Pandemic has helped accelerate construction industry change

As the UK enters the one-year anniversary of the first national lockdown due to Covid-19, it is difficult to think of immediate positives to reflect on over the past year.

However, one does stand out to me as it is clear that the advancement of technology in an industry, typically perceived as being slow to adapt, has been something to cheer about.

With greater acceptance that going digital is the way forward, a spotlight has been shone on how the engineering and construction industry deliver projects – with a systems-based approach to the built infrastructure environment, showing that it has real potential.

If there is a lack of integration on any project, big or small, it can lead to serious issues that will only come to light during the commissioning phase, which can push a project over budget and behind schedule.

A well-known example of this situation is Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport. It was scheduled to open in 2012, but because of 150,000 issues, as reported by the BBC, the opening was delayed to October 2020.

Inadequate planning and the inability to integrate systems on a project is costly. The maintenance on the airport, for example, is €16M per month.

As the industry strives to catch up digitally, there are plenty of reasons for reconsidering a systems approach to engineering design and construction.

A number of advancements have been made to manufacturing techniques, such as building information modeling (BIM), off-site manufacturing, and embedded sensors – all of which are becoming more widely used.

The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) recently asked Andrew McNaughton, chair of the Review Steering Group, to investigate whether a systems-focused approach could improve project delivery, as well as the effect that this approach would have on infrastructure projects.

In his review, McNaugton revealed enormous support from major stakeholders, both private and public, for a much greater use of systems in how the infrastructure industry delivers complex projects.

A systems approach, he argued, could provide better outcomes for owners and users and help the sector to make progress with its great strategic challenges.
“The current approach to delivering complex infrastructure projects has seen a constant struggle to deal with projects that require complex systems to be planned, delivered, and, most importantly, integrated,” the ICE report said.

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