Yesterday, I went to the London launch of the report “Be Valuable”, written by Richard Saxon, and published by Constructing Excellence.
It was a fascinating event, not least because it highlighted the all-too-often blinkered or short-termist view of construction commonly applied by construction professionals. Instead, Richard urged us, why not look at how the built environment adds value to its owners, occupants and other stakeholders over the facility’s 20 or 30-year life.
There was much talk of the 1:5:200 model, a ratio first promulgated by Evans, Harryott, Haste and Jones in 1998 in a Royal Academy of Engineering paper (I mentioned this in chapter 10 of my book) – where the 1 relates to construction costs, the 5 covers rent, maintenance and building operating costs, and the 200 represents staff salaries and business operating costs. Yesterday, and in the new report, it was accepted that this could be modified to, for example 1:3:30 for offices, or 1:4.5:42 for NHS estates.
When it came to actions, I couldn’t help but nod enthusiastically when Richard said the industry needed to invest in interoperable systems. The report says:
Customers and suppliers pay heavily for inefficiencies caused by information not being fully transferable between them due to IT incompatibility. Customers gain most over the building life in accessing data. The need to motivate and reward suppliers, who will themselves also benefit, to adopt interoperable systems for their information technology.
