Construction – Up to standard

Lorraine King argues that sustainable practices are key to surviving the current challenges in the construction industry, and the way to achieve and maintain them is through robust management systems.

According to the HSE, 2.2 million people work in construction in Britain, making it the country’s biggest industry. The industry is also responsible for an estimated 120 million tonnes of construction, demolition and excavation waste each year – around one third of all waste in the UK, almost a fifth of which is sent straight to landfill without any form of recovery, or reuse.

The industry is currently facing some significant challenges and, in an increasingly competitive market, it is difficult to determine how to secure a long-term future and ongoing success. One solution is to develop your business in a sustainable way so that it is as efficient and effective as possible in delivering your products or services, and satisfying – if not exceeding – your stakeholders’ expectations and needs.

Sustainability lies at the heart of construction – the objectives being to create buildings that are healthier for occupants, people in the neighbourhood, and the natural environment, and which use fewer resources, and are cheaper to run.

To be sustainable, organisations need to address the following business needs:

• Improve resource efficiency (including electricity, fuel, gas, water and materials);
• Reduce operating costs (including energy bills, waste-disposal costs, landfill tax);
• Improve quality of goods and services;
• Improve regulatory compliance;
• Reduce costly environmental and health and safety accidents and incidents;
• Minimise risk of legislative breaches and associated fines and prosecutions;
• Protect and enhance company reputation and brand image;
• Meet increasingly demanding customer needs, such as responsible sourcing of construction products;
• Retain good staff to keep recruitment and training costs down;
• Increase productivity and profitability; and
• Increase competitive advantage through differentiation.

One way to meet these challenges and business needs is by adopting management systems. Various national and international standards have been developed by experts and interested parties to provide a best-practice framework for managing various elements of business operations, such as quality, environmental performance, and health and safety, among others.

These standards are based on the ‘Plan Do Check Act’ approach, which puts processes into a continuous feedback loop so that those areas of the business that need improvement can be spotted and acted upon.

Most management-system standards will have a planning element, which includes the requirement for a policy, objectives and programmes. The implementation element includes requirements addressing resource needs, training and competence, control of documents and records, and operational controls. The check elements include requirements for monitoring and measuring performance of operational controls and processes to see if they are effective, and requirements for corrective and preventive action where they are not. Finally, there are requirements for reviewing performance against policy and objectives and adjusting programmes to ensure continual improvement.

The national and international standards that apply to the construction industry include:

• BS 25999 – Business continuity management, to enable you to understand the risks to the continuity of your organisation and the potential impacts of events that can disrupt that continuity.
• ISO 9001 – Quality management systems, to ensure that the quality of service meets, if not exceeds, customers’ expectations and so secure repeat business.
• ISO 14001 – Environmental management systems, which provides a framework to identify and manage the environmental impacts and applicable legislation, and to put processes and checks in place to minimise those environmental impacts. This standard will help you: identify and conduct good waste-management practices, resulting in minimisation of waste; reduce waste disposal costs and other operating costs; improve legal compliance; and minimise the risk of accidents and environmental breaches.
• BS EN 16001 – Energy management systems, which focuses specifically on energy use and management to identify and action opportunities for reductions in energy use. It can help you reduce energy bills and CO2 emissions.
• BS OHSAS 18001 – Occupational health and safety management systems, to identify and manage hazards and risks, and ensure the health and safety of people working for and on behalf of your organisation. This standard can help you reduce work-related ill health, reduce accident and incident rates, increase productivity, and lower operating costs. BS OHSAS 18001 certification is also recognised as meeting the stage 1 requirements of the PQQ process through its membership of the Safety Schemes in Procurement forum.
• PAS 99 – Integrated management systems, to bring two or more management systems into one holistic approach to management, making the management of these much easier and ‘joined-up’.
• BES 6001 – Responsible sourcing of construction products, which will help you not only improve the management of your own activities but also engage better with and improve the performance of suppliers, meet customer needs, and protect your reputation.

Using recognised national and international standards can bring a number of benefits to an organisation: 

• Standards represent best practice in management systems, so this will save you time and effort in developing your own system.
• The standards provide the framework around which procedures need to be defined. The sheer act of process-mapping can help you eliminate redundant and duplicate processes, leading to more efficient processes.
• Documented systems and processes also mean it is easier to make changes.
• Communication and training ensures that staff know what they should be doing. They feel happier and are more likely to be motivated and comply with procedures.
• Most standards have an element of self-check in them to ensure that you are doing what you say you do. This means that robust data is gathered on which to base important business decisions, such as investments, and also contributes to CSR or sustainability reports, thus satisfying stakeholders’ needs.
• Having systems in place to monitor and measure controls also means that where accidents, incidents, or deviations do occur, you are able to spot them quicker, respond quicker, and therefore recover quicker, thus reducing the impact on operations and cost.
• Many management-system standards are written such that an organisation can be independently assessed and certified against them. This gives confidence to your customers and investors that you take your responsibilities seriously.
• Standards have international recognition, which enables products and services from one country to be accepted by other countries, meaning greater access to new markets and more opportunities for growth.

Summary

The main objective within any construction supply chain – from material extraction to the final building client – is to make it better value. Standards provide a systematic framework to identify issues and put controls in place to manage and monitor organisational issues. Not only will your organisation be more efficient and profitable but you will also improve your reputation for being a responsible organisation when it comes to people and the environment.

While your organisation may be seeing a quieter period, you have time to review and improve your existing processes and procedures. Although implementing a management system will likely involve some initial costs, these investments will bring both short and long-term cost savings and increase profitability. Simply reviewing your existing processes and practices can identify no, or low-cost efficiency savings and give you robust information on which to base investment decisions – to make the most of limited resources. Any changes to the ways of working can then be controlled and monitored to ensure they are effective.

Finally, the review mechanism provides management with robust data on which to make further changes for continual improvement. Ultimately, management systems are about changing behaviours, hearts and minds to ensure long-term success.     

Lorraine King is product marketing manager for the British Standards Institution.

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