{"id":597259,"date":"2023-01-13T14:48:54","date_gmt":"2023-01-13T20:48:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/13\/major-project-plans-a-struggle-due-to-industrys-failure-to-modernise\/"},"modified":"2023-01-13T14:48:54","modified_gmt":"2023-01-13T20:48:54","slug":"major-project-plans-a-struggle-due-to-industrys-failure-to-modernise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/13\/major-project-plans-a-struggle-due-to-industrys-failure-to-modernise\/","title":{"rendered":"Major project plans \u2018a struggle\u2019 due to industry\u2019s failure to modernise"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

National infrastructure goals are being undermined by the construction sector\u2019s reluctance to modernise, a leading industry figure has warned.<\/p>\n

Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) chief executive Nick Smallwood said the industry had not changed in 40 years and actively resisted the adoption of new technologies as it was \u201cpaid the revenue for doing it the long way\u201d.<\/p>\n

Addressing a meeting of the House of Lords\u2019 Built Environment Committee, he warned that the ambition behind the government\u2019s National Infrastructure Strategy<\/a> and associated \u00a3650bn pipeline<\/a> of work may fail to materialise because of a lack of skills and capacity in the sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we will struggle to deliver that unless we have two fundamental shifts,\u201d he told peers. \u201cOne is that we need to invite and invest more into the construction sector, to grow that population and community with the right skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd secondly, those skills need to change because the industry needs to change, it needs to modernise.\u201d<\/p>\n

The IPA, which reports to the Treasury and Cabinet Office, is described as the government\u2019s centre of expertise for infrastructure and major projects.<\/p>\n

Smallwood said that after working for 38 years in the oil and gas sectors, when he took up his current role he found that the construction sector \u201clooked the same\u201d as it did four decades ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just has not modernised,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd yet you look at automotive, aeronautical or the oil and gas world, they\u2019ve moved on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue was not an absence of technology, he added. \u201cDigitalisation and technology is already in front of us, available and mature, that is not being used in UK construction,\u201d said Smallwood.<\/p>\n

He rejected a suggestion from committee chair Lord Daniel Moylan that this was partly due to a lack of available capital in the industry, saying companies were financially incentivised to continue using inefficient methods.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey get paid the revenue to do it the long way rather than using technology to take hours and time out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He expressed similar sentiments\u00a0in a 2020 interview with Construction News<\/em><\/a> when he highlighted the widespread use of 5D computer-aided design (CAD) \u2013 a model that incorporates planning and materials availability as two extra dimensions \u2013 in the energy sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve yet to see that kind of technology on UK [construction] projects. There are many technologies that aren\u2019t cutting-edge \u2013 they\u2019ve been around for two to five years \u2013 and I think we really need to step up and use them,\u201d he said at the time.<\/p>\n

Smallwood also previously warned<\/a> that a lack of specialist labour in the sector posed a \u201chuge challenge\u201d for the delivery of major infrastructure schemes.<\/p>\n

At the committee meeting this week, he said a digitalisation infrastructure guide was available from the government, and a suite of best-practice guides had been published.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can tell you there are pockets and seeds of excellence now appearing,\u201d he told peers.<\/p>\n

One of these was at Hinkley Point C, although as a private scheme the power plant was not one of the projects in the IPA\u2019s portfolio.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are leading the way now on using a data lake [centralised information repository] and digital technologies to really drive their performance on that project, not only in the build phase but also in how they\u2019re going to commission, operate and start up that asset, so there\u2019s huge opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Kerry Lorimer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

National infrastructure goals are being undermined by the construction sector\u2019s reluctance to modernise, a leading industry figure has warned. Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) chief executive Nick Smallwood said the industry had not changed in 40 years and actively resisted the adoption of new technologies as it was \u201cpaid the revenue for doing it the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":597260,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182,1094],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-597259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-major","8":"category-project"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}