Improving productivity in construction, Built Environment Matters podcast with Josh Johnson, Expert - Engineering Construction & Building Materials at McKinsey & Company. Part 2 of 2.

The growing importance given to wellbeing means that post-pandemic buildings need to be adaptable, healthy design spaces, and address the following key challenges:.

The answer isn’t simply to do more jobs, it’s to accomplish more while simultaneously improving quality of life for construction workers.McKinsey have discussed suicide rates in construction previously, as well as other difficulties the industry is facing.

One of the core goals here is to return time back to the worker.. Lamont says much of this work is about humanising the workforce and humanising the workshop through technology.Of course, the industry’s aging workforce and skills shortage means that we also need to make the industry more attractive for workers in order to overcome other problems we’re facing.We need to be clever in our approach to getting workers to engage with technology, because many of them are frightened and reticent about its adoption.

The solution lies in enabling access for people.Lamont says it's important that consultants understand that and believes we also need to focus on getting more consultants back on construction sites.

People need to better understand the practical impact of their design decisions in the field.

For example, why detailing doesn’t quite fit when a worker is sitting at a boom lift nine metres off the ground and drops the spanner.And given that the constant in every project is uncertainty and change, it must always allow for multiple variables, both known and unknown..

Importantly, effective master planning also allows the client to explain simply – and sell – their issues, requirements and planning to other (senior) internal stakeholders, demonstrating clearly how to move from a present state to potential future states, and the benefits of doing so.. Bryden Wood’s master planning process.Our approach to master planning is collaborative, and iterative.

Collaborative because there is usually no one person who understands every element of the situation (we bring together the right people to combine their knowledge and experience).Iterative because the problem is unwrapped and understood gradually, by identifying potential solutions, analysing them and feeding the outcome back into the continuously evolving problem statement.