Page 37 - The Constructor A5V24 V1

Scholarships and Awards

The Sir Ian Dixon Scholarship 2013-14 was awarded to Felipe Manzatucci for his paper on
“Industrialised Building - A market differentiator for the principal contractor?”
He recognised that the construction industry in the UK was characterised by low productivity,
inefficient use of resources, low profitability, and isolated innovation. Governments and institutions
worldwide recognised this, and many initiatives had been put in place to overcome such issues, but
Felipe considered, to little or no avail.
The research paper identified fragmentation as the main reason for the poor performance of the
construction sector, fuelled by historic and cultural behaviours driven by the attainment of short
term cost reductions. Any mechanisms aimed at improving the industry must, therefore, target
fragmentation.
The study carried out as part of this research has identified Industrialised Building as a concept that
significantly reduces the effects of fragmentation in the industry. Industrialised Building establishes
a collaborative platform that allows for a safe and rewarding engagement between the key players
of a construction project: client, contractor, and supply chain.
Whilst barriers exist to Industrialised Building, modern technology and innovative delivery processes,
such as Building Information Modelling and Design for Manufacture and Assembly respectively, have
emerged in recent years to support the implementation of Industrialised Building.
This paper has put forward a recommendation for the principal contractor to embrace industrialised
processes and adopt them as part of their overall strategy. The future of a manufacture led
construction industry is not so distant anymore, hence any contractor wishing to differentiate itself
in a highly competitive and untapped market must adopt Industrialised Building.
A tool for the systematic and gradual integration of industrialised processes for the contractor has
been developed as part of this study. This tool has been put forward for assessment and adoption
by the main contractor, not only to strengthen its market position, but to improve the overall
performance of the industry at the same time.
The Sustainability Scholarship 2013-14
There were two Scholars. The first was Edward Dixon, whose paper addressed the subject of “Lean
and Green: How lean management can be used to reduce construction waste”. The second was
Richard Bartlett, whose paper addressed: “The influence of sustainability drivers for main
contractors with regard to material choices in non-domestic construction”.
Edward considered that sustainability was ever present in the geopolitical landscape, with concern
over rising carbon emissions featuring prominently in headlines around the world. Closer to home,
the construction and maintenance of buildings was responsible for half of the UK’s carbon dioxide
emissions, with the industry producing three times more waste than all UK households combined;
some 70m tonnes. In response to this the UK government had committed to reducing carbon
emissions by 80% by 2050 and to divert all waste from landfill by 2020.

Lean management had been the subject of much research in the past twenty years with many
papers highlighting synergies between lean management and sustainability. With waste reduction
being the primary goal of lean implementation, the research explored how lean principles and
methodologies could be applied to reduce physical construction waste. Incorporating a literature

Autumn 2015 | The Journal of the Worshipful Company of Constructors | 37