ECCE - Competitiveness in the Construction sector

European Council of Civil Engineers
Position Paper

Competitiveness in the Construction sector - Taking the Commission proposals forward - elaboration of July 1998 paper

The European Council of Civil Engineers (ECCE) welcome the initiatives being proposed by the European Commission in relation of competitiveness. ECCE welcomes measures to make the proposed areas of action more precise in order to avoid dilution of effort and ensure optimum achievable results within the limits of resources and support available.

The European Council of Civil Engineers now takes the opportunity to enlarge upon aspects of its views on the use of ICT (information and communications technologies) for the sector.

ECCE supports initiatives to promote and encourage the use of quality procedures and standards, in particular for small and medium enterprises.

The Role of Information Technology

As we stated in our July paper:

"The role of information technology should not be under-estimated. It overlaps both the research and educational priorities of competitiveness. One of our members stated earlier this year that "As we are bombarded with information from our media saturated lifestyles, there is a danger that the importance and relevance of the civil engineering infrastructure that supports our society is taken for granted as business concentrates upon short term survival and profits. ...there is a danger that civil engineers are too often providing the scaffolding to prop up the problems of the past, as environmental damage becomes evident, populations increase, and financial resources are scarce... There is now a window of opportunity for civil engineers to take control of their destiny and apply all of this new technology to their advantage". It is evident that a change of working culture is needed and that the role of the civil engineer must extend beyond that of technical expert.

Information Technology with an emphasis on INFORMATION is crucial to survival in construction industry both in Europe and other parts of the world. At present no particular country or company has a significant advantage in this area - but there are signs that this is about to change. A member working in the contracting side of the profession has stated that "The organisations who do not adopt these technnologies and adapt their processes to exploit them won’t know what has hit them and will gradually decline".

A significant part of the gross industry product and most of the revenue consists of adding value to information or managing it for profit.

Construction projects, even those of a modest size, can involve a large number of supplier contributions, sub-contractor contributions and partners, many of whom have relatively short trading relationships with each project.
There is a need for development in the fields of modelling and structuring of information. This can only be done collaboratively to gain wider acceptance. Developments of this type are happening but they need accelerating so that both large, small and geographically disadvantaged participants in the construction industry can quickly harness current ICT (information and communication technologies) developments. This will enable them to "work Apart Together" in a more integrated manner and to deliver the type of benefits being enjoyed by the financial, insurance, retail (FIR) and some manufacturing sectors. The restructuring,. Human and social turmoil seen by those sectors could easily be repeated for the construction sector if it does not foresee developments and plan for them.

Information technologies may be applied in continuing education, procurement, calls for tenders and are a component in co-ordination between designers, contracts and manufacturers.

ECCE also recommends the use of IT as a tool to improve the levels of education in small and medium enterprises and that a programme be developed to ensure that the small and medium enterprises which form a major part of the construction employment force do not ´fall behind´ through lack of technological awareness and appropriate training.

To express this in simple terms, areas of particular interest are:

communication tools e.g. e-mail, faxes etc.
use of internet e.g. for disseminating information to the industry
management tool within the industry e.g. for project management, procurement, supply chain management, stores/materials control (JIT)
more efficient designs, CAD etc.
managing operational and maintenance regimes
use in education and training, e.g. distance learning, interactive videos, etc which will be especially useful for staff in small and medium enterprises who often find it difficult to attend seminars/training courses because of time constraints and/or cost.

Civil engineers must move away from being technical experts into the management field, taking the lead in project management ahead of other construction professionals. They also have a wider role to play in society by using technology to improve communications and interaction between the construction industry and the public at large. The potential benefits from such use of technology therefore extend to society as a whole.

As an annex, attached are the results of a "brainstorming session" on the subject from a key player in the ECCE IT working group.

ECCE Secretariat
October 1998