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Pernille Walloe, Danish Technological Institute, Denmark
‘Cooperation and Learning in Construction’ (BygSoL) is a initiative taken by parties within the industry and funded partly by the European Social Fund and partly by the industry itself. Its aim is to develop and implement a new construction process yielding higher value and lower costs. The programme is managed by a management committee with members from the Contractors’ Association, the Construction Workers’ Trade Union and the Construction Managers association along with the Danish Technological Institute which also is the programme secretariat.
A number of clients as well as industry participants joined the programme from the outset. The programme has also established cooperation with the Technical Universities and a number of Training Centres.
The programme stems from studies and experiments in Denmark over the past 15 years aimed at increasing construction industry productivity. These has established the challenge for the sector and through this programme some of the leading participants within the sector have taken the challenge upon themselves.
Programme objectives
The programme’s main objective is to implement a new industry practice in the construction processes. This objective indicates that it is no longer time for experiments but for direct action, which therefore requires strategic commitments by the management of the participating industries.
The better practice aimed for, calls for a change in attitude and behaviour throughout the industry – from the management and down to the last worker employed on the construction site, and from the clients through the professionals and to the contractors and suppliers of materials and equipment. This development calls for an ongoing learning process comprising each and everybody working within the construction sector, not least the many skilled and unskilled workers employed on the construction sites.
Programme realisation
The programme is divided into a series of activities to be undertaken by each industry participant. The participant establishes his own strategy for the implementation of the new construction process within his enterprise as well as a number of partner firms chosen by the participant in question. The programme will thus consist of a number of sub-programmes, each sponsored by one of the primary participants.
The main focus for the participants are to implement cooperation and learning in a new way. To solve this at the construction site, we use different kinds of training courses kept at site and not in a classroom. Those are i.e. a 2-days course for employees at site with focus on getting a better cooperation-process, different kinds of meetings either weekly or monthly where the employees focus on planning, cooperation and safety. The local training centre facilitates most of this.
The results and experiences from the implementation projects will be compiled and analysed by a ‘knowledge group’ in order to provide a basis for further improvement within the whole programme. It is thus expected that the programme will be a starting point for continuous learning and improvement within the construction industry, just as occurs with manufacturing industries.