Blossom Street Features in New Productivity Measurement Guide

Morrisroe Group CEO Brian Morrisroe is a member of a Productivity Taskforce led by British Land and Bethe Business. The Taskforce was set up around a year ago to look at productivity in the construction sector. Other property and construction firms involved in this initiative include British Land, Brydon Wood, Cast, GPE, Landsec, Lendlease, Mace Group, Sir Robert McAlpine, Skanska and SOM.

‍

Pilot Projects

Blossom Street (also known as Norton Folgate) was one of the two contrasting pilot projects selected by the Taskforce to support wider research and investigations into productivity measurement. It provided an example of a traditionally built, in situ build process. The other pilot project was a Land Securities development called The Forge (delivered by Sir Robert McAlpine and MACE), which provided a contrasting build method and process involving offsite and modular construction.

A key objective was to learn more about onsite data collection techniques and how these can be usefully and practically implemented on a live site. Four productivity metrics were collected as part of the study:

• Work package productivity (£ earned/hours worked – monthly)
• Labour productivity (hours worked/volume of concrete placed m³ – daily)
• Multifactor productivity (£ earned/volume of concrete placed m³ – monthly)
• Floor cycle times (days to complete works per floor level)

Once data was collected, the project team needed to consider what insights could be drawn and what actions could be taken to improve productivity performance. Of the four productivity metrics measured, floor cycle times were shown to be the most effective at identifying productivity insights that could be readily acted upon.

‍

Practical Guidance

It was an interesting and challenging exercise, and the Blossom Street project team were able to derive some useful insights, which have now been incorporated into a case study for a recently published productivity measurement guide.

This guide entitled “Measuring Site Productivity: A Seven-Step Framework for Success” provides practical guidance on how a construction site improvement programme can be planned, developed and implemented.

"Like much of the UK economy, the construction industry is facing a perfect storm of price rises and supply chain challenges. This makes finding ways to increase efficiency, improve performance and enhance productivity a top priority for every business," said Nigel Webb, Head of Development at British Land and Chair of the Construction Productivity Taskforce.

"This framework provides practical, real-world guidance on how construction sites can be improved through careful planning, development and implementation. My hope is that every major contributor to the construction industry will take this framework into the field so that we might begin building a stronger sector."

Neil Pennell, Head of Design Innovation and Property Solutions at Landsec commented: "Improving productivity is the key to driving transformational change in the construction sector. Higher productivity reduces costs, increases production and enables the most effective use of available resources which is at the heart of sustainable construction.

"To be able to improve, it is important first to measure and compare. This framework, with its data to dashboard focus, provides a great starting point for the industry to begin to standardise the process of measuring site construction productivity."

‍

Key Findings

Findings from the pilot case studies suggest that productivity could be significantly enhanced with:

• Increased use of offsite manufacturing and standardised design solutions
• Increased use of automation
• Targeted and considered use of digital technologies
• Improved collaboration, planning and logistics management
• Improved training and upskilling
• Reduced waste

‍

The research is very clear – businesses that measure their performance are more likely to improve productivity and enhance their profitability. I’m excited to bring the insight generated from this framework to other sectors which can in turn be inspired by it.

 Anthony Impey, CEO of Be the Business

‍

Measuring Construction Site Productivity Framework

The full publication is available here. As Katy Dowding, pilot project sponsor and Executive Vice President at Skanska UK, noted: "This document is designed not to sit in desk drawers, but to be put to work, in service of a higher performing sector. While we strive for improved productivity on our sites, we hope to see further editions of the document produced as the industry evolves and we gather evidence from our sites."