Tag Archives: BIM2050

Digital skills and the fourth industrial revolution

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The Fourth Industrial Revolution will demand a more long-term, whole career view of future digital skills needs.

The SkillsPlanner project aims to create an open linked data platform connecting those needing people with relevant construction skills (demand) with those able to educate and train people to gain those skills (supply). With the UK construction skills gap currently a subject of almost daily debate, it is little wonder the Government Construction Strategy 2016-2020 devoted a large section to meeting near-term needs (see Government recognises skills planning needs), and we read almost daily reports about new initiatives to train new workers and retain existing ones.

However, given that many of today’s teenagers have a working life of 50 or more years ahead of them, they – alongside existing workers – will need to be constantly updating their knowledge and digital skills throughout their careers, or planning for future career changes.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Evidence certainly suggests they cannot rely on their employers equipping them with the right expertise. In November 2015, for example, a study published by Vodafone and YouGov (news release) showed that, while businesses were aware of the need to keep pace with technological developments (in particular, digital technologies), around half doubted they would be able to keep up over the next five years – let alone five decades.

We only need to look back over the past 30 years to see how technology has transformed just about every aspect of our daily lives. Many of today’s business leaders in their 50s started their careers before email, before the worldwide web, before mobile telephones. Digital technologies have already transformed how we interact and work – and the pace of change shows no signs of slowing down.

Indeed, the World Economic Forum says we stand on the brink of a technological sea change – the Fourth Industrial Revolution – that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. WEF founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab describes this latest Revolution:

Fourth Industrial Revolution“The possibilities of billions of people connected by mobile devices, with unprecedented processing power, storage capacity, and access to knowledge, are unlimited. And these possibilities will be multiplied by emerging technology breakthroughs in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing.

“Already, artificial intelligence is all around us, from self-driving cars and drones to virtual assistants and software that translate or invest. Impressive progress has been made in AI in recent years, driven by exponential increases in computing power and by the availability of vast amounts of data…. Digital fabrication technologies, meanwhile, are interacting with the biological world on a daily basis. Engineers, designers, and architects are combining computational design, additive manufacturing, materials engineering, and synthetic biology to pioneer a symbiosis between microorganisms, our bodies, the products we consume, and even the buildings we inhabit.”

Future built environment

Shwab says our response to this Fourth Industrial Revolution must be integrated and comprehensive, and involve all stakeholders. Yet, according to some critics, UK construction policy-makers seem focused on meeting immediate or short-term skills and physical infrastructure needs, and applying a narrow view of current technologies.

In Workplace Insight, for example, Mark Eltringham says “the Government seems to be largely unaware of or uninterested in what is happening beyond its bubble,” noting the Government Construction Strategy 2016-2020 “uses the word technology three times and, even then, only with regard to the application of BIM [building information modelling] as a way of improving the construction process.” He continues:

“Perhaps more worryingly, the very short section at the end of the document on whole life approaches only deals with the issue of sustainability. It makes no mention of creating the physical infrastructure capable of dealing with a rapidly changing world. [And] … the Government’s commitment to invest in technological infrastructure is woefully inadequate compared to its focus on physical infrastructure.”

Future skills

BIM2050 logoWhat also seems to be lacking is a more wide-ranging and longer-term debate about future digital skills. One exception is SkillsPlanner collaborator BIM2050 which – as its name suggests – dares to look decades ahead; in 2014 it produced a report: Built Environment 2050: A Report on our Digital Future (available here, PDF) which, alongside some wider views of other trends, made some predictions about future skills needs:

  • In the 2020s: “construction roles will be diluted/hybrid versions of their previously heavily-siloed forms. There will be a significant focus on up-skilling the existing workforce. … Computational and analytical skills will emerge as a valued area.”
  • In the 2030s: “Skills within the industry will focus on the flow and process of information procurement and transactions throughout the supply chain. Sought after skills … will surround analytics and the ability to understand ‘big data’, [and] predictive data analysis.”
  • In the 2040s: “the skilled workforce will be reduced to 50% of its level in 2013. … Skills and roles will become more focused on the operation, maintenance and redevelopment of existing assets rather than the building of new assets. … Automated assembly and digital manufacturing will see a need for further support in designing digital systems which will allow for the creation of smarter material that ultimately responds to its environment.”

Ethos, SkillsPlanner and Future Cities

As we enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we will increasingly – as Schwab said – need a comprehensive, integrated and inclusive response embracing all stakeholders, with silos broken down and connections made between public policy-making, infrastructure planning, and investment in education and technology.

Future-gazing is all very well, but it also needs to be matched by a willingness to test new ways of living, working and interacting in our built environment. This fits with the vision of Ethos, and in particular its recent establishment of a business sector focused on Future Cities, in parallel with Ethos Skills. Future Cities currently has three product lines – focused on Parking, Retail and Active Mobility – all focused on particular human interactions with their surroundings, and deploying technology and using real-time data to help people and organisations better manage transportation and other aspects of their built environment.

Like our friends at BIM2050, we are excited about the prospects of creating new combinations of people, processes and technologies. We believe tomorrow’s leaders – some of them, perhaps, just about to start their careers – in the industry currently known as construction will be the ones that anticipate best and respond quickest to the multi-faceted challenges of delivering an increasingly digital built environment in the mid 21st century.

 

SkillsPlanner in Scotland

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Teambuild poster

While the initial focus is on London, we are thinking long-term and SkillsPlanner is already reaching out across the UK. Some of the SkillsPlanner team took the project’s message to Wales earlier this month (read our Catch them when they’re older post), and this week it will be Scotland’s turn.

One of SkillsPlanner’s industry partners, the BIM2050 group, along with the TeamBuild initiative and the Edge Commission (authors of the excellent Collaboration for Change report – PDF here), is leading a week-long ‘Innovation Learning Week’ at Edinburgh University.

Thanks to Alex MacLaren, SkillsPlanner will be featured in activities on Wednesday 17 February. During the day, Alex is planning a pan-discipline workshop discussion of construction industry issues involving students from a range of construction-related fields – “from first year to PhD mechanical engineers, from architects to civil engineers, planners and surveyors….”. In particular he wants to debate: “what will the construction jobs of the future be?”

Industry guests will join the event during the afternoon, and there will be a public seminar in the evening. Participants include Robin Nicholson (Edge, Cullinan Studio), Sandy Halliday (Gaia Research, CIBSE), Paul Jowitt (past president of the ICE), Simon Foxell (Edge, Green Construction Board), plus practitioners from local firms including AECOM, Mace, Reiach and Hall, and Bowmer and Kirkland.

If you are interested in participating in the Edinburgh event, there is more information on the Teambuild website. Email Alex ([email protected]) if you want to attend.

Adonis may have the body, but does he have a head for skills?

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constructionpartners

Anyone with half an ear on the UK news over the last few days will know that George Osborne announced that he was investing further in, what he believes to be a critical area of concern for the UK economy – Infrastructure.

The Labour peer, Lord Adonis will be the chair of a new body called the National Infrastructure Commission. An initially confusing appointment as Lord Adonis is a staunch New Labour man but he is passionate about the fact that there must be alignment of planning, economic development and infrastructure as it’s critical not just to the country’s future prosperity but to social justice.

As John McTernan wrote in the Guardian recently: “Adonis knows that new roads, railways and power stations are not just projects in themselves; they are the engine of economic change. They take jobs to people, but they take people to jobs too.”

As Lord Adonis strives to ease the flow of new infrastructure projects through the system, he will be very aware of the huge skills shortages that blight the UK’s building industry. Research published by the Federation of Master Buildings in August 2015 suggests that two-thirds of small and medium construction firms have had to turn down work because they don’t have the staff to carry it out.

For five years Ethos has been creating sustainable solutions to complex challenges like the one facing the construction industry. Ethos is a network of social entrepreneurs and innovators who want to create better and more sustainable solutions to society’s biggest problems. They do this by putting people rather than corporations at the very heart of such challenges, and measure success by looking beyond the economic to consider impact on society and the environment.

So what better challenge for the company to step up to than matching clear and present desires for infrastructure growth to the availability of skills to deliver it?

Ethos’s most ambitious initiative yet, SkillsPlanner, is an innovative approach to solving skills shortages. SkillsPlanner is an internet platform that will allow stakeholders within the industry to share current and future skills supply and demand data, facilitating collaborative planning, training and brokerage to meet the industry’s requirements.

On the same day that George Osborne announced his re-inforced focus on the UK’s infrastructure, SkillsPlanner received final approval of £827k development funding from Innovate UK’s‘ Solving Urban Challenges with Data’ competition.

Ethos is collaborating with over 30 organisations on this initiative including core partners, the Association of Colleges, Camden Council, GoodPeople, Islington Council, Seme4, Tideway, Plymouth University, and Westminster Council.

Together with the ‘Linked Open Data’ technology leader and project partner Seme4, Ethos has launched a two-year £1.3m R&D project focussed on the London construction industry, which needs an estimated 180,000 new skilled entrants to deliver construction projects in the capital and the South East by 2019.

Key projects such as HS2, Tideway and Crossrail, planning authorities, main contractors, supply chains, training providers and industry bodies will share skills supply and demand data.

In simple terms this means that;

  • Skills and Training providers will be able to create demand-led courses and build capacity to know demand;
    • When asked for his comment, Martin Doel of the Association of Colleges said ‘Mastering data sources and being able to analyse this data in a timely manner will be essential for colleges to understand labour market needs and reconcile them with student demand,’
  • Construction companies will be able to benefit from more sustainable availability of local labour;
    • Louise Townsend, Sustainable Business Director at Morgan Sindall and Trudy Langton-Freeman, HR Business Partner at Costain, stated that ‘The skills shortage in the sector is rapidly becoming a serious impediment to the industry’s ability to deliver above and beyond what is expected of it. We must work together as an industry to define and predict the timely provision of these industry-critical skills.”
  • Local authorities will be able to collaborate on the design and delivery of local skills provision;
  • Local job brokerage initiatives will operate more efficiently and effectively.
    • Chris Dransfield of Crossrail sees great potential for SkillsPlanner to, ‘reduce brokerage costs and improve outcomes for all our stakeholders.’
    • There is even the opportunity to focus on future skills, so those needed for the far longer-term sustainability of the industry, as recognised by Alex MacLaren of BIM2050: ‘Highlighting the importance of understanding skills needs in the longer term, the collaborative premise of this new platform, harnessing available data to improve efficiency, awareness and reduce waste, is exactly the innovation we want to see in the future construction industry.’

I asked SkillsPlanner project director Rebecca Lovelace why she was so excited by this and she told us that ‘SkillsPlanner is an Ethos ‘perfect storm’. It demonstrates how a genuinely collaborative approach can create an economically viable solution to a complex urban challenge, resulting in a positive social outcome.’

With innovation like this happening alongside the Chancellor’s announced focus on the importance of the UK’s infrastructure and his appointment of Lord Adonis who has the energy and drive to see it through, maybe, just maybe this time it will work.

Let’s face it, to quote from George Osborne’s speech on the 5 Oct 2015, “Without big improvements to its transport and energy systems, Britain will grind to a halt”.

Let’s not let that happen for our children, families, friends and ourselves.

Ethos launches £1.3m collaborative solution to skills shortages

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SkillsPlanner Logo

Ethos’s most ambitious initiative yet, SkillsPlanner, an innovative approach to solving skills shortages, has been awarded £827k development funding from Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. SkillsPlanner is a data platform that will allow stakeholders within an industry or sector to share current and future employment needs, facilitating collaborative planning, training and brokerage to meet the industry’s requirements.

Ethos and project partners* secured the funding through the ‘Solving Urban Challenges with Data’ competition: SkillsPlanner is based on a powerful Linked Open Data platform, created by technology leader and project partner Seme4. It will launch with a two-year R&D project focussed on the London construction industry which needs an estimated 180,000 new skilled entrants to deliver construction projects in the capital and the South East by 2019. Ethos and its project partners will invest a total of £1.3m in this development phase.

Key projects such as HS2, Tideway and Crossrail, planning authorities including Westminster and Islington, main contractors, supply chains, training providers and industry bodies will share skills supply and demand data. The data will be integrated and linked to create a platform that enables:

  • skills providers to define existing provision and develop demand-led training
  • businesses to benefit from more sustainable procurement of local labour, reduced resource and HR costs
  • local authorities to collaborate on the design and delivery of local skills provision; and
  • local job brokerage initiatives to operate more efficiently and effectively.

website version of infographic
Key industry figures have pledged their support for the project.

In a joint statement, SkillsPlanner partners Louise Townsend, Sustainable Business Director at Morgan Sindall and Trudy Langton-Freeman, HR Business Partner at Costain, set out the case for a collaborative initiative: ‘The skills shortage in the sector is rapidly becoming a serious impediment to the industry’s ability to deliver above and beyond what is expected of it. We must work together as an industry to define and predict the timely provision of these industry-critical skills. SkillsPlanner provides a collaborative opportunity to do this.’

Chris Dransfield of Crossrail sees great potential for SkillsPlanner to, ‘reduce brokerage costs & improve outcomes for all our stakeholders.’

‘Mastering data sources and being able to analyse this data in a timely manner will be essential for colleges to understand labour market needs and reconcile them with student demand,’ says Martin Doel of the Association of Colleges.

Highlighting the importance of understanding skills needs in the longer term, Alex MacLaren of BIM2050 said, ‘the collaborative premise of this new platform, harnessing available data to improve efficiency, awareness and reduce waste, is exactly the innovation we want to see in the future construction industry.’

SkillsPlanner project director Rebecca Lovelace says: ‘SkillsPlanner is an Ethos ‘perfect storm’. It demonstrates how a genuinely collaborative approach can create an economically viable solution to a complex urban challenge, resulting in a positive social outcome.’

*Association of Colleges, Camden Council, Good People, Islington Council, Seme4, Tideway, Plymouth University, and Westminster Council.

SkillsPlanner is an inclusive and collaborative project. To find out more and get involved go to skillsplanner.net

Press contact Paul Wilkinson [email protected], 07788 445920, @EEPaul

About InnovateUK
Innovate UK is the UK’s innovation agency. It works with people, companies and partner organisations to find and drive the science and technology innovations that will grow the UK economy For further information visit www.innovateuk.gov.uk