Previous Posts

Archives

Follow us!

Saturday, March 10, 2012

MANAGEMENT TOOLS, BIM AND THE "BUILDER"

Wednesday's Financial Times contained an interesting book review by Morgan Witzel titled a "A plain-speaking guide to modern management". The review starts off with:

"Key performance indicators. Balanced scorecard. Customer relationship management. Dynamic resource management. Most of us know these management tools and many of us use them every week, even every day.

But how effective are we at using them? Not very according to consultants Jeremy Hope and Steve Player. They estimate that these tools deliver what they promise and yield real benefit to companies in only about 30% of cases. The rest of the time, they say, we are merely spinning our wheels - or going into reverse".

Interestingly enough, on Thursday, I met with the 46 year old Vice President of one of the nations larger general contracting firms - a man whom I have known for more than a few years. Within that discussion, the VP lamented that, while there were many people actively embracing new technology, such as BIM, there often seemed to be a greater focus on working the technology to produce loads of data than on harnessing the technology (and its outputs) to produce positive results in the field. After all, says the self-described "builder", the objective is really getting the project BUILT and if the data does not effectively aid that then the effort spent in generating the data is wasted.

I hear a lot of hype about BIM and, while I am great believer in its benefits as a whole-of-life tool, I am afraid that what I actually see more often than not is more "smoke and mirrors" - glitter if you like - than substance / really useful output to help the projects succeed. I suspect that what Messers Hope and Player say about management tools generally applies equally to construction….."these tools deliver what they promise and yield real benefit to companies in only about 30% of cases. The rest of the time …. we are merely spinning our wheels - or going into reverse".

posted by The QS 0 Comments

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

SIGNS OF LIFE

Over the last three weeks there has been a solid trail of good news for the US economy.

The Conference Board reported that its Consumer Confidence Index®, rose to 70.8, up from 61.5 in January, while its Present Situation Index increased to 45.0 from 38.8. The Expectations Index rose to 88.0 from 76.7 in January.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that its “all items index” has risen 2.9 percent over the last 12 months, while the  index for “all items less food and energy” had risen 2.3 percent, its  largest 12-month increase since September 2008. Interesting to note the impact on the figures of excluding food and energy!

Estimates released jointly by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, indicated that sales of new single-family houses in January 2012 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 321,000, which is 3.5 percent (±17.6%)* above the

January 2011 estimate of 310,000 and which represents a supply of only 5.6 months even at the current (very low) sales rate.

All good news!

All good news except perhaps for one group – those in the construction industry. Rider Levett Bucknall continues to see that general contractors, sub-contractors and suppliers continue to experience difficulty in passing on cost increases to the construction consumer….which is not a situation that can last indefinitely.

posted by The QS 0 Comments