What Working Group 11 calls for: - CIB task force to pioneer productivity revolution

A 30% reduction in the cost of construction is achievable, according to a report from the Construction Industry Board's Working Group 11, which was set up to examine how it might be done in the wake of the Latham Report.

The report Towards a 30% productivity improvement in construction, published last week, says that the solutions are known - if sometimes only to a few.

Group chairman, Peter Alden of Nuclear Electric, said: "The difficulty is to transmit the known solutions to the industry. The structure of the industry is so diverse: how do we get people to work together so they can learn the solutions?"

The CIB has set up a task force to try and solve this problem. David Deas of the CIB and vice chairman of the task force, said: "We need to identify agencies who can carry out research and/or implement it. We need to learn from other industries and look at how they benchmarked themselves against the competition. We need to enhance the spread of best practice and find ways of doing that."

The report identifies total quality management systems as a way of improving quality and ensuring it is continually reviewed.

Benchmarking is seen as the way for a company to prove to a client that it has bettered its performance. The offshore industry's CRINE (Cost Reduction In the New Era) initiative is seen as a key example of how costs can be reduced and measured. The report also emphasised the need to keep trained and experienced managers and craftsmen in the industry.

n Comment-page 16 n Change the industry culture.

n Introduce clear, concise and comprehensive standards of briefing.

n Ensure design and construction processes work as one.

n Foster teamwork and partnership.

n Rationalise project structures.

n Establish industry standards for IT.

n Make quality the main requirement of all elements of the design and construction process.

n Improve the understanding and effective application of risk management techniques.

n Health and safety should be part of the cost-benefit analysis.

n Develop standard products, components and processes.

n Prefabrication and preassembly should be part of design considerations.

n Improve designers' knowledge and understanding of the performances of components and materials.

n Designers need urgently to embrace new technologies.

n Life cycles and all-life costs of buildings and their fittings must be a principal part of design and maintenance considerations.

n Quality and value must not be ignored in the pursuit of the lowest price.

n The management experience of buildings and projects, and the associated costs, should be constantly fed back to, and adopted by, designers in new designs.

n Benchmarking must be used to measure improvements of practice and productivity.

n Shared construction experience must be given to trainees during their education.

n Focus research and innovation; integrate current research projects; improve information flow; invest in implementation.

n Establish public-relations channel; focus on productivity gains, highlighting successes.