Supply chain crisis could spark long overdue change for construction

摘要

It feels a bit like the great toilet roll grab of 2020 at the moment with dwindling supplies and builders' merchants limiting us to one pallet of cement a day. The so-called perfect storm of Brexit, Covid and the Suez canal blockage has left the British building industry in the middle of a supply chain crisis. Prices are going through the roof and activity levels are at a seven year high. Yet the present disruption could ultimately hasten a long overdue modernisation of the sector and deliver a fundamentally different "new normal". It could lead to a visible shift to a more considered, more productive, more planned way of working in the next five to 10 years. If we look at the current dominance of next day delivery options, we need to ask ourselves whether it is the most efficient and sustainable way of doing things. Once you would set a bill of quantities that would tell you the exact amounts required, but now no-one really needs to. It is all lagging metrics rather than leading metrics. Suppliers have little idea what is coming, because nobody is looking forward enough; everyone is just looking back at what they sold last week and the week before and basing the next week's orders on that. We must co-ordinate information across the supply chain and embrace new digital technologies, such as product configurators or cloud manufacturing. Employing more vigorous project management could also lead to a reappraisal of geographic links and vulnerabilities. Each materials sector is interconnected by Covid and Brexit. Until now, builders and contractors have had little idea where their materials came from because they had no need to ask about the breakdown and traceability of products. But since leaving Europe and the start of the pandemic, we are more tuned into how and why a supply chain might be affected.