Step Change

摘要

There have been calls for the construction industry to radically change the way it does thing's. This is true of course. But it can be intimidating to think of this kind of massive shift in the way things are done - it's almost too big to deal with, and if you're not right at the top of the supply chain it's difficult to see how your organisation fits in. Our panel consists of a number of individuals from organisations of various sizes. They identified a number of steps building services in particular could take as a sector within construction to improve the way we work. It's a more user-friendly approach, and resulted in the list you see here. The discussions also identified the many challenges that building services faces, but there was a great deal of agreement on these - which is a significant step forward. The first concern is related to people, or lack of them coming into the construction industry at all levels. It's not just consultants and contractors who suffer, manufacturers also feel the lack of qualified staff. Steven Rees, marketing manager of Mitsubishi Electric UK says:"We have a peak installation season which means there's an annual problem with shortage of staff. Clients are told by manufacturers that there isn't the stock, but in reality there are no people to install the products."