Construction summit to present the industry’s changing face

RETURNING for 2016, the Midlands Construction Summit is to be held on September 20 at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry and for the first time the Summit will be held alongside the Midlands Construction Expo.

This year the Summit is to be based around three interlinked key themes:  Image, Skills and Productivity.   

Negative perceptions, particularly surrounding the image of construction in the UK, can have a great impact on attracting new talent to the industry.

One image issue is, the perceived lack of appeal and prospects the industry offers young people.

Construction inspires images of hard hats, muddy work boots, long hours in bad weather – all endured for limited rewards. 

But how do we change perceptions to reflect the reality of construction today?

Let’s look at the automotive industry – a sector that has gone through a dramatic overhaul and is now one of the most advanced.

Jaguar Land Rover – built around two iconic brands, is renowned for creating luxury, high performance cars and offers renewed career opportunities for apprentices and graduates, with an aim to attract young talent from across the UK, as part of its career programme.

But it hasn’t always been a smooth ride for the multi-million pound car company. Once owned by British Leyland, Jaguar comes from a troubled past. Credited with a militant workforce, the age of wildcat strikes erupted at British Leyland between 1978 and 1979, an era where the car industry was heavily dependent on manual labour and the efficiency of its hands-on factory work force.

Now owned by Tata Motors – Jaguar Land-Rover has been transformed from its manual production days, into an automated production line, where factory lead precision now dominates. The accuracy of the motor industries production methods now bears a striking comparison to the construction industry of today.

Construction technology is seeing a major about turn from traditional methods and is moving towards offsite solutions. Architects, manufacturers and software developers are transforming the 21 century building industry with the use of computer aided design, producing prefabricated panel systems and modular volumetric construction – designed and planned using Building Information Modelling – brining construction into a new collaborative technical era. The advantages of prefabricated building methods heighten the level of accuracy and speed up the building process, allowing less room for error, a reduction in wastage and fewer delays from the weather.

The image for the building industry is evolving and moving away from its muddy boots image with factory manufactured building produced for onsite installation. Similarly the car industry has followed a comparable process and is looked on as the ultimate model for the offsite construction movement.

Developed engineering and technology have contribution to the success of Jaguar Land Rover in recent the years. This destroys the concept of the Friday afternoon car syndrome, where after a long working week, the tired manual worker focuses on the weekend rather than work, the aftermath was the production of a vehicle with a catalyst of problems. The accuracy of the manufacturing process has increased the reliability of the Jaguar brand, removing the element of human error by producing a high performance car with leading edge technology.

The efficiencies of offsite manufacturing in the construction industry along with its new methods of production go a long way to upturn the stereotyped image. But now the industry has to unite to change perceptions and promote the wealth of career opportunities to attract fresh young talent to shape our townscapes and city skylines – maximising technical innovations, to ensure the industry is future proofed and future ready.

The Midlands Construction Summit will seek to confront the issues surrounding changing perceptions and promoting opportunities to attract young workers to the construction sector.

Tickets cost just £95 plus vat and include; entry into the Midlands Construction Summit, entry into the Midlands Construction Expo, parking, lunch and refreshments throughout.

For more information, or to book your place, visit: http://www.midlandsconstructionsummit.co.uk/