"we see that construction has two choices: ignore all this in the belief that construction is so unique that there are no lessons to be learned; or seek improvement through re-engineering construction, learning as much as possible from those who have done it elsewhere" egan report. Task force visit to the site. (Rethinking construction)
The problems wityh the industry: (Rethinking construction)
Nevertheless, the industry recognises that it needs to modernise in order to tackle the severe problems facing it, not least that:
4.
it has a low and unreliable rate of profitability. Margins are characteristically very low. The view of the Task Force is that these are too low for the industry to sustain healthy development and we wish to see those companies who serve their clients well making much better returns; l it invests little in research and development and in capital. In-house R & D has fallen by 80% since 1981 and capital investment is a third of what it was twenty years ago. This lack of investment is damaging the industry's ability to keep abreast of innovation in processes and technology; l there is a crisis in training. The proportion of trainees in the workforce appears to have declined by half since the 1970s and there is increasing concern about skill shortages in the industry. Too few people are being trained to replace the ageing skilled workforce, and too few are acquiring the technical and managerial skills required to get full value from new techniques and technologies.
Construction also lacks a proper career structure to develop supervisory and management grades; l too many clients are undiscriminating and still equate price with cost, selecting designers and constructors almost exclusively on the basis of tendered price. This tendency is widely seen as one of the greatest barriers to improvement. The public sector,