Productivity Partnership Newsletter September 2014

The Productivity Partnership has recently delivered a number of significant pieces of work.

On 29 July the Partnership launched the New Zealand BIM Handbook at the Auckland Infrastructure and Procurement Forum. This comprehensive resource was produced by the BIM Acceleration Committee in a truly collaborative effort. Comprised of eight separate documents, the Handbook’s versatile structure lets you get to the bits you want quickly. We have already had terrific industry feedback on its usefulness. We’ve created a BIM in NZ webpage for easy access to BIM information and tools.

Headlines from the 5th Auckland Pipeline Report were also presented at the Forum. These highlight the different stories unfolding for residential and public sector construction in New Zealand’s biggest construction market – see a tale of two cities further down.

The National Pipeline Report is “under construction” and will be covered in our next issue. 

I’ve also been out and about talking to some industry leaders on what they see as priorities to lift the performance of the building and construction sector, to feed into MBIE’s strategic planning.

MBIE didn’t exist when the Productivity Partnership was formed and now provides us with a larger canvas to work on to achieve positive industry change.  The Partnership is progressively moving to become part of MBIE’s wider business.

Even though the industry is going through a boom we can’t afford to take our eye off productivity –we still need to be working smarter.

It’s increasingly obvious that more information on our construction industry is needed to enable meaningful conversations and joint development of effective solutions to persistent issues. Improvement in performance requires collaboration across MBIE, the industry and related sectors.  It happens in partnership.

You’ll notice our newsletter looks different with short teasers linking to full articles on the Productivity Partnership website. This means you can scroll through the headlines and only print the stories you want and it’s easier to read on iPads, smartphones and other handheld devices. We’re interested in how it works for you…feedback is welcome at

The Productivity Partnership launched the New Zealand BIM Handbook at the Auckland Infrastructure and Procurement Forum on 29 July. This free tool is available now on our BIM in New Zealand webpage.  It aims to encourage greater use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) which is key to achieving a step change in construction sector productivity.

The New Zealand BIM Handbook draws on the best of best BIM practice around the world but is tailored to the specific needs of New Zealand’s building and construction sector:

• driven by the New Zealand industry
• shaped by the New Zealand industry
• written in a way that reflects how we do things here.

The BIM Handbook follows the normal progress of a building project from pre-design through to operation and provides a solid framework for deciding whether to use BIM – there are 21 defined uses – demonstrating how BIM can add value over the whole life of a building.

To provide easy access to key information, the Handbook is structured into nine separate documents – a main document and eight appendices including BIM briefing templates and examples.

It was commissioned by the Productivity Partnership and developed by the BIM Acceleration Committee, a voluntary industry and government body, with extensive industry input and the support of BRANZ.

The BIM Acceleration Committee is developing guidance on BIM Contract Terms and Conditions. This document has evolved from the draft BIM Schedule released for industry feedback in May. “We’ve taken on board the feedback and the result is a different approach,” says project leader Ann Ryan. “The BIM Terms and Conditions will be more user friendly and provide guidance for two audiences – contractors and consultants.”

Haydn Read is Manager of Strategic Asset Planning at Wellington City Council. Formerly, he was Director of Operations at Whakatane District Council and Operations Manager at Bluescope Steel. Haydn is a big fan of building information modelling, or BIM, as a business tool to assist forward planning, investment decisions and integrated operations. He values the benefits that BIM can deliver as a next generation data management tool to manage the ‘whole of life’ of assets. Haydn’s interest in public assets has extended into a PhD which he is currently undertaking at Victoria University School of Government – looking at how local government makes decisions on large capital investments. He has recently addressed the Treasury, Ministry of Education and key decision makers in the Auckland construction market about BIM’s potential in the asset management space.

Haydn talks about how WCC is using BIM as a tool for asset management (AM) and facilities management (FM), electronically transferring “As-Built” data from BIM into AM and FM systems to optimise the operation of its large property portfolio.

My team and I support the stewardship of all the assets of Wellington City Council which have a collective value of around $6.5 billion. Using BIM we can plug the underground assets into the above ground assets (what some people refer to as horizontal and vertical infrastructure) to get a total picture to inform investment decisions. The interoperability between WCC’s asset classes is critical to determining which assets to develop, when and where, to ensure the best investment for the city’s communities. Within a tight budget it’s really important to be able to prioritise work and maximise value.

We’ve been using BIM for some time to help manage our three water networks –waste water, storm water and potable water. This year we’ve started using BIM to help manage WCC’s property portfolio which includes everything from large venues like the Michael Fowler Centre to bridges, sports arenas, community halls and social housing.

BIM can give you a clear line of sight on the condition of your built assets and their impact on your balance sheet at any point in time – now or in the future.

For instance, if we are refurbishing a social housing project we can use a BIM model to virtually fit out the existing superstructure and cost the job. We might increase or decrease the number of units within that, considering the whole of life costs of the asset. We can assess the structure and plan where the pipework goes so it can be easily accessed for maintenance. Put simply, short-term savings can create substantial financial commitments for future generations – something we must take more care of into the future. When we have captured the data on all of the components, we can feed that information into our asset management system. Once you’ve captured that date you’ve got it forever for future asset management so you can project when the carpets might need to be replaced and budget for that.

Once created, a BIM model travels with you through every stage of the life of an asset: design, build, retrofit, materials testing and even helps determine the end of its useful life. You can call on it to assist you at every intervention point. When you are dealing with large scale assets and a sizeable portfolio the benefits are massive. This value is multiplied when all of the construction sector embraces BIM and can share data in a collaborative manner.

For WCC using BIM presents two key considerations:

•  the depth of capability in the business to use BIM well and the ability to transfer that capability from one part of the business to another
• the breadth of the benefits BIM can deliver in the built space.

At WCC we are seeing the benefits of BIM through a number of different lenses and developing proofs of concept to quantify them for both new buildings and renovations.

By making BIM part of our business as usual we are confident that we will have a very different and much more efficient operating environment.

Working on the M2PP Alliance project  – Mark Coote Photography

Keynote addresses at the recent Lean Construction Conference in Perth included a joint presentation by Lean Construction Institute NZ Industry Chair Amanda Warren and Fletcher Construction Business Systems Manager Darron Monaghan. They shared their view of “How Lean Construction is Transforming New Zealand’s Construction Industry”. Amanda and Darron drew on a number of projects including the Waterview Alliance in Auckland and the MacKays to Peka Peka section of the Road of National Significance north of Wellington (M2PP Alliance) to demonstrate how the application of lean construction principles is making major productivity gains.

They promoted five lean construction tools, including:

• Last Planner™

• Waste busting

• Target Value Design

• Workplace organisation (5S)

• Supervisor training.

Darron highlighted how the Waterview project has saved more than $2 million by removing waste from the construction process. Key to this was putting all engineers through lean construction training and a collaborative approach that engaged everyone working on the project. Using a blue card, anyone can put forward a suggestion for cutting waste.

Darron calls this “life by a 1000 plasters”. “It’s about collaboratively planning as a team and creating a culture of continuous improvement,” says Darron. “Empowering the team optimises the whole, not the piece. A lot of lean is getting people together in a room to talk in a structured process, rather than operating in little boxes.”

Another Waterview success story is the increase in productivity from stopping work on Saturdays, unless on a critical path task. Analysis of project productivity trends showed the most productive work time was between 7am and 11am on weekdays and much less was achieved on Saturdays. So task scheduling has been changed to leverage peak productivity. The net effect of this focus has reduced the average work hours per week from 55 to 42.

“Anyone who uses lean construction principles has achieved dramatic results, in terms of removal of waste, time savings and cost reduction,” says Amanda Warren, who is lean construction coach to M2PP. Putting lean construction principles into practice has identified $1.2 million plus of improvements and waste reduction in three months on that project. Just changing the brand of milk used on site saved $1 per bottle, amounting to $9000 over the life of the project. “Some of the steps are very simple, but collectively they make a big difference to project delivery and the bottom line.”

Darron sums it up with “don’t confuse simple with not adding value. The easy and simple things to do, are also easy and simple not to do”.

They see a huge benefit to the NZ Construction Industry in all construction companies adopting a lean construction strategy, based on lessons learned so far in New Zealand.

“The Productivity Partnership’s goal of increasing productivity by 20% by 2020 is easy when you go lean,” says Amanda.

For more information on lean construction principles and to see the presentation, go to www.constructing.co.nz

How Auckland construction market activity compares with other selected trans-Tasman cities. Credit: RLB

The Auckland Infrastructure and Procurement Forum on 29 July got a preview of the headlines from Auckland Pipeline Report No. 5 which is due to be published shortly.

The Auckland Pipeline Report No. 5 provides a forward view of the planned construction workload for the Auckland region for the next five years. It draws on data collected between April and June this year and includes both forecast government and private sector construction. The five year horizon is a new feature…previous reports have taken a three year outlook.

Constructing Excellence CE Tim Warren, who collated and crunched the data for the Productivity Partnership, presented the key findings. These include:

• The Auckland market is growing significantly but public sector expenditure is flat, due to an overall cap on government spending and funding being transferred to the Canterbury rebuild. This is likely to continue for two to three years.
• The level of certainty about the forward workload is not improving because of the cap on government expenditure. As result, some organisations are unable to look ahead five years – they don’t have long term plans and the data to support them.  A number of organisations, including some telecom, fibre and power generation companies, have set zero construction budgets outside of core business activities.
• Private sector construction activity is rising – driven by demand for housing and infrastructure development for special housing areas (SHAs), supported by the Auckland Unitary Plan. Some infrastructure spending has been moved between modes causing certain supply side sectors to see significant changes in expenditure.

“We endeavoured to connect the forward view to what’s happening in the Auckland market now and what we found is a tale of two cities,” says Tim. “There’s a lift in construction activity in the private sector and flatlining of activity in the public sector.

“On balance we project that construction growth in Auckland will outstrip the short-term boom of the Canterbury rebuild – mainly driven by housing and development work.”