roundtable


construction operational building control purposes.


Barker remarked: “We have seen nothing yet. The next 15-20 years will blow our minds, and we have got to be ready for it.”


Driscoll highlighted that the construction sector was comprised 99% of SMEs, often single-owner businesses without the funds to invest in BIM. “Asking them to get on board with a technology revolution is tough to achieve cohesively, but necessity is the mother of all invention and as competitive edge becomes the norm todays innovation will soon become the norm.”


Also, clients often asked for BIM but were not always happy with its cost, or didn’t understand its true value to them. “The business case is simple. The whole life cost of a building is 10% construction, 80% operation and 10% demolition – so obviously you can use BIM to manage down the 80%.”


John Lohan and Driscoll felt not enough was spent on design, with BIM or not, because getting a proposed building over the buyable line was the initial objective. Insufficient design was done pre-construction, consequently additional design work was done during construction, and costs went up as problems were ironed out.


Savage: “That’s the whole point. The way our sector is set up is not focused on that 80%; and, FM is the Cinderella of our sector to some degree.


“So, how do we get to a situation where everyone is shining the right light on beneficial technology? It’s not just energy performance management, it’s about flexibility, wellbeing, productivity etc and the opportunities to commercialise some of the data.


“What’s going to force the issue here; to create the flux that creates the realignment that changes the model?”


Lohan highlighted loss of skills. “Hundreds of thousands are leaving the industry and not being replaced. Brexit will magnify the issue.


“We should be engineering and designing more, and looking carefully at how we de-skill the industry which is heavily craft- based.”


He exampled an African project where modular construction had delivered cost and time certainty, by using low-skilled but safety-oriented people and ‘plug and play’ IKEA-like techniques.


While the design process had progressed from drawing boards to 3D BIM, the development sector overall was still too focused on deskbound employees.


Driscoll: “Technology is changing far


faster than generational churn and the generational tech divide is moving upwards rapidly and currently sits in the 35-54 yr old range.”


Can we make the industry and cultural changes required?


The industry is beset with time-consuming planning, engineering and building regulations and rules-based professional disciplines said Lohan. An industry mindset change was required, with workplace intelligence being compliantly codified and integrated into the design process, to add value and grasp radical opportunities.


Too many companies were under-utilising the full potential of their built facilities, through poor understanding of business needs leading to inadequate design.


Advanced technology is available, but traditional cultural aspects – companies built like castles with IT firewalls and everyone cocooned at their workstations ready for systemised action – needed to change. Outside of work, people are free to use technology as they wish, he noted.


Savage also mentioned how the legal and insurance sectors currently adopted a silo mentality within the hierarchies of building design and construction, making it more difficult to create a contractual environment that genuinely facilitates a collaborative partnering ethos. “Technology is the enabler, but what is preventing the change happening?”


Driscoll noted the cultural change among employees with their requirement of a ‘whole-life package.’ “Job roles today facilitate a working lifestyle not simply an income, but intuitive IT familiarity is now an expected norm within an employment context.”


Gray: “Telecoms needs to catch up too. We (CityFibre) are bringing better Internet to towns and cities, but working from home is still non-achievable in most of rural Britain.”


What about new tech beyond fibre – LiFi and 5G for instance?” asked Savage. 5G uses shorter range transmitter technology and is “an astonishing step-up “ while LiFi uses a building’s lighting frequency as a communication channel. Short-range technology could be more secure and reduce installation costs.


Laubscher noted that office blocks, largely based on metallic core construction, were not conducive to wireless signal strengths. Seamless transition between external and internal communication would be challenging.


Gray: “We always say fibre will be your last telecoms installation. We feel physical infrastructural cabling will always be superior to wireless technology.”


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – SOLENT & SOUTH COAST – DECEMBER 16/JANUARY 17


Jeffers and Allan raised the issue of data security within multi-tenanted buildings and inter-linked cyber environments.


Jeffers opened the question: “Who is responsible for protecting data – the building’s owner, developer, the tenant whose firewall is breached?”


Savage agreed that smart technology opened up a Pandora’s Box of legal quandaries regarding data ownership, access, and its use for commercial gain. “A huge set of legal issues is coming down the road, as more big data is captured and disseminated. The law will have to play catch-up fairly fast.


“Just as people don’t know what technology will be beyond fibre, we can only spot the outlines of the future legal issues, but they will be there.”


Accommodating ‘gig’ employees that ‘drop-in’ to work


Laurie queried the successful delivery and management of space to suit transient millennials who often viewed work as “a gig or a tour of duty of two to three years”. How can workspaces integrate with such mindsets, attracting and retaining talent while creating beneficial working cultures and communities?


The workforce attention and retention answer lay in agile technological business connectivity and communicative collaboration with colleagues Allan stated. “Home-working can isolate. Young people want to participate within businesses. They want a working environment where they can enjoy their lifestyle, which is not 9-5. They are not tied into the cultural setting that most of us are used to.”


“It is having a huge bearing on how businesses operate and use their buildings. And it has only just started.”


Barker agreed with Allan – an agile working culture and workspace flexibility was key. “You may need 100 workstations, but you need to provide something else too – areas to physically meet and collaborate, which people working from home cannot have.”


Savage: “The business model will become more mixed estate.” Large corporates were already taking serviced office space to reduce their footprint and provide inbuilt flexibility, underpinned by agile working policies for employees. “People don’t want to go to the same space every day.”


Continued overleaf ... businessmag.co.uk


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