Dear Construction Industry.
I am writing to you as a 29 year-old man, which puts me right in the heart of Generation Y.
I am doing so now, in 2015, because I believe the next 10 years up to 2025 are critical for our industry.
In fact I’d go as far to say as they are the most critical 10 years for our industry
since the Industrial Revolution.
I am writing because I care. I am writing for the sake of my generation and the generations
that are going to follow me.
I am doing so because for the next 10 years we have two options.
Under Option One we can adopt BIM.
Now I’m not just saying that because I’m some crazed evangelist that’s like “Yeah,
BIM is going to save the world” because it’s not. That’s not the case.
Yes I love a bit of 3D modelling, I love a common data environment, I love structured
data, I can’t get enough of it, I do it at the weekends. It’s great.
But that’s not the reason it’s in the Construction Strategy – that’s certainly
not the reason it’s in the UK Construction 2025 report – and it’s not the reason
that me and so many other people are passionate about BIM.
It’s there because BIM is the opportunity; it’s the real chance we have now to change our industry.
Because as soon as you try to adopt BIM, you end-up addressing numerous other issues and
challenges that we face, that have dogged this industry for years.
As soon as you try and adopt BIM, you completely re-consider your client’s brief, you completely
re-consider your procurement approach, the way you currently transfer risk down your
supply chain, the way you currently structure information, the whole purpose, the whole
reason for why your building the built asset you’re trying to build in this particular
case in the first place.
The whole thing goes out the window. BIM forces us to consider our actions. To consider, not
just the output and how cheaply and quickly we can build it, but the outcome, for the
people, for the businesses, for the real world out there that we’re trying to influence, live our lives in.
It enables us to provide a better built environment for every other industry sector out there.
We can improve our value proposition, whilst making our cost base leaner and more efficient.
So we go from making money with a little ‘m’ – that juicy 1% that every other sector
out there must be really envious of construction for – to making money with a capital M.
Suddenly daunting, ludicrous targets in the UK Construction 2025 Report, seem easy.
Seem the easiest thing in the world to achieve.
But it’s hard.
It requires people changing. Changing their behaviour. Being compelled enough to change
their behaviour and change the behaviour of other people in their businesses and the businesses
that they run.
It requires people who are currently making money out of the current
arrangements – that whole 1% I mentioned – to change and try something new, to make
a little bit more money. And that’s hard.
Of course if it’s just too hard, we can just forget about it, we can just leave it,
just forget about it and we can do Option Two. Option Two is a heck of a lot easier
believe me. It’s much easier than Option One. And you can get up tomorrow and you can
do the same thing you did today, and you can do it on Friday as well, you can do it on
Monday next week and you can do it all next week. And then the months will go by and the
years will go by. And 2025 will roll around, like 2016 rolled around and we’ll be in
the same place doing the same thing.
The real reason for my letter is because I have experienced Option Two.
I remember working as a Design Manager for a main contractor and I had a really good
job, I really enjoyed my job, I worked with some really great people. But I also had some
really, really awful experiences that really showed the construction industry at its worst.
And it was from all sides, from all parties not just us as the main contractor, as tends
to normally be the case. We get a lot of bad press.
I realised that during that period I was just surfing the current. I was surfing the current,
to keep up with the people around me, to play the game, to get ahead.
I realised that the company I was working in, the companies we were working with and
our competitors were all doing the same thing.
They'd become filled with professionals – professionals – who were expert in surfing the current.
Of getting through that process and coming out at the end of it, and if they’re lucky,
coming away with 1% and getting a pat on the back and going to the
construction industry award dos and all the rest of it, with that juicy 1%.
With the kind of sub-standard built environment. With the mediocre client satisfaction scores.
With the defects list that comes with every single job the construction industry delivers,
as if that’s a good thing.
I realised at that time that I was becoming professional in the same thing – and I mean
I was becoming professional in the same thing – I was becoming an expert in doing that;
in delivering 1% at the end of the day. In playing the same game that everyone has played
for the last 70 years, to deliver the same thing. And it’s no wonder you can see that
– as we heard earlier – the construction industry doesn’t change, it doesn’t change
over a long period of time.
Now below the surface, I think human beings are all the same. We have our personalities
and things, but underneath the surface we’re all the same, we feel the same things, the
same emotions. And I can guarantee you that if I felt that way from that experience I
had of Option Two, other people out there right now, really good people, are feeling the same way.
Under Option Two we bring people in late, we transfer risk, we work in silos, we don’t
structure information, we don’t listen to our clients, we build in defects, we actually
kill people on our construction sites in 2015. People die, all the time. It’s getting better,
it’s much better than it was, but people still don’t go home at the end of the day.
My letter tonight is not just to the construction industry, it’s actually copied to the world.
Because construction touches and enables every other industry out there. Every person that’s
ever set foot in a building has been touched by the construction industry.
So if we carry on and we go with Option Two, we saddle the rest of the world with the same
old performance, the same old built environment we’ve had for the last 70 years.
We saddle Generation Y with it, we saddle Generation Z with it, and the generation after that.
I don’t know what the generation after that is called because some idiot started this
alphabetical numbering system at X.
Rob asked me tonight to answer the question of “Why BIM?” from a Generation Y perspective,
probably I’d argue (obviously I am biased) but the generation with the most to gain or
lose from the next 10 years, I think our generation are pivotal for the next 10 years.
The answer to "Why BIM?" for me has never been more compelling because the alternative is Option Two.
Option Two is the status quo, and that’s just not good enough for my generation.
So I’ll leave you with the choice and it really is completely up to you: Option One
or Option Two.
I am going to spend the next 10 years working towards Option One and I really hope you’ll join me.
Before any more bad days are had out there, before any more really good people
leave, before any more clients get less than they expected, before any more people die
on a construction site.
Now is our chance, now is the time, now is the opportunity.
Stand up, be the change that you want to see in construction, be Option One.
For my generation’s sake and for the generations that follow.
Yours Sincerely, Generation Y.