The pilot phase of the Construction Innovation Hub’s Value Toolkit has been launched with 20 early adopters including Arup, Mace, Mott MacDonald, and Morgan Sindall signing up to deploy it on live projects and programmes over the next six months.
The government-backed toolkit, which was developed in collaboration with more than 200 organisations within the industry, aims to drive better social, environmental, and economic outcomes from investment in the built environment.
Construction Innovation Hub impact director for value, Ron Lang said: “A lack of consistency in how value-based decision-making is approached has led to substantial gaps between what organisations set out to achieve and what they end up delivering in the built environment sector.
“The Value Toolkit addresses this persistent challenge by providing an intuitive, user-friendly process and suite of tools to support organisations of all sizes to make and implement value-based decisions.”
Directly supporting key policy objectives common to both the Government’s Construction Playbook and the CLC Roadmap to Recovery, the Value Toolkit will allow policymakers and clients to make informed decisions at every stage of the project lifecycle.
Construction Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan said: “The construction industry is an invaluable asset to the UK’s economy, and we are fully committed to supporting its growth and development.
“Bringing together knowledge from over 200 experts from across government and industry, this toolkit will make it easier to determine the social and environmental benefits of the decisions made by firms in the construction sector, helping it continue its drive to cut emissions and build back better from the pandemic.”
The pilot phase, which will run over the next six months, will see the Value Toolkit’s process and suite of tools put through a rigorous course of testing with clients and practitioners before the final industry-wide version is unveiled later in the year.
Feedback and insights received during the pilot will be used to fine-tune the Value Toolkit to ensure that, when the final version is launched, it delivers maximum benefit for as wide a range of clients as possible.
“I would urge clients and policymakers to use the next few months to explore the pilot version of the Value Toolkit,” said Lang. “Thanks to the enthusiasm, time and expertise we’ve received from experts across industry, a lasting shift towards value-based decision making is closer than ever.”
Tom Boland, global head of digitalisation at construction software company, Zutec believes that the Value Toolkit pilot is a big wake-up call to clients and contractors who don’t have a digital transformation strategy or innovation plan.
“This is a seismic shift which will move the sector from being cost-focused to value-driven to society’s benefit,” said Boland.
“The Value Toolkit will drive a new culture of transparency, openness and accountability. When this is coupled with a rigorous approach to metrics in assessing success, robust data management will be a lynchpin component of successful projects. Those contractors and clients that best harness data will thus have a significant competitive advantage. This needs to be a wake-up call to those clients/contractors without a digital transformation strategy or innovation plan, as they will be left behind. Subbies should also expect that they will win contracts in part because of their digital adeptness.”
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