Stop constructing assets. Start delivering outcomes.

Melissa Zanocco, Challenge Director: Growth Mission at UKRI, sets out the case for the Industrialising & Digitalising Construction Challenge.

Melissa Zanocco, Challenge Director: Growth Mission at UKRI

Melissa Zanocco, Challenge Director: Growth Mission at UKRI - the UK’s national innovation agency - sets out why fragmentation is still the biggest blocker to industrialising construction, and how demand aggregation and a platform approach could finally shift delivery from construction to production.

I’m fortunate to be part of a community at the heart of the built environment, focused on inspiring the sector to take a systemic approach to delivering better outcomes for people and nature.

We spend a lot of time on how we construct - improving productivity so projects deliver faster, cost less and achieve higher quality. But too often the purpose gets lost. We rarely check whether what we have built actually achieved the outcome we hoped for - or whether it performs well over its lifetime, which is far longer than the few years it took to deliver.

Outcome-focused

During Covid, we brought together stakeholders from across the sector to agree Our Vision for the Built Environment: a built environment that enables people and nature to flourish together for generations. We are increasingly understanding that humans are part of nature - so if it does not flourish, neither can we. That should be the ultimate purpose of why we build, and it should remain central when we design the environments where people live and work - not only for today’s communities, but for those that come after us.

One barrier to taking a truly systemic approach is fragmentation. Traditional delivery models create linear, transactional relationships. Aligning incentives around shared outcomes helps shift behaviours - enabling more collaborative approaches where everyone is working towards the same goals.

Enterprise Delivery Models

Project 13 is a global industry change movement that promotes collaborative enterprise models focused on outcomes. Its principles were identified by analysing the best and worst programmes in the industry - grounded in real-world experience. Since launch, many of the UK’s largest infrastructure programmes have adopted the principles.

Cover: DFMA forward: When key elements arrive ready to install, construction starts to look more like production - with fewer surprises on site. Video © Innovate UK

1: Image © HLM Architects
2: Image © HSBCAD

Project 13 highlights a major blocker to achieving better outcomes: lack of integration. One of its five pillars is Integration, focused on helping large-scale programmes move from construction to production - creating integration at enterprise and programme level.

Our Vision for the Built Environment was translated into policy through Transforming Infrastructure Performance (TIP): Roadmap to 2030 (published by the former Infrastructure & Projects Authority). TIP Focus Area 3 - addressing the need for social infrastructure using a platform approach - explored increased use of platform approaches to enable greater consistency in delivery.

The Industrialising & Digitalising Construction Challenge

I have recently launched the Industrialising & Digitalising Construction Challenge as part of UKRI’s Mission Accelerator Programme. The Challenge is focused on overcoming barriers to integration at an industry level - putting TIP’s intent into practice and building on it.

Outcomes are won or lost in delivery - but they rely on decisions, standards and data being aligned upstream, before work reaches site.

There are already strong examples of digitalised and industrialised solutions delivering benefits on individual projects. The problem is that they can only happen in silos as incentives, pipelines and data remain fragmented. Industry transformation cannot happen through isolated adoption alone - so this Challenge will enable integration at the centre of the industry by aligning demand, standards and delivery models.

The Challenge will develop a target delivery model for industrialised and digitalised solutions, alongside a digital platform that brings together an aggregated and optimised pipeline of demand with manufactured kits of parts - designed for high-quality homes and buildings. The delivery model and platform will enable:

Clients to set out how projects and programmes can be configured and delivered to realise the benefits of industrialised and digitalised solutions.
Businesses developing innovative solutions to access scalable, long-term markets for products and services - attracting investment and supporting sector transformation.
The financial sector to invest with greater confidence, backed by a digital ecosystem that connects companies to a sustainable market underpinned by government demand.

We will pilot this approach on social housing and accommodation projects in a UK industrial strategy growth region. The aim is to demonstrate a route to scale - grounded in real delivery, not theory.

Finally, we will create the first of a network of Accelerator Centres, where manufacturers can showcase products on full-scale structural frames - demonstrating assembly and how different manufacturers’ products can connect. The centres will also support training and upskilling, creating opportunities for a more diverse workforce and helping tackle another persistent blocker: skills and capability.

The Future

The follow-up to Our Vision is Our Shared Understanding: a circular economy in the built environment. This brought together leading experts from across the world to agree how the Vision can be achieved. Although this is not a core focus of the Challenge, I will apply a circular economy lens as an additional, personal line of enquiry - recognising that the full impact may not be demonstrable within the four-year timeline - to explore whether it could also accelerate the transition by enabling:

greater use of reused material within kits of parts
reuse of components
easier disassembly at end of life

The Challenge should also enable a feedback loop so we can continuously improve homes and buildings over time. I’m looking forward to working with the industry to ensure this Challenge succeeds - and delivers the better outcomes it is designed to achieve.

For more on UKRI, visit www.ukri.org

Visit the Conference

Melissa Zanocco is speaking at Industrialised Construction Conference - joined by the sector’s clients, manufacturers and delivery leaders. Catch UKRI’s Challenge Director: Growth Mission live at the IC Conference, alongside an expert programme focused on outcomes, integration and repeatable delivery at scale.

Industrialising construction starts with integration - shared data and standardised interfaces that let design, manufacture and delivery operate as one system.

Melissa Zanocco, Challenge Director: Growth Mission at UKRI