Construction’s most expensive mistake - Measure twice, never assume.

0:00So I oversee our kind of smaller special projects, I guess you would say. So I have site-based teams on several different projects. how many have you got a one uh four or five okay so a varying size and degree and then i just try and spend a day where i can on each one or half a day where i can some are quite close to each other just to drop in and just do people need support are um contractors not doing what they said they would are there any health and safety issues have there been instructions have the client made any changes that we need to pick up, does anything need re-costing, re-reviewing?

0:39Have there been variations of the contract that we need to review? There's quite a lot of that. Things sometimes end up in the grey and whose responsibility that might be. We have to kind of navigate that to kind of come to a head. And then really just supporting whoever needs support to push to get the project to the finish line on time on budget and with a happy end user. And what's one thing that you know today that you wish had known? I think it's just, and everyone would probably say this, but I think it's just never assumed. I think prior to being in construction, I kind of had sort of hands-on kind of work where you're kind of relying on yourself.

1:22And so you know you've done the task that you've been set right or to the best of your ability, et cetera. then you start managing other people yeah and the assumption is well i'm looking at the correct drawer and he must be looking at the correct drawer and that may not be the case and it's the same with things get delivered everything comes in a barren box are these the lights for this room probably just assume they are up they go are they not the lights for this room so it's that kind of uh that kind of learning curve of where we now have kind of these you know rigorous paperwork which everyone would say there's too much paperwork in construction now but I think it is necessary because it's just these checkpoints, hold points, to make sure what we're doing is correct, things get updated.

2:03Technology helps a lot. We use online portals now. So, you know, for the site guys, they can only get hold of the latest drawing. So that really, they shouldn't be working to anything old. Obviously, if it gets printed, that's a different story. But everyone now, if you say, can you get the drawing, and it's on your phone. So it's quite good to kind of keep those portals updated. That way, everyone's working from the most recent information. So I'd say, yeah, never, never assume that someone is doing what you think they're doing because chances are there's something's going to rise somewhere. What are like three like really smart VE value engineering hacks you've seen either on site or you've done yourself?

2:40Lighting always gets VE'd. Okay interesting funny this has come up but carry on. I've done a few projects where either an architect would have designed or they've got a lighting designer in and they do sort of want the world and it's lighting can be incredibly expensive so unfortunately when the clients and the qs's are skimming through the numbers that number tends to pop because it's always quite large you know there's so many different supplies out there that people don't know about and people are able to mirror other things there's new tech coming out you can whittle that number down but still get the same uh effects um feature lighting you know spreads of light and everything So there's ways and means of making that work.

3:23We did a project where I had a really long light recessed through a corridor, and it was a really busy corridor, and it didn't work. And so we've got to change with this light. And it was a massive upheaval to try and take a ceiling down, take everything out, put a new one back in this live area. And so one of our electricians just said, well, of an evening, we can take all the internals out. You can leave your shell. We'll send it away. they'll remake exactly the same light fitting to fit back inside and you just click it back in and back in an evening we did that and it was much more cost effective because we didn't have to rip anything we didn't have to do any facilitating works and we didn't impact the kind of the stopping of the reception space so all those kind of costs and impacts and people's days and things kind of all went away but the problem is as well on the other side of that you go into an office it's got grid lighting it's got these panel lights currently it's not sustainable to rejig the gubbins and make it work again because they're so cheap to manufacture.

4:22How do you think construction is going to change over this year or next 12 months? What are we going to start to see becoming more normal? Well, I think we can't avoid AI. Not necessarily on the delivery. I mean, I've seen robots that will mark out floors for you and things like that off the drawing, that sort of stuff. That's fine. I don't think that's coming. Bigger schemes are using them, definitely bigger schemes, but I don't think smaller projects, it's worth it because for the guys to still get the lasers out, mark it, put them up, it's quite easy. I mean, the good thing about that robot, you can set off at eight o 'clock at night and it will just do its thing.

4:58And by the time everyone comes back in the morning, the next floor is marked out. So it's quite clever. But I think scaling that up might be, or even scaling down to the smaller projects, probably quite difficult. I think in terms of AI for the drawings and stuff, I think we'll see a lot more visuals and kind of Matterport scan, immersive. Clients can kind of almost walk a space in a 3D realm ahead of kind of delivery or picking colors, picking samples. You can kind of get a bit of an idea. You know, normally the visual will be like from one end of a room and then the other end of the room and you kind of get a bit of a feel of what it'd be.

5:33but I think there's going to be more in the day-to-day you'll see more of this kind of immersive you can you know either spin on your computer screen around a space like a Matterport scan or you can chuck on a pair of goggles and kind of walk a space and how does it flow how does it work for your business you said you want an extra meeting room but it's a bit isolated from the other meeting rooms kind of just take a walk and so you think that works and you kind of get that idea how many times you look at a drawer and you think what a huge space and you go there you think Ah, it's tiny.