STANDARDISATION MEANS LESS WASTE

Standardisation can be divided into two areas: the standardisation of components within a one-off building, and standard designs, products and components used for a range of buildings with repeat features.

In the UK, the general building, or at least design culture, resists standardisation, because it is thought to produce boring, repetitive buildings. Other countries seem to be able to cope with this problem quite happily.

'In the US, you will find many standard components in offices, for example, nearly all toilet partitions are the same. In the UK, toilets and bathrooms are often seen by the architects as an opportunity to show off their design skills and we've gone along with that. But we should improve our standardisation of components,' said Greycoat's Strickland.

High UK specifications are not helping the move towards standardisation, as G&T's Stoker observes: 'In the US, you can get a standard fan coil unit. We should be able to just order a fan coil from a catalogue. But you can't use a US fan coil here as our specifications are higher from an engineering point of view - much higher than the US and Europe.'

High specifications and the perceived unwillingness to 'compromise' the aesthetic design seem to dictate an uphill struggle for the proponents of standardisation. However, some influential clients are slowly trying to change this.

BAA chief executive, Sir Peter Egan, raised a few hackles when he went even further that Latham's call for a 30% cut in the cost of construction - Egan wants a staggering 50% reduction.

BAA's Graham Matthews explained the policy: 'We have a target of 50% standardisation in our buildings for design and/or components. It doesn't mean all our buildings will look the same. We just want to look at every part of the building and ask ourselves, what can we standardise?'

BAA's airports have grown up incrementally and a wide portfolio of buildings often forces it to stock a wide range of components, which is expensive. For its new buildings, BAA carefully examines how they are put together and tries to decide what the implications are for future maintenance costs.

'The problem is there are too many manufacturers making different versions of the same product. In the US, there are de-facto standards for doors, light fittings and so on - you just get them automatically unless you specify otherwise. What we want to do is establish fewer suppliers and work with them to set specific targets,' said Matthews.

The idea is that once a supplier chain is set up, work can start on improvements to decrease lead times and costs and increase reliability and delivery times. What BAA wants is 'JIT' - just in time delivery that avoids the storage of a buffer stock.

'What we are doing is incrementally led. We are testing it out on a limited number of projects. It is going to take time and will only work if all our suppliers are up to speed with us,' said Matthews.

'We also have to improve the industry's logistics and distribution. Why is that retailers can get a can of beans onto the shelf at the right time, without a problem but we can't seem to get plasterboard on site without damaging it? Maybe there isn't the vested interest to drive it as there is in the car and retailing industry. But any contractor with a good logistic and distribution capability would win more work. The construction industry has missed the point. It isn't about squeezing profits and margins - it's about cutting out waste.'