Manufacturers can spend less time on the ‘bulk’ components and focus their efforts on the ‘project specific’ parts, and spend more time with customers understanding their individual needs.

In one recent project, we worked on the quality assurance (QA) elements of our client’s operation.QA covered four distinct areas of manufacturing, both primary and secondary, and small and large module, split across two campuses and 13 separate testing laboratories, each conducting variety of tests and other QA processes It is not hard to imagine the complexity that engendered.

And while many people had an understanding of parts of the process, no-one had a complete understanding of the whole picture.. We gathered, consolidated and agreed enormous amounts of site and process data with the client and then assessed, in a variety of ways, each of their laboratories.We gave each laboratory a consolidated, weighted score based on their effectiveness and considering any known issues (always using visualisations and the agreed common language).. We produced visual analytics of the entire web of processes on site in a way that was clear and, as a result, very powerful: it gave the client the tools to be able not just to see and understand their complex processes in their relative context, but also to discuss them with each other (regardless of specialism and teams) and senior management.. We could then map this analysis against a range of desired objectives and value drivers, to describe dependencies, adjacencies and requirements, and how to be able to measure outputs.We presented a wide range of variables, for example: density of operations in laboratories by m2; activity in terms of people per m2; test time by laboratory and category of test; laboratory capacity by time taken per test, and by number of tests carried out per year; and so on..

This gave the client a clear way to see the most pressing requirements, and an initial indication of how to prioritise and plan the way ahead.. We carried out further analysis of the full scope of what is covered by ‘Quality Assurance’ – from the routine to the exceptional – and what impact this activity has on value in the client’s manufacturing process (cost, speed, quality and flexibility, for example)..Finally, we offered options for strategic direction for improvement, combined with comprehensive and highly detailed potential improvements (using the 5S method).

These ranged from maintaining the current system but fixing the most obvious issues, through to relocation and/or consolidation of laboratories, and optimisation and automation of Quality Assurance processes.. A digital methodology.

At Bryden Wood, we say that we are powered by technology as a methodology, a way of thinking that unlocks new approaches to complexity.These don’t match up, Marks says, commenting that this is why she went to work at.

Ultimately, she realised that she just couldn’t make the level of impact she wanted to by working from the bottom up, within just one small portion of the ecosystem.. Marks says the level of change needed to facilitate a true industry shift to industrialised construction requires a top-down level of influence.She’s currently writing a book about the topic – ‘The Innovator’s Deception.’ She says she’s starting to see multi-billion dollar companies pushing back.

They’re starting to feel dissatisfied with what’s on offer to them with traditional construction and they want something different.. That, says Amy Marks, is how she knows things are going to change..Serial owners and the power of clients to drive change in construction.