driven.

For unwitting fleet operators, use of AdBlue could be a hidden cost when it comes to selecting new Euro-6 compliant vehicles, particularly on a large fleet.

An alternative to AdBlue is the maintenance-free Lean NOx trap. Again fitted instead of an oxidisation catalyser, in normal running traps the NOx pollutant from the engine in its porous core.

Both Ford and Volvo have opted for this method over an SCR system due to the advantages of it being maintenance-free and not requiring any interaction from the driver in the vehicle’s lifetime.

A drawback to Lean NOx trap is that it doesn’t work on all types of vehicles, as it doesn’t perform as well at very high temperatures.

Whilst the new regulations might have much impact upon everyday road users, fleet managers have been left with a number of things to consider when looking to replace ageing fleet with Euro-6 compliant vehicles.

Euro-6 vehicle regulations and what you need to know

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When we discuss sustainability it is imperative that we talk about green companies and how the world is moving towards being self-sustainable. The security manufacturing industry is no different, as the construction industry moves towards green building projects, contractors are more likely to work with green manufactures. James Kelly Chief Executive of the British Security Industry Association explores how the larger shift across the whole industry is an incentive for manufacturing companies to make a commitment to being greener than ever before.

As the world becomes more reliant on technology and moves away from traditional paper and pen, what to do with the waste of these products becomes more of an issue. With around 50 million tonnes of e-waste produced in 20141, tackling the problem is firmly in the mind of security manufactures.

Almost half of the UK’s carbon emissions are caused by buildings. The long-term goal is to reduce CO2 emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, and that means creating buildings with minimal environmental impact2. One way to achieve this is through designing and constructing more sustainable housing. A similar process is applied at manufacturing level. Companies now look to not only reduce emission in the production of their products but also how to be more efficient with their waste. Like in other sectors, security industry companies too are turning green.

In addition to becoming more sustainable internally, security industry manufacturers are developing innovative green products and systems that eco-friendly integrators are installing. The

move to produce more environmentally friendly products not only saves their customers money, but also opens doors to other business opportunities that may not have present themselves before. With a recent study stating that green building is expect to double by 20183 the importance of tapping in to this market is key and assuring you stay ahead of the trend is increasingly important.

The production of greener products starts at already at the design phase. Using recycled products is a simple and effective way of helping produce green products. Tighter regulations mean that companies must be more creative in producing environmentally friendly products. Ideas such as designing products easy to disassemble and recycle at the end of the product’s life is something new but also a really smart way to help make a product green.

Using life cycle thinking is the next step in increasing the prospects of pollution prevention. The process has gone from an emphasis on production processes (greener production), to products (design for sustainability) and then to product systems (integrating transport logistics, end-of life collection and component reuse or materials recycling). Manufactures should look at this holistic process when producing green product while also work harder at trying to adhere to certain standards.

With over ten separate standards just to do with environmental issues that security manufactures must adhere to it can be extremely difficult for manufactures to produce environmentally friendly products and at the same time still being able to make a profit. When looking towards

how companies can operate best practices security manufacturing companies look towards EURALARM’s for guidance. EURALARM’s is the collective trade body for European electronic security companies; it helps to provide information to companies on how to produce products while also being environmentally responsible.

The importance for manufacturers of making sure their green credentials are well established becomes an even bigger factor when we look companies’ social responsibility. The increase risk of climate change and the very real prospect of a generation leaving the world in a worst place for future generation is something that must be considered. Choosing a product that helps the environment makes a huge difference. If a change can be made to make eco-friendly products the norm, the collective difference will make this world a far better place.

Members of the BSIA’s Security Equipment management section are experts in security equipment solutions and can offer advice on the different types of products available and the environments they are best suited to.To source a member company near you, please visit the Association’s website: www.bsia.co.uk

The Green commitment - why it pays to make it.

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WHAT DOES THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT

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Your project teams seem to have all the right pieces - team members’ technical proficiency, good internal communication, an organised Project Manager - but something still isn’t quite right. Your team still struggles to get projects done on-time and is not as productive as it could be. What’s going on here? It might have something to do with your physical work environment.

I’m a big fan of using the Japanese technique of the “5 S’s” to improve productivity with my project teams. The 5 S’s are a way to get your workspace organised so that your environment is set up in a way that will best improve your productivity and efficiency. Do these tasks in the following order to organise your workspace:

1. SORTThis means going through and getting rid of things you don’t use. You also can remove those items in your workspace that you don’t need right at your fingertips. Though it may seem like a trivial detail, the amount of visual clutter in your work area impacts your ability to concentrate on the task at hand and can subtly impact your sense of feeling stressed. A clean, organised environment helps you maintain a calm and focused mental state - the first step toward increasing your productivity.

2. SET IN ORDERMake sure all the materials you need for your day-to-day work are in the places right where you need them. When our workspaces are poorly organised, we impede our ability to shift gears between activities and waste an astonishing amount of time just locating

what we need to start on a new task. Having what you need for your day’s activities requires a small investment of prep time at the beginning or end of each work day, but ultimately saves you time throughout your work day.

3. SHINESet up your workspace so that not only is it clean but, more importantly, it is easy to keep clean. The initial effort you put toward making your space easy to clean quickly pays off by saving you cleaning time later.

4. STANDARDISEPeople who follow standard routines for starting and ending their days tend to be more productive. Distractions are the biggest productivity losses for project teams in all organisations, so having a standard process to shift into a working mindset can create a more productive environment. This is because our minds naturally crave consistency and stability - think about how little thought you need to put into tasks that are a habit for you (like brushing your teeth in the morning) compared with tasks that are not habitual (like waking up earlier than usual for a morning meeting). The more we can make our daily work tasks part of a routine, the less time we need to spend deciding what to do next and transitioning between tasks.

5. SUSTAINEntropy is a natural state of affairs (it’s how our offices get so chaotic in the first place). Taking a few minutes every day to keep your workspace tidy and organised pays off in big productivity dividends long-term. This also ties into the importance of following a standard

routine each day; setting a time to maintain the cleanliness and organisation of your space is a simple and easy task to integrate into your daily routine.

Transitions in your organisation are a great time to implement the 5 S strategy with your project team. Some transitions where you can take a few hours to implement the 5 S’s are:

1. When the days get longer and warmer (the reason for our “spring cleaning” rituals) 2. When we move to new office space 3. When we add or lose a team member

Cheetah Learning students love the 40-hour online course, Project Management of Spring Cleaning, where they learn how to implement the 5 S strategy in their home or their work environment to improve both their personal or professional productivity. To learn more about the PM of Spring Cleaning course and Cheetah’s other online Project Management courses, visit www.cheetahlearning.com.

Setting up a productive workspace with the 5 S’sBy Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP®, PMI-ACP,Chief Cheetah and Founder of Cheetah Learning

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Normally a contractor is entitled to payment of certified sums and if there is no pay less notice from the employer, that right is easily enforceable in adjudication or in the courts. But the position becomes less straightforward if the contractor becomes insolvent before payment is made.

The position was considered by the House of Lords in Melville Dundas Ltd v George Wimpey Ltd (2007), before the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 (the LDEDC Act). It was held that that parties to a building contract could validly agree that, on termination, interim payments which had become due were no longer payable. The case was decided in respect of termination for insolvency, but the principle was not necessarily restricted to insolvency. The purpose of these termination provisions is to allow the employer to hold on to funds pending a final reckoning of claims and cross-claims, when a balance is due one way or the other.

The position was then dealt with in the statutory provisions of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, as amended by the LDEDC Act (the HGCR Act). Under the HGCR Act s.111(1) the payer must pay the notified sum, but this is subject to s.111(10), which states that sub-section (1) does not apply where (a) the contract provides that, if the payee becomes insolvent the payer need not pay and (b) the payee has become insolvent. Therefore, the Melville Dundas approach was maintained by statute, but restricted to insolvency.A case concerning two JCT Intermediate

contracts, clause 8.7.3 of which provided that on the contractor’s insolvency the employer “need not pay any sum that has already become due”, recently came before the Court of Appeal (Wilson and Sharp Investments Ltd v Harbour View Developments Ltd (2015)). Clause 8.7.3 was part of the termination provisions of the contracts.

The contractor, Harbour View, had sums certified in its favour under both contracts. The employer did not issue pay less notices and did not dispute that the certified sums became payable. But it was common ground that the contracts were terminated (how and by which party did not have to be determined). The contractor entered into creditor’s voluntary liquidation and was therefore insolvent as defined in the contracts; so the employer relied on clause 8.7.3. The trial judge’s view that this clause did not apply where the relevant contract had already been terminated prior to the insolvency of the contractor was not accepted by the Court of Appeal, so the employer was correct that clause 8.7.3 was engaged.

Harbour View sought to present a winding up petition against the employer, on the basis that the employer was not paying debts that were due to be paid. However, such an application may be resisted if there is a bona fide dispute on substantial grounds. That was the position here, as it was arguable that the employer was not obliged to pay the sums due under the interim certificates but was entitled to delay payment until the taking of the final account under the termination provisions.The contractor was restrained by the

Court of Appeal from presenting its winding-up petition. The employer argued that the works were over-valued in the certificates and that it had substantial claims against the contractor. These matters had to be bona fide and arguable on the facts for the employer to succeed.

It was also argued by the employer that it was the established practice in the Technology and Construction Court not to enforce interim payment obligations in favour of insolvent contractors. The Court of Appeal stated that the case law did establish that in appropriate circumstances, including where the contractor is insolvent, the court will refuse summary judgment (in the sense that a stay of execution is granted: see eg. Bouygues UK Ltd v Dahl-Jensen U K Ltd (2000)). But it is not an absolute rule; the court looks at all the circumstances. It is important to establish not only that the contractor is insolvent but also that there is a genuine dispute over the contractor’s claim to payment.

The Bouygues case (also in the Court of Appeal) had established that there might well be a compelling reason to refuse summary judgment arising out of an adjudication where there are cross-claims and one party is in liquidation.

For more information, contactPeter SheridanPartner at Sheridan Gold LLPT: 01737 735088E: psheridan@sheridangold.co.ukwww.sheridangold.co.uk

The impact of insolvency on payment entitlementBy Peter Sheridan, Partner, Sheridan Gold LLP

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The shape of Scotland’s construction industry will see significant developments over the next 10 years. With new technology, policy and regulatory updates, and a growing skills shortage, it’s a big challenge for a busy surveyor to keep up with changing demands and developments.

RICS annual QS and Construction Conference assembles the leading figures in the industry to debate, solve and share best practice in order to:

• address the skills shortage

• ensure your staff are ready and prepared for BIM

• increase diversity in the construction sector

• meet demands for infrastructure.

A key theme running through the day is preparing you for future challenges and the issues that are impacting your day to day business now. Attend this conference to gain crucial insights to achieve business success in today’s market place.

RICS QS and Construction Conference28 April 2016, Glasgow

For more information visit rics.org/scotlandqs

Speakers include:Graham H StewartHead of BIM, Ramboll

Brenda JonesDirector, Management Services North, Parsons Brinckerhoff

Alastair WallaceSenior Partner, Thomas and Adamson

Caroline EarnshawAssociate, bto Solicitors

Professor Fiona Grant FRICSRICS World Regional Chair, UK & Ireland, Director of Academic Quality, School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, Heriot Watt University

Julie Scott-GilroyAssociate, bto Solicitors

For a full list of speakers visit rics.org/scotlandqs

RICS QS and Construction conference highlights:• Join leading experts for the futures panel to discuss solutions to overcome the biggest

challenges currently facing the sector

• Technical sessions will provide an overview of complex issues such as procurement, construction contracts and dispute resolution

• Identify strategies to future-proof your business in a changing market place.

21335 RICS QS+Construction Scotland Conference ad SPREAD 420x297mm AW.indd All Pages 18/03/2016 16:09

The shape of Scotland’s construction industry will see significant developments over the next 10 years. With new technology, policy and regulatory updates, and a growing skills shortage, it’s a big challenge for a busy surveyor to keep up with changing demands and developments.

RICS annual QS and Construction Conference assembles the leading figures in the industry to debate, solve and share best practice in order to:

• address the skills shortage

• ensure your staff are ready and prepared for BIM

• increase diversity in the construction sector

• meet demands for infrastructure.

A key theme running through the day is preparing you for future challenges and the issues that are impacting your day to day business now. Attend this conference to gain crucial insights to achieve business success in today’s market place.

RICS QS and Construction Conference28 April 2016, Glasgow

For more information visit rics.org/scotlandqs

Speakers include:Graham H StewartHead of BIM, Ramboll

Brenda JonesDirector, Management Services North, Parsons Brinckerhoff

Alastair WallaceSenior Partner, Thomas and Adamson

Caroline EarnshawAssociate, bto Solicitors

Professor Fiona Grant FRICSRICS World Regional Chair, UK & Ireland, Director of Academic Quality, School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, Heriot Watt University

Julie Scott-GilroyAssociate, bto Solicitors

For a full list of speakers visit rics.org/scotlandqs

RICS QS and Construction conference highlights:• Join leading experts for the futures panel to discuss solutions to overcome the biggest

challenges currently facing the sector

• Technical sessions will provide an overview of complex issues such as procurement, construction contracts and dispute resolution

• Identify strategies to future-proof your business in a changing market place.

21335 RICS QS+Construction Scotland Conference ad SPREAD 420x297mm AW.indd All Pages 18/03/2016 16:09

The construction industry has a long history of failing to get its contractual paperwork in order before work is started. Often, letters of intent will be used as an unsatisfactory stopgap on substantial projects. Sometimes the contract is largely agreed, but certain items are left to be agreed later. That was what happened in a contract between Grove Developments Limited and Balfour Beatty Regional Construction Ltd which ended up before the courts in February. The case is a salutary lesson about getting the paperwork sorted out at the outset, if a further lesson is needed.

The project was a substantial one. The contract price was in excess of £121 million. The payment arrangements would, I expect, have been quite an important element of the contract. The parties agreed to use the JCT stage payment option but had not agreed the details. They therefore completed the contract saying those details would be agreed within 2 weeks. That should set alarm bells ringing. Agreements to agree are generally unenforceable. The very nature is that they only work if both parties agree but each has the right not to do so. If agreement had not been reached, the parties would have been stuck with the provisions of the Scheme for Construction Contracts.

In the event, the parties did reach agreement. What they agreed was not a schedule of stage payments but a schedule of valuation and payment dates. It provided for 23 valuations, applications and payments. They had therefore changed from the JCT stage payment regime to the interim valuation and payment regime.

The project fell into delay and, anticipating that further interim payments would need to be added to the schedule, the parties entered into discussions and correspondence to that end. The last valuation date in the original schedule was in mid-July 2015, so the parties started their dialogue in late May. They disagreed about some details, the most important being what the due date for each payment was. The due date dictated the final date for payment

and the date for any pay less notice. The parties were effectively 7 days apart. The exchanges continued until early June but then ran out of steam.

The 23 applications provided for in the schedule came and went and in August, application 24 was submitted. Remember, the schedule did not provide for applications after number 23 and the parties had failed to agree additions to the schedule. Nonetheless, a payment certificate was issued. An invoice was duly raised for the amount in the certificate. Then, came a pay less notice.

At this point, Balfour Beatty claimed that both the certificate and pay less notice were out of time. It seems that in calculating the dates for the certificate and notice Grove thought it would play safe by using the dates that Balfour Beatty had been arguing for when trying to agree extensions to the payment schedule. Balfour Beatty now said that because no agreement had been reached, the dates were to be derived from the Construction Act and Scheme for Construction Contracts and those dates had not been met.

Balfour Beatty’s arguments backfired rather badly. The Construction Act requires provision to be made for interim payments in contracts that will last more than 45 days. The Act does not stipulate how many payments must be provided for nor how much they must be for. The schedule of 23 payments met the requirement. The Act did not require that there must be further interim payments if the works extended beyond the 23rd valuation date. Accordingly, and contrary to Balfour Beatty’s arguments, the Act and Scheme did not provide dates for valuations after number 23. The parties having failed to agree further dates, the court held that there was no entitlement at all to interim payments after the 23rd one. Regarding the date of the court hearing, the project is still ongoing, some 6 months after the original completion date. That is a long time to go without an entitlement to payment, particularly on a project of this size.

The first point to draw from this unhappy tale is that it really is important to get

a proper contract agreed and in place before work starts. Agreements to agree are of little value. Although the parties did agree the original schedule, the subsequent attempts to agree an extension to it show how easily these things can break down and be left unresolved. That happens not infrequently where letters of intent are issued and attempts to agree the contract subsequently run out of steam.

The second is that if you are going to include a schedule of payment dates in the contract, you must make sure that it enables dates to be derived for however long the project may take. The means for doing so, of course, should not be an agreement to agree.

The third point is that great care is needed when amending a contract. Here there was a change from stage payments to progress payments. I suspect that had the contract particulars been revised and had the schedule cross-referred to the relevant provisions in the conditions, the difficulties that arose might have been avoided. It is also important these days to keep in mind the provisions of the Construction Act.

Finally, as always, when debating points of detail one must keep an eye on the big picture.

Contracts MatterMark Clinton, partner at Thomas Eggar, recently merged with Irwin Mitchell LLP

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We have all been there – the telephone goes and it’s your mother or your best friend asking for ‘informal’ professional advice because there’s a leak in their new conservatory or the neighbour has made a hole through their wall etc.

Whether you are being asked to give advice as a solicitor, architect, surveyor or any other professional, is there such a thing as “informal – you cannot sue me for negligence” advice? Do you as the professional owe your friends and family a ‘duty of care’ like you do to your clients?

In the recent case of Burgess and another v Lejonvarn [2016] EWHC 40 (TCC), the High Court was asked just that.

Lenjonvarn had architectural qualifications and was a long-standing friend of the Burgess couple. The couple planned landscaping works to their home and asked Lenjonvarn for advice. In fact, that advice extended to preparing designs and project management services, despite no contract or fee being discussed. This was not the first time that Lenjonvarn had provided professional services to the couple.

The friendship broke down with the couple criticising Lenjonvarn’s project procurement, project management, budgeting and cost control. The couple appointed a third party landscaper and subsequently claimed the delay and remedial costs from Lenjonvarn.

In deciding on a preliminary issue the High Court has to consider whether there was a contract between the parties, whether a fee had been agreed and whether there was a duty of care owed to the couple.

Liability can arise out of two legal principles: contractual and tortious duties. ‘Contractual’ is where there is

a contract between the professional and the client, for example where the terms have been negotiated and agreed. Tortious is where, even in the absence of a contract, the law imposes on the professional a duty to give its services to certain standards of conduct.

Therefore, whilst you may not have a contract between you and your friend when giving professional advice, you may still owe a professional duty of care.

In the Burgess case, the Court held that although there was no contract between the parties, Lenjonvarn did owe a duty of care in respect of the supervision services and professional advice she provided, albeit gratuitous, and that the couple relied on those services which in law gave them a right to a remedy.

It should be noted that the Court reached this decision based on evidence of a more formal relationship, where services had been provided for a long period of time; as opposed to mere social and informal ad hoc advice.

This case serves as a good reminder that the law places duties on professionals, even where there is no contract and no fee. As Mr Alexander Nissen QC (sitting as a Deputy High court Judge) explained:

“In conclusion, it is established that in law a duty of care extends to the protection against economic loss in respect of both advice and any service in which a special skill is exercised by a professional. The duty can extend to negligent omissions as well as the performance of negligent acts. For present purposes, the relevant ingredients giving rise to the duty are an assumption of responsibility by the provider of the service coupled with reliance by the recipient of the service, all in circumstances which make it appropriate for a remedy to apply in law. The passages above make

specific reference to the fact that a duty of care may be found to arise even in circumstances where services are performed gratuitously and in the absence of a contract. However, as identified by Lord Goff, in the absence of a contract it is important to exercise greater care in distinguishing between social and professional relationships.”

In order to avoid being caught up in a dispute, it is good practice to always formulate a written agreement with the recipient to your advice. Make the boundaries clear and negotiate the terms. Ask yourself if the advice you are giving is something which would be regarded as informal ‘one-off’ help, consider your own professional conduct rules and whether your Professional Indemnity Insurance would cover the scenario if it all went wrong.

If you want to be super cautious, just tell your mother that for once you are taking the day off!

For more information, contact Michelle DixonAssociate Solicitor specialising in construction law at Humphries Kirk LLP

Do you owe a duty of care when giving informal professional advice?

Construction is a hard business and although some people are relatively happy to just survive, that doesn’t allow for things ever going wrong. If you’re either in the “lifestyle matters” camp or among those who are ambitious and want to grow fast, you need a cushion for unexpected bills or problems. Benjamin Dyer of Powered Now examines how to avoid living hand-to-mouth by boosting your profits.

Some people have modest aims for their business. They just want a degree of freedom and to enjoy their work. The problem is, even if you are of this mind-set, profit is still essential for survival. This is due to the fact that you not only need to pay yourself, you also need to buy tools, run a van and go on the odd course. And all of that is before you allow for the occasional loss-making problem job which could otherwise ruin your reputation.

In contrast, some construction companies are ambitious to grow. That means that as well as covering normal running costs, they need ever more working capital. That’s on top of funding the up-front costs of marketing and additional staff.The bottom line is that everyone needs to make a profit.

DECENT PRICING

If there is one issue that causes the most problems with profitability it is pricing too low.

I am assuming here that you already do excellent work, else all other bets are off. But having said that, charging a decent price and earning a profit is the next most important thing.

The price that you quote should include: the total cost of materials; enough to pay yourself and your staff a decent rate; an allowance for things going wrong; overheads; and critically some profit after all that.

You might think that this will mean you

won’t win any business. But the fact that the roads aren’t exclusively full of Kia Matiz’s (described by Jeremy Clarkson as “cheaper than walking”) shows that price isn’t the only thing people think about when it comes to buying. The large numbers of Audis, BMWs and Mercedes that you see on the roads illustrates this point perfectly.

However, it’s not always easy to raise your prices. This is why it’s important to do everything you can to come across as totally professional. That makes customers more willing to pay a premium. Turning up on time, being dressed smartly and treating customers highly professionally are all factors that will help you to achieve higher pricing with all but the most cost-conscious.

Finally, remember that if you never lose on price you are probably pitching too low.

BEING WELL ORGANISED

Being brilliantly organised undoubtedly helps profits. It’s all about efficiency rather than cost because, for instance, employing cheap but poorly trained staff or using cheap tools often costs more in the long run.Reliable vans that look smart can also earn their keep.

The final suggestion here is to use some of the new technology that is being developed. My company, Powered Now, is one of many investing millions to make life easier for builders. James Chandler runs Chandler Building on the Isle of Wight. He explains his view: “You can’t ignore technology, even in the building trade. Builders that want to be successful must move on.”

KEEPING YOUR COSTS DOWN

Obviously, lower costs should lead to higher profits. Some ideas for cost savings might be: • Look at your biggest costs first. Shopping around for best price on a

new tool may take more time than doing the same for materials which you use in large quantities every week. Don’t ever bother looking at anything if buying it for 50% less wouldn’t be noticeable. Concentrate on what matters.

• Open trade accounts and get the best payment terms with any supplier that you use regularly.

• Work hard at getting prices down at your builders merchant. The quoted price is usually a rip off, and most branch managers have huge discretion over pricing. So don’t let yourself be one of the mugs.

• Plan your materials carefully and make sure they are on site in time. Trips to Wickes from site and then paying retail prices wastes both time and money.

ACT NOW

Making a fair profit isn’t as easy as writing an article about it! Clearly if you price too high you may find you hardly win any business. However, provided you do good work, this isn’t the mistake most builders make. No or little profit can result in huge headaches and often drives sole traders out of business and back into employment. For larger companies it creates the risk of going bust.

Each passing hour means missed opportunities so I hope that some of these points have rung a bell. It just remains for me to wish you the best of luck.

Pushing up the profitBenjamin Dyer, CEO of Powered Now

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Barry Ashmore, MD and co-founder of StreetwiseSubbie.com whichprovides business solutions for Specialist Contractors throughout the UK.

I’ve been catching up on some reading recently and wanted to share some topical insight I picked up from best-seller, ‘The Art of Thinking Clearly’ by Rolf Dobelli.

Chapter 17 is entitled ‘You control less than you think’ and it discusses the ‘illusion of control’, something that really resonates with me as a former sub-contractor and business owner.

The author opens the chapter by telling us about a man with a red hat who stands in a square at 9am every day waving his cap wildly in the air. One day, a policeman approaches the man and asks him what he is doing. The man’s reply? “I’m keeping the giraffes away.” “But there aren’t any giraffes,” replies the policeman. “Well I must be doing a good job then,” comes the reply.

Another analogy Dobelli uses to illustrate our ‘illusion of control’ is the fact that in casinos most people throw a dice as hard as they can if they need a high number and as delicately as possible if they need a low number. What nonsense! He compares this to football fans believing they can swing the result of the game by gesticulating at the TV - come on now, we’ve all been there!

This shared illusion that we can somehow influence the world by sending out the ‘right’ thoughts, positive energy or that karma actually exists is essentially a basic human instinct. States Dobelli: “The illusion of control is the tendency to believe that we can

influence something over which we have absolutely no sway” and was discovered in 1965 by two researchers, Jenkins and Ward, who carried out a simple experiment involving two switches and a light. The men could adjust when the switches connected to the light and when they didn’t. Even when the light randomly flashed on and then off the subjects were convinced they could influence it by using the switches.

Do you approach your contracts like those experiment subjects? Do you feel that you are in control of how your various construction projects are progressing? Do you feel you have a tangible influence on the whole decision making process? Chances are you have very little under your control simply because that is the way our industry operates and has always operated.

I’ve talked time and again about how specialist contractors bear the brunt when a project gets out of control or if something goes wrong. It’s usually the default setting of the main contractor to lay the blame at the subbie’s door and when that happens it’s a sure sign that everything is spiraling out of control.

It’s the same when it comes to the spectre of late or non-payment. The ‘illusion of control’ is particularly strong here: maybe if you are the client or the client’s representative, (particularly on public sector projects), you think that paying the main contractor on time means everyone gets paid on time.If you are a specialist contractor

however, the fact that you entered into a contract in good faith, you’ve done everything expected of you (and often even more!), you checked all the small print but there’s still a delay. So why?

It seems like it’s out of your control. Or is it?

Dobelli closes the chapter by asking the reader: “Do you have everything under control?” and concludes that, most of us are just like the man in the red hat.

But, when it comes to payment, ensuring that you are in control is easier than you might think. You can stay in control simply by focusing on the few things that are actually important and you can influence.

For example, by being very clear about, and understanding the terms and conditions you will be working under before you enter into the contract. Don’t be led astray or distracted by things that aren’t relevant to you or your business. Make a list of what is key for you and ensure you can positively influence these things. If you can’t, maybe it’s not a project or contract you should even entertain entering into. Turning down new business is very difficult, I accept that, but remember, one bad contract could take down your entire business!

Dobelli’s advice when it comes to the ‘illusion of control’, and mine too for that matter: concentrate on what’s important and make sure you control it. Don’t be the man with the red hat!

Are you the man with the red hat?

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Sustainability is a fundamental aspect of building design in the United Kingdom and in many instances is integrated into projects through the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology (BREEAM). However stakeholders, especially clients, are often unclear how much the BREEAM process may cost and what benefits it brings. What’s the point? Exactly what value can BREEAM add to the built environment? The overall aim of BREEAM is to mitigate the life cycle impacts of new buildings on the environment in a robust and cost effective manner. How successful a project has been in accomplishing this is quantified by its performance across a number of individual issues in a range of environmental categories. There is a common misconception that BREEAM primarily assesses the energy performance of a building. But it also measures issues relating to the management of the building, health and wellbeing, transport, water use, materials, waste generation and management, land use, ecology and pollution impacts.

How can BREEAM add value to a building?

BREEAM encourages energy efficient building solutions, systems and

equipment that will contribute to a reduction of CO2 emissions. A recent example is a new office in Cambridge in which Mott MacDonald are tenants. Using BRE’s own energy calculator, the building achieved an energy performance ratio for new constructions of 0.63, which equated to 10 out of 15 credits under BREEAM 2011 and met the energy performance required for an overall ‘Outstanding’ rating. A building CO2 emissions rate of 16.1 was also achieved, a 34% reduction compared to the notional building target. This was a result of the specification of features such as energy efficient LED lighting and photovoltaic panels, as well as air source and ground source heat pumps.

Water use is another area in which this project benefited from BREEAM, with a 25% improvement in water consumption compared with the baseline. This was a result of highly efficient sanitaryware fittings and the inclusion of leak prevention measures.

BREEAM can also bring social benefits, though these are more difficult to quantify. Successful implementation of the health and wellbeing criteria can result in a much improved internal environment for building occupants, in terms of indoor air quality, thermal comfort and access to daylight. In its report ‘Health, Wellbeing & Productivity

in Offices’ , the World Green Building Council states that more efficient ventilation and reduced pollution can result in productivity gains of up to 11%. Healthier and more productive staff can itself lead to commercial benefits for an organisation.

The challenges of successfully integrating BREEAM

Like all positive change, the sustainability gains offered by BREEAM must be carefully planned for and the plan rigorously implemented. Often BREEAM is treated as an ‘add on’ to gain planning approval, or BREEAM assessors are appointed as an afterthought. In such cases, projects are likely to perform badly. It is key that the BREEAM process is engaged early in a project’s timeframe, preferably before the preparation and brief stage ends, so that realistic targets can be set and ultimately achieved. Improvements in building performance can result in reduced operational costs and greater occupant wellbeing. However, potential benefits from good design can only be realised if the building operator runs the building in line with the BREEAM requirements throughout occupation. If this takes place, the result can be a building with a high level of sustainability that makes a lasting economic, social and environmental contribution.

How does BREEAM measure sustainability?Luke Aminu, graduate sustainability consultant, Mott MacDonald

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The UK’s first fully-inclusive residential sports training facility has taken a giant leap forward following North Ayrshire Council’s approval of the £12M centre.

Funded by the Scottish Government and sportscotland, the sportscotland National Centre Inverclyde will be the first of its kind in the UK and will provide more opportunities for hosting national and international sporting events, particularly in para-sport. It will also continue the tradition of developing strong club, community and education links throughout Scotland and the UK.

Taking inspiration from the flow of a gymnast’s ribbon, the new design will seamlessly link the existing sports and gymnastics halls with world-class training facilities and an accommodation block providing 60 fully accessible twin rooms and 120 bed spaces.

This iconic design is the vision of award-winning architects Reaich and Hall – creator of Aberdeen Sports Village and Oriam, Scotland’s sport performance centre, which is currently under construction at Heriot Watt University.

All three projects have been part-funded by sportscotland to further improve Scotland’s sporting infrastructure.

Delivery of the National Centre Inverclyde has been entrusted to Morrison Construction, one of Scotland’s leading contractors. Construction commenced at the beginning of

the year, with overall completion anticipated for March 2017.

Sports Minister Jamie Hepburn said: “The new National Centre Inverclyde will be a major addition to Scotland’s sporting landscape, providing state-of-the-art facilities under the same roof. It will be particularly beneficial to the para-sports community, and will be an ideal venue for national and even international events.

“With Oriam, the new national performance centre, also under construction in Edinburgh, this is an exciting time for Scottish sport.”

Consultation on the Design and Build has been extensive, with governing bodies, sports clubs and schools all contributing to the discussion. Sporting facilities nationwide, such as the renowned Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre, have given their feedback to ensure the latest in contemporary thinking. Views from some of the country’s top physical preparation experts, including those working at the sportscotland Institute of Sport, have also been sought to guarantee that the centre and the facilities within it are truly world-class.

Stewart Harris, Chief Executive of sportscotland, welcomed the progress: “This is excellent news for sport in Scotland. Facilities across the nation have never been as good as they are now and with the fantastic development of our National Centre Inverclyde we have the opportunity

to raise the bar even higher.

“Our mission is to work in collaboration with our partners to build a world-class system for everyone in Scotland and Inverclyde has a huge role to play in delivering that objective. It will be a unique and inspiring environment reflecting the personal ambition and aspiration of everyone who uses it from Paralympians to members of the local community who want to make sport a part of their daily lives.”

sportscotland is working closely with North Ayrshire Council to explore further collaborative opportunities between the centre and the new schools campus planned for the site adjacent.North Ayrshire Councillor Alan Hill, Cabinet Member for Connected Communities, said: “This is fantastic news and provides us with a further opportunity to develop our partnership with sportscotland.

“The new facility will cement Inverclyde’s status as one of Scotland’s top training and coaching bases. But this development will also be available for the local community and upholds the council’s strategic priority to support people to stay safe, healthy and active.”

The centre will remain open throughout the build, offering sporting opportunities to the local community to complement the existing provision from North Ayrshire Council through their leisure trust.

sportscotland’s National Centre Inverclyde now underway

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Active House is a vision of buildings that create healthier and more comfortable lives for their occupants without negatively impacting the surrounding environment.

UK Construction Journal speaks to Peder Vejsig Pedersen, Director of the Denmark-based Cenergia, about his work with the Active House Alliance, the Organisation’s remit and the challenges facing sustainability in the construction industry.

For the uninitiated, could you provide our readers with an introduction to the Active House Alliance?

The Active House Alliance was originally established in April 2010 during a conference held in Brussels. There, both the board of directors and the advisory board for the Alliance was agreed. The board of directors currently includes representatives from such organisations as The VELUX Group, Saint-Gobain and Hunter Douglas. The London-based architect firm HTA is a member of the advisory board besides Cenergia and others.

Since then, the Alliance has – with a lot of specialist involvement – developed the Active House Specification. As part of this there are three key areas – energy, comfort and environment – and for each of these there are three sub-categories. Each category helps document the quality of a building project and its

eligibility for the Active House label.

Previously, there has been a lot of discussion about how to show that a project lives up to the Active House standard. The Alliance decided upon a simple label, with a minimum demand in all nine areas of quality, so that successful developers are able to promote their project as being Active House compliant. A specialist institution has also been elected to verify projects that aim to live up to this standard. The Alliance has established networks to other associations worldwide and, in the UK, there is cooperation with the Good Homes Alliance.

How did you come to be involved in the Active House Alliance?

I was actually quite involved in the creation of the concept of the Active House Alliance. In 2005, Cenergia worked with The VELUX Group on an iconic project – sol tag or solar roof in English. This was a zero energy building, which used building integrated PV, heat pumps and so on. It was developed as an energy neutral rooftop apartment in Copenhagen and used as an exhibition house.

Active House: A holistic approach to sustainable construction

That was the start of our cooperation and, in 2006, The VELUX Group became very focused on the climate agenda and wanted to promote a standard for these kinds of energy neutral buildings.

How does the Active House Specification differ from The Passivhaus Standard?

I think Active House Alliance should be viewed in the context of European development in the low energy building sector. There has been some quite considerable success with Passivhaus – at Cenergia we made the first Passivhaus project in Denmark. But it was felt that the Passivhaus quality was limited to the climate shield. Though they’re very efficient buildings, comfort and sustainability are not the focus.

Some of the larger companies like ROCKWOOL and VELUX thought that it would be good to have a simple labelling system that had the same qualities as

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Passivhaus, but with additional focus on energy, comfort and environment also.

Can buildings be comfortable, energy efficient and environmentally friendly, whilst also remaining cost effective?

It’s very possible, but you have to be smart. We’re seeing the same thing with Passivhaus. Though there’s a lot of insulation involved, it is more to do with the qualities that you aim for rather than the cost to avoid potential code breaches.

For Passivhaus, we have seen that you need to have high performance windows. But triple glazing decreases in cost the more that it is used, meaning – at least in Scandinavian climates – that it is becoming the standard solution.The concept of heat recovery has also become a standard feature in new buildings during the last five to ten years, and with it the demand for air tightness has risen. It’s something new but it adds to the comfort of the building while also ensuring better ventilation and very low heat loss.

We’ve seen the same development for solar solutions. Solar PV systems have dropped in price very rapidly and now, in Denmark, you can actually buy facade and roofing materials that can be architecturally integrated so that they look almost like a normal aspect.

If it’s not a matter of cost, is the challenge changing attitudes in the construction industry?

Yes. That’s where the challenge is, I think. The EU building directive arrived in 2002 and, in 2006, it was introduced into the Danish building regulations. Since then, we have worked within the ever increasing demands of these directions. Still, if you follow new regulations – the Danish Building Regulations 2015, for example – you can also employ the Building 2020 standard, which is 25% better and normally involves some sort of renewable energy.

But the big challenge is not really new builds, where renewables cost relatively little and are now part of standard practice, but existing buildings. It’s a very different situation in different European countries. The

social housing sector has a lot of old concrete buildings from the sixties, for example. In Denmark, there is a special system for social housing - tenants pay an extra fee of five to ten percent on top of their normal rent. That fee goes into a special fund for social housing stock, meaning that social housing associations can apply for funding for the renovation of their buildings.

This is possible in Denmark, but in Sweden they don’t have that kind of fund. They need to find other ways of financing improvements to existing building stock and that can be more difficult.

How does the UK’s sustainably credentials stack up against other countries in Europe?

We have done several projects in the UK over the years, with EU funding in some cases. It was always a little more difficult than in Denmark because of the simple fact that energy in Denmark is very expensive. We have a lot of taxes on both electricity and heating, while the UK has less than half the cost, and with no VAT on energy. This means that the business of improving a building becomes more difficult because the payback is not as good.

On the other hand, my impression is that there is now a focus on this and the overall climate agenda in the UK.

Generally speaking, is the construction industry doing enough to encourage the use of sustainable construction techniques? What more can be done?

That’s a good question. The idea behind the Active House label is the focus on certain qualities and the documentation of those qualities. It has not been standard practice to show how good a building is performing on different criteria, but there’s no doubt that this will be a demand in the future and it is part of the EU building directive. All countries will need to introduce performance documentation of buildings before 2020.

What we have seen is that it’s actually Sweden – our neighbour country – that has put this into practice. It is part of their building regulations and that has changed their whole way of working.

The construction industry, together with building owners, must focus on how to measure building performance across a range of criteria. This has a tremendous effect on the quality of Swedish building projects. We’re hoping that this will come to Denmark in the next few years, but all European countries will need to follow it eventually.

How do you see the Activ House Alliance continuing to develop in the future?

Once we’ve introduced the labelling system this spring, the hope is that it can be linked to a focus on performance documentation. You will be able to calculate that a building lives up to a certain standard, while also showing how a building performs in practice.For more information about the Active House Alliance, please visit: http://www.activehouse.info/

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Exclusive interviewRaj Chawla from BIM4SMEUK Construction Online talk to Raj Chawla, Vice Chair of BIM4SME, to discuss the approaching BIM Level 2 mandate and SMEs’ state of readiness, the digital2all initiative, and looking to BIM Level 3 and beyond.

With Building Information Modelling (BIM), the lead tends to come from the larger companies within the industry so providing support to SMEs regarding BIM Level 2 is extremely important. Could you give us a brief outline in how BIM4SME goes about this?

There are two aspects to the SME: One, the SME is it is never going to do end to end Level 2. That will reside with the client and the tier 1 and tier 2 contractors. What the SME has to do is learn to interact with tier 1 and the client. It needs to understand when to enter a particular stage and when to exit a particular stage of the process.

The most important is that the SME needs to understand its obligations when it enters the process. Fully understand what they have to supply in terms of information for their goods or services and when they exit the process, they insure that the information they are supplying is complete, accurate and in the correct format.

As far as the PAS documents are concerned, yes of course they need to know how these framework standards work. These are framework documents and the SME has to distil and see how the processes fits into their daily businesses. It is this

guidance that is desperately missing and it this that BIM4SME are attempting to plug.

With the BIM Level 2 mandate approaching in April, are you satisfied with the state of readiness of SMEs within the industry?

The understanding needs to be clear. The function of the BIM Task Group has been to take political intent via government strategy and deploy this. The BIM Regions Group are the awareness campaign to get critical mass so that the whole industry is engaged, while the BIM4 are intertwined within industry dealing with the mechanics of implementing and using BIM. This is the premise that BIM4SME has been predicated on. There is some support from institutes and others, but is anchored to individuals from such groups.

For the SMEs that we have touched, I am happy that they will be capable of participating in Level 2 type of work. However, if you’re talking about the entire country then I am afraid that out of the 2.5M people employed in the construction industry, maybe just 5-6% know what Level 2 is about and that is the biggest problem we are facing at the moment.

The issue is that we need to get to a critical mass of something like 700,000 people in the industry actually practicing and working with BIM at Level 2. Only then will that critical mass engage and move forward. Even the tier 1 and tier 2 contractors are not fully conversant with Level 2. It is only

a small group of people within these large organisations that are becoming BIM-ready purely for the purposes for bidding on contracts.

It scares me sometimes thinking that this mandate is coming up and the industry is not ready and it’s going to start to crumble. It’s a negative thing, but it is the reality I’m afraid. That’s what we’re trying to bridge the gap at moment and trying to get the word out as much as possible and let everybody know what BIM and Level 2 is all about.

What advice would you give to any companies struggling to be ready for the introduction of the mandate?

Most SMEs struggle because of poor and mixed messages. When the message is explained, as it is meant to be, it becomes less daunting. When we interact with an SME, we try and not focus on the term ‘BIM’. Typically for the manufacturing and product supply chain, we simply advise that the information that they have is more than likely all present. It is structuring the information in a format that that is required.

As an example, our practice simply asks for the information by providing a template to fill in. This is usually a spread sheet. We ask suppliers to provide it in this exact format as we know they have the information; it’s just its not assembled in the correct way.

That’s one of the biggest heartache and that’s the thing that we are trying to preach at the moment throughout the SMEs – you

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have the information, you know what to do as far as your job is concerned, but you need to assemble the information in a certain way. This means that when the information is handled and passed on further to the next level, they don’t need to reassemble or check the information again. It can be passed on to the client directly without the need for it to be constantly re-assembled and checked at each stage.

That’s what we are trying to teach the SMEs – whatever information they pass on should be accurate and complete.

So you don’t bog the SMEs down too much with the bigger picture and focus on the individual steps?

You can describe the bigger picture, but as far as the nuts and bolts are concerned, you really just tell them exactly what they need to do. The companies are very capable of doing it. They do not need to spend huge amounts of money. Architectural practices and other professionals had a

lot of concern about software tools costing too much money, but in fact it doesn’t; you can rent the use of software it on a month-by-month basis. It is the learning of the software that is the problem and nobody can force the learning on anybody. This is an initiative that the SME have to take up themselves and make sure they understand and keep up with the latest tools.

For me as far as Level 2 is concerned, the supply chain can transact with 2D drawings and a spreadsheet. It is developing and delivering information for a projects in a consistent and structured way.

There is a further issue that need to be managed; a consistent way the information from manufacturers and suppliers is structured. The reason is that there is no formative standard that allows this structured approach. This need to come sooner than later in the form of a standard.

Can you tell us about the background to digital2all?

digital2all has come about for two main reasons. One, creating an ecosystem where the campaign is future proofed and can sit under the Digital Built Britain agenda and the wider digital economy and secondly to start to consolidate the all the learning and sharing with other groups and campaigns.

Firstly, digital2all is here to harvest value from the Digital Built Britain, construction strategy, the professional strategy, smart cities strategy and this in turn starts to connect to the digital economy. The construction industry needs to become a slick industry like retail or food industry. If you look at these industries, these people are really well organised in terms of their logistics. We can order something from a supermarket and it can be delivered later that afternoon.

There is a digital map that has been set; everything is connected digitally. That is what we want to see in the construction industry.

It might take some years to accomplish, but it will be great accolade. We are starting to

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design buildings virtually and if done properly, all the information is there to program to get the goods and services just in time.

So idea behind digital2all is to discover and engage with technologies that are suitable for the supply chain and start to connect directly to the construction economy and the wider digital economy.

For me the SMEs are the engine of the economy. They need to be fully engaged within the digital agenda and this is the first step that we have taken to make it a wider berth to include not just the architects, designers and contractors, but also include lawyers, procurement, manufacturers and operations. They all need to understand that when something is built, it is built for a very long time and know how we can service and engage with it in an economical and quick way if everything is digitally connected. This is the initial step towards that agenda.

The second reason for the digital2all is a little more current and very important. There is huge value and collateral being generated by various groups and campaigns in this journey. Some groups are ahead of the learning curve while others are starting. What is very visible is that there is little or no connect in sharing this collateral. Each group and campaign are facing the same problems and are reinventing what has already been done. The digital2all initiative is to allow for this sharing to be facilitated.

The connected supply chain is often described as the Holy Grail; is digital2all the stepping-stone to achieving it?

Undoubtedly, it is the Holy Grail. As a simplistic example, if we take Amazon or Alibaba; they are well connected that people can buy or subscribe as sellers and go on to the website and sell their products. These processes are regulate. This ensures buyers receive their items and sellers don’t sell

rubbish. It is all digitally enabled.

digital2all intends to support a technology channel. This will allow new and existing digital technologies to be showcased, but more importantly to reveal their connectivity potential, analytics potential and show how the digital technologies can support the construction industry by enabling seamless transactions. That is indeed the Holy Grail.

Is digital2all a reaction to companies asking for advice beyond Level 2 or is it more about getting ahead of the game?

The SMEs are very slick and can change very quickly. Unfortunately, the message that comes out at government level or a very high level is absolutely meaningless to them. What we are trying to do is take that government strategy and break it down to bite size pieces that are easily understood by the supply chain. They understand what to do, when to do it and how it do it. The idea of digital2all is really trying to make them future proof – like when you buy a smart phone and in two years time it goes past its sell by date and you need to ready for the next generation with all the latest application. What we are trying to do for the construction industry is tell them they have to be ready and future proof them. That is simplest explanation for digital2all – future proofing.

You talked about successful transitional models in the retail and financial sector and how these could be applied to the construction industry. Could you tell me a little more about this?

The retail sector has had a lot of advances in logistics to point of sale and demand management. One of the reasons this is the case, is that the sector understands the value of data and importance of connectivity.

I recently had the privilege to see the

logistics operations of a major retailer. I followed one random transaction. This was an item purchased via the retailers’ website in Grantham at 11am. The order was received by the retailer, payment processed, stock checked in the UK, showing unavailable, demand checked with the manufacturer in Turkey showing as available, notice sent to their logistic management company who found the best route and best courier price, labels printed out at the manufacturer in Turkey. This took 1mins 16sec from the purchaser hitting the Buy Button. The goods were picked up the same day put on an aircraft and arrived in the UK at Stansted and delivered by UPS in Grantham at 8:15 am the following day. There were two humans who physically handled the box. The driver who picked up the package in Turkey and the driver who remove the package from the truck to take it to the door of the purchaser.

It is not magic. The retailer has set up a digital transactional map. This is widely written about and is now a common practice in retail and financial sectors.

The transitional lesson is advocating a digital transactional map, whether at project level or departmental level with the highest priority to seamless connectivity. This is very rarely done in the AECO sector.

The advantages of digitising the construction industry should open up the financial market?

There discussions on going about the missing link between the financial sector and the construction sector. The issue being that the construction sector has to fight to get funding. The reason why there is this issue is the assessment of risk that the financial sector applies compared to the management of risk that the construction sector perceives are leagues apart. What BIM and the digital agenda are bringing to the fore are technologies that are able to visualise the

proposed or existing assets, carry out analyses, play scenarios using gaming technologies all for the benefit for de-risking. The financial sectors risk assessment are based on data and methodologies that are old. They simply need an upgrade.

What we’re trying to do is make sure that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet and that when the financial sector has to fund a construction project, there will of course always be uncertainties in every single project, but what we can say to the financial sector is we’re going to provide data on pretty much real time of basis and reporting is not a month or two months old.

That’s the thing about digitising the construction industry; when things are happening, you can see them happen live. Tools like camera feeds, models and clash detection, etc. are used to ensure that risk is removed out of the construction practice.

The financial sector is very far removed from how they perceive the construction sector – they just think it’s a body of risk. Our message therefore to the financial sector should be that risks is being better managed.

The link with the financial sector is extremely crucial in all of this and hopefully we will try and bridge that gap by making sure that the key people who lend on construction projects will come and sit round a table and talk to us and see how we can facilitate each other.

What is happening is that when you build something efficiently you get more for your money. Adding value. This need to be demonstrated. The whole idea of BIM is predicated around essentially building a building twice. You may ask, how are we going to build it twice? We’re going to build it digitally first and understand where the problems are. The second aspect is that when you build a virtual asset you are also capturing all the

information about the asset. This information can then be used for analysing energy consumption, human flow and usability, carbon analysis etc. All these aspects come with considerable costs over the life of the asset if not done or managed properly.

So it is very useful to understand that BIM and digitisation of the industry is actually facilitating in the de-risking quite a lot, because you’re constructing the asset virtually, testing it, and then building it in reality.

Do you already anticipate any key obstacles digital2all will have to overcome in looking towards Level 3?

I think the biggest obstacle to us as far as digital2all is concerned is making sure that whatever comes from a strategy level can be easily explained and very simple guidance put forward. That was one thing that was missing with Level 2; there wasn’t any guidance provided. The standards were published; the standards are very good standards, they can work very well but you need to present guidance as to how to engage with these.

I think one thing that Level 3 should do is focus on guidance and they should make sure that whatever strategy is developed at high level, it is broken down and filtered into bite size pieces so that people can understand it and have very clear guidance at all levels.

Unfortunately, that is still desperately needed today for Level 2 and one of the things that BIM4SME is doing and will launch in middle of May –June is a set of very simple guidelines for the very small SMEs to engage and disengage from the Level 2 process.

Presumably moving from level 2 to level 3 brings a completely different set of issues from preparing the industry for Level 2. How will digital2all tackle this?

Of course. One thing that is really outside of our control is the advancement of technology; the manufacture of sensors, cameras, measuring equipment, it is all advancing at the rate of knots. What we have to do is make sure that we understand how fast they’re moving and move closely behind them so that we can actually use and adopt that technology.

What we don’t want to do is try and invent something that is not achievable. We’re trying to assemble a built environment, but we want to make sure that we can successfully integrate digital knowhow very easily and the connectivity needs to be very simple. So it’s a push-button type connectivity rather than write thousands and thousands of lines of code so two things can connect. This is the very problem today. If I have to connect two things together then that’s a lot of very difficult work. With the Level 3 proposal, all this should become seamless with the connectivity becoming simple.

What we have to do is educate the people going from Level 2 to Level 3 that both levels can be very similar in terms of when you transact information, it’s just that the information is going to be transacted not semi manually, it will be transacted completely digitally. We need to make sure that they learn that you have to understand that whatever you do within the construction industry is treated like a transaction and you have to make sure that you fulfil this transaction completely.

Let me give an example – if I’m going to a supermarket and take a £10 bottle of wine to the checkout and pay £10 for it, then I have completed that transaction. If I go into the supermarket, take the bottle of wine and leave without paying for it, then that transaction is incomplete. In construction what we’re trying to teach the SME is that whatever people are asking of you, treat every single entity as a transaction, break it down

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to the smallest level. Even if it’s in a contract for example, which says ‘thou shall send a letter out for a demand for payment to your client’ – that is a transaction. In the construction industry the concept of a “complete transaction” is alien, this thinking has to embed for the sector to come into the digital transaction age.

The jump from Level 2 to Level 3 is about educating the masses in the construction sector that everything is now going to become a digital transaction and you’re to make sure that this digital transaction remains very pure. Whether the information is coming from the client down or whether it’s going up to the client, it is a transaction and no matter what you do, it must be complete.

The same could be applied to a signal received from a sensor that the motor is running. The signal received says that a control block has completed its transaction.

That’s the mantra behind the jump from Level 2 to 3.

Do you think we are far away from the tipping point or the point of no return in terms of the take up of BIM by the construction industry?

Yes I think it will start to take effect within about a year or a year and a half’s time. One of my mad scientists at our practice worked out the critical mass. Assuming that there are 2.5 million people employed in the construction industry, he worked a critical

mass number of 672,342, which is now engrained into my brain!

This number basically says that we have to get to this particular point in order to make sure that the industry reaches the point of critical mass. Now that said, it should be easy to get to that critical mass, but we are struggling over here. Why we are struggling over here? Let me explain – we have all the main institutes such as RIBA, CIOB, IEEE, IStructE, etc. etc. that all have small factions that talk about BIM and Level 2, maybe 200 to 300 people engaging in the BIM story. There are quangos, product groups, excellence groups etc. Now if I take the mailing list of all these institutes and mail it out, it gives me about 800,000 people, why this has not been enabled I have no idea. The constant reminder and notice to clients, designers, engineers, procurement, lawyers, supply chain, institute members is the only way.

In order to get those in the industry to work at Level 2, there is a huge amount of educating that needs to be done, and it is not just six people sitting on a floor plate of 170 in a large construction company who know about BIM, it is everyone down to the cleaner who needs to know what it’s all about; it is a digital agenda. That’s not being broadcast very clearly.

There are groups called BIM regions, which are putting the word out there, but their readership and attendances at their

conferences is only the best part of 100 people. You could take 20 BIM regions and that would still only be 2,000 people; that’s not critical mass. The BIM Regions are an awareness campaign. If we want a critical mass, then the BIM Regions must be sensibly funded, join with a good PR Agency and broadcast aggressively. Everyone needs to know about it, but it’s not happening. It’s treated like a very specialist subject; and why so, I have no idea.

Once we reach the tipping point, do you think achieving future levels will come more easily?

Absolutely. The industry has been stuck in the dark for ages for decades. There have been cutting edge projects, but these have been few and far between. For everyone to engage, we have to make sure that we engage with the masses; there is no other way of looking at it. Full immersion.

Once we reach that tipping point, Level 3 and beyond will be a lot easier to work with because one of the problems is the industry is very lethargic and there is a lot of old guard within the construction sector reluctant to change.

Today I wouldn’t preach or I wouldn’t say anything to the older folk. I’m not interested in the CEO’s or MD’s of companies. I want to focus on the next generation because they are the ones who are going to make the change happen. The old guard today are really stuck in their thinking and that is the problem. It is that cultural shift that needs to happen in order to achieve the tipping point. And it’s the youth that will come up and the people who are coming up in the management chain understand the value of digital. It is these people who will start to take hold of the agenda, but that will take time obviously.

So of course the tipping point is one of the key levers for us to make sure that Level 2 is actually successful.

Government infra spending pledge could help reignite UK construction, but local firms must spend on skills and new tech in order to maximise benefit.Global Industry Director of Construction at IFS talks to us about BIM skills shortage and 4D scheduling technology from a construction SMEs perspective.

UK construction output continued its decline in Q4 2015, according to the latest findings of the Office of National Statistics owing partly to a fall in public housing and infrastructure spending. UK construction companies must have therefore cheered the Chancellor’s infrastructure spending commitments in last week’s budget review.

Although an encouraging step to re-energising the sector, the Chancellor’s commitment will not be a quick fix. For these projects to come to fruition, UK construction will still have to resolve a persistent skills shortage, highlighted as a main barrier to regional growth by a recent report by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. Local construction companies can therefore

be a central part of the solution.

Is there an opportunity for small-medium construction companies?

The Government projects include HS3, rail networks and a series of road improvements in the North of England. As the projects begin over the next five years, they will generate significant contracts for construction companies and boost regional development.

However, in order to realise these opportunities, local construction companies will have to invest in plugging their BIM skills shortage and accelerating the adoption of 4D scheduling technology reaping efficiency benefits and taking ownership of their resource planning processes. Multinational corporations (MNCs) are already undertaking major pushes in both of these areas, so this will be essential to remaining competitive. How can SMEs become the best contenders? While a number of consultancies and

multinational construction companies have the capacity to implement long-term Building Information Modelling (BIM) in practice, many smaller business see this as a hurdle and a box-ticking exercise, rather than focusing on the significant long-term benefits BIM will bring. This is particularly important in the context of the budget review. Most of the announced projects are incredibly large-scale which makes it very difficult for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to become involved. In order to maximise their chances, they should use their size to their advantage and build nimble and forward-looking teams. The lowered business rates announced by the Chancellor also present an incentive for SMEs to make these decisions sooner rather than later.

Across the industry, it is difficult to find people able to navigate BIM and those who currently can, have great leverage in the job market. The industry has to address a lingering perception gap here, as BIM remains a poorly understood term and one mainly associated with flashy visualisation

Re-igniting the construction sector

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tools. That does not do justice to the real and lasting value that it yields to a business’ bottom-line in harnessing the power of information. Businesses can implement a more integrated, modern set of business processes and systems. Specifically, BIM pools all of the project’s information at the same place and presents it in a similar fashion to all actors involved. This not only improves coherence, communication and cooperation among the team but also reduces errors and time-consuming rework that are common at early stages. On that basis, local companies should therefore opt for a far-sighted strategy when it comes to BIM and recruit IT specialists with relevant skills on a long-term basis, acknowledging that BIM will be essential in remaining competitive in the years to come.

This forward thinking can already be seen with the UK government prioritising BIM as part of its Digital Britain initiative. As a result we are increasingly seeing the term BIM appear in job titles at many construction firms and local companies should make sure they are engaged

in these energies, particularly as skills pools tend to cluster in business centres such as London. As they tend to hire and train their personnel locally, SMEs have a vested interest in the success of schemes that enrich the talent pool of their communities and regions. Backing these schemes will also improve their credibility as regional stakeholders which may in turn boost their chances and candidacy for local projects.

Maximise workforce efficiency with 4D scheduling technologyWith 4D scheduling technology - the linking of individual 3D CAD components or assemblies with time or schedule-related information - construction businesses can ensure material production and delivery are matched exactly to construction project timelines. This process is further streamlined by 3D printing technology, which enables parts of buildings to be constructed off-site. Historically, such ‘detailed’ scheduling was done on spreadsheets and there is now an opportunity to automate and streamline this process through a resource planning platform. This ensures

that resource usage is maximised and that production schedules match construction project timelines. This is critical given the incoming flurry of projects that companies will have to keep abreast of. This type of technology enables companies to model potential new projects and scale accordingly – a particular challenge for small and medium-sized businesses which may have never experienced a busier pipeline. Local construction companies should welcome the spending promises made by the Chancellor. They should not presume, however, that they will naturally benefit from the plans to increase investment in key projects. Instead, they should reciprocate with a few commitments of their own. Namely, build richer ties with their ecosystems, develop a BIM talent pool that their larger competitors have traditionally monopolised and modernize their planning processes with a tailored 4D software solution.

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Which do you want first, the good news or the bad news?

Well the bad news, as you may know, is that according to data from the Office of National Statistics, UK construction output took everyone by surprise by falling 0.2% in January, compared to December, when analyst were predicting a rise of 0.3%.

Further statistics from Markit/CIPS UK Construction Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), indicated that growth in Britain’s construction industry unexpectedly dipped to a 10-month low in February.

It also revealed that optimism among construction companies regarding business activity for the year ahead fell to its lowest level since December 2014.But fear not…now for the good news!

George Osbourne announced mid-March that the Government is to accelerate spending by pumping billions into the construction of new roads, railways and housing so the economy doesn’t stagnate.

He lists loads of exciting projects across the UK, with quite a bit of emphasis on creating his much talked about Northern Powerhouse.

Whether you’re a ‘glass half full or half empty’ type will dictate whether you are concerned about the slow down or excited by George’s news. Either way both will probably have an impact on cashflow.

For those that have plenty of work on, the slowdown may have little effect on the volume of business in the

short term. However many of those companies may be subcontracting for the bigger firms who are most likely to be the first to feel the pinch.

If they do, it will inevitably lead to them hanging on to their cash a bit longer, leading to a domino effect all the way down the line with the squeeze getting greater and greater, depending on your position in the ‘pecking order’.

It doesn’t make those smaller companies any less successful, it just means it’s taking longer to be paid for the work they have been asked to do. This is compounded by the fact that SMEs in the construction industry are second only to the manufacturing sector in having the most unpaid outstanding billing, according to research by the Asset Based Finance Association.

Furthermore, when it comes to payment times, construction companies are treated the worst, having to wait an average of 107 days before their billing is settled. Put these factors together and it results in an ever-increasing strain on cashflow.

One solution is to go to the bank to arrange or increase your overdraft limit – ‘blood and stone’ come to mind.Another is to make the most of your assets, and by that we mean your outstanding billing, whether it is ‘Uncertified Applications for Payment’ or invoices.

By arranging an invoice finance facility these ‘assets’ can be turned into cash the next day. If you have earned it, why should you have to wait an average of 107 days to get paid? This will ensure problems being experienced ‘up the

line’ will have less impact on you.On the other hand, experience tells us that the extra work planned for the sector by the Chancellor could also put a strain on cashflow.

We have worked with many companies that have been asked to tender for a large project who have seriously considered turning it down because they could not afford to take it on.

That’s because they would have to recruit extra staff and purchase the materials to carry out the contract. With cashflow already tight it looked like a non-starter.

At Ultimate Finance we believe that successful companies winning new contracts should not be held back because they are being made to wait three months or more to be paid for a job they have completed successfully.

By using an invoice finance facility the outstanding billing can be turned into cash almost as soon as they are issued which means they can tender for the contracts and not worry about the consequences if they win them.

If you haven’t already done so, it would be worthwhile reviewing your working capital position and calculate the potential value to be released in outstanding billing. Then just think about how the company could benefit, and grow, if they were all paid now.

Ultimate Finance has offices across the UK and further information is available at http://www.ultimatefinance.co.uk/industry-finance/construction-finance

Good news or bad? Both can have a significant impact on cashflowRegional director of Ultimate Construction Finance, Euan Bell, suggests companies should turn outstanding billings in to cash rather than waiting months for them to be paid.

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WWW.BAFE.ORG.UK

DON’T GAMBLE WITH YOUR FIRE RISK ASSESSMENT!

Under the provisions of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the Duty Holder or Responsible Person for a building is required to make a Fire Risk Assessment to clarify the fire precautions necessary to ensure the safety of staff, customers and property.

At present there are no adequate means to ensure the competence and reliability of a company commissioned to carry this out.

BAFE scheme ‘Life Safety Fire Risk Assessment SP205’ has been developed specifically to address this situation, and will provide reassurance to the Responsible Person that they are doing everything possible to meet their obligations.

If you are responsible for a business premises, the law requires that you have a fire risk assessment.

To find competent providers, you need BAFE.

Don’t leave everything to chance. Make sure that your suppliers are registered with BAFE.

info@bafe.org.uk0844 335 0897

Are you struggling to find time in your busy schedule to keep up with changing demands and developments in Scotland’s construction industry? Would you like to learn more about the use of new technology, policy & regulatory updates and tackling the growing skills shortage?

Join leading figures in the industry at RICS annual QS and Construction Conference for an opportunity to debate, solve and share best practice examples on topics, such as increased diversity in the construction sector and meeting the future demands for infrastructure.

Highlights of the conference include:• Technical sessions providing an overview of complex issues such

as procurement, construction contracts and dispute resolution

• Strategies to future-proof your business in a changing market place and address the skills shortage

• Guidance on how to ensure that your staff are ready and prepared for BIM.

Attend this conference to gain crucial insights to achieve business success in today’s market place.

RICS QS and Construction Conference28 April 2016, Glasgow

See the full list of topics and speakers: rics.org/scotlandqs

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