IP - S3E01 - Suria Jones - Final for upload
===

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Industrialized Podcast, where we speak to those leading the charge towards the future of construction. In this episode, host Darren Richards, director of Cogent Consulting, sits down with Suria Jones, technical director at Laing O'Rourke. Managing a massive £6 billion portfolio, Suria explains what it really takes to scale industrialized construction.

They discuss why treating complex buildings as bespoke is costing the industry, how a vertically integrated model drives real value, and what the future looks like for advanced manufacturing. Let's find out more as we hand over to Darren

Welcome to the Industrialized podcast, uh, where we're joined today by Saria Jones from Laing O'Rourke. Hi, Saria. Hi, Darren. How you doing? Good. Very well, thank you. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your role as technical director at Laing O'Rourke. Well, I'm technical director at Laing O'Rourke, which is a bit of an kind of broad title.

I essentially look after [00:01:00] all of our buildings projects, so it's about a six billion pound portfolio for projects in healthcare, science and research, defense, custodial, and a few extra complex projects. Um, what I do is make sure that multidisciplinary design and engineering shows up from start to finish.

We're embedding really good ways of working, particularly in terms of industrialized construction. Um, but we're also a, I'd say it's a, a risk management and value driving engine for the business. So what I'm really proud of at Laing O'Rourke is we really put engineering and health and safety and designing out, you know, safety risks at the forefront of everyth- all of our decision-making.

So the technical role is really big part of that. And clearly, you know, very challenging having the scope of sectors. You know, you're working at one end of the spectrum, I guess, on, I don't know, residential, another end on, um, healthcare. And, you know, the challenge, I suppose, is having that very [00:02:00] broad sector knowledge, is it?

Yeah. I mean, there's, there's obviously transferable concepts between all of them. Um, and then for each sector there are nuances that are specific to that that we really need to drive and prioritize. So if we're looking at healthcare in particular at the moment, we're looking at the NHP program and making sure we're really delivering what clients are after in terms of what the users want, the doctors and the nurses, and how we create those good spaces, and then how that translates back into good design showing up.

Mm. And you as a business, Laing O'Rourke, has been on this industrialized construction journey, you know, for a long time now, been very committed to seeing through a, a, a vision. You've spent many years building a vertically integrated construction business, you know, and trying, trying, uh, to scale that. So on a day-to-day basis in practice, what does that mean?

What, what does a vertically integrated business that uses industrialized construction really mean? It's one of the things that really drew me to Laing [00:03:00] O'Rourke. So I, I started off my carer- career as a consultant structural engineer, then I moved into contracting, um, with Lendlease previously. But the thing that always challenged me when I was working as a main contractor reliant on supply chain was it was really hard to have those conversations about what we really- Turn the dial, make a difference at the right stage.

So coming to Laing O'Rourke, what I've really appreciated is that ability to call up the person building the component and understand what it is that becomes the critical lever to enabling good design, enabling best practice in terms of construction all the way back, and then bringing that back, feeding that, that back into the early design hopefully leads to a much better end-to-end d- delivery.

But what we're also learning, and I think as a business we're kind of evolving, is you start off on the MMC journey, k- really focusing on how can I manufacture these things in different factories. And what we're learning is [00:04:00] that the key to unlocking it all is that it's a massive, complex system, and you need to get all those different parts of the system to work together.

I, I kind of, I always liken building and engineering to it's g- you know, it's a living, breathing organism, and how do we make sure that living, breathing organism really, um, can work well. And when you're chasing it, you're not just, you're not trying to just fix sy- symptoms, you're fixing root causes. Yes, and feeding them back into the manufacturing processes, the design processes, et cetera.

And I guess, you know, working culturally very aligned with manufacturing people as well as construction people. Yes. You're kind of having to, to bridge, you know, that kind of ecosystem. You're in the middle of bridging those different cultures. You know, manufacturing works one way, construction works a slightly different way.

And I guess the benefit of being vertically integrated is you're all part of the same team, which is quite unusual in this sector, isn't it? Yeah, and I think we, there is more of a focus on [00:05:00] understanding each other's drivers because we all end up benefiting or not benefiting from it, it working. Um, and there's definitely time for heated discussions internally-

um, which help us come, come to more of a common understanding, which I think is harder to get when you're just doing a kind of client and supplier conversation. But I guess that, you know, the fact you have empathy for other colleagues, you know, d- you have different vested interests, but it's part of this same end-to-end chain, that's very, very different to the fragmented traditional construction model.

So, you know, by its very nature, it creates a much more efficient, more productive, more streamlined process. Yeah, and collectively we're, we're engaged in investing in it. So recently I've been working on an initiative internally to try and streamline that even further. And each business unit leader from Expanded, Veta, um, CHT, CHTM, CEM, CX, delivery [00:06:00] directors all in the same room collectively saying, "Yes, this is needed.

We're all gonna benefit fr- from it, so let's invest time. Let's invest in the processes and systems," because we collectively know that the benefits of that will amplify. And I think you don't get to see that if you, if you don't have that linkage as part of your kind of DNA. Yeah. I agree. I agree entirely.

Um, I last met you, um, several weeks ago at the Industrialized Construction Conference. You did a- Yeah ... delivered a stellar presentation there. Um, one of the slides that, uh, came up, which I made notes of and I thought was quite striking in that presentation, was titled, "If it works, why doesn't it always scale?"

Mm-hmm. So I think we share the same view that industrialized construction, offsite manufacturing, et cetera, logically are, you know, the right solution for most applications, but don't often, uh, scale the way you would l- uh, we would like to see it. Um, give us the answer to that question. Well, I th- I think [00:07:00] the answer is we are quite-- we're an industry that still treats everything as bespoke.

I was trying to explain to some friends of mine who have got nothing to do with industry or construction, um, because, you know, the thing that's al-- we're always compared to is the automotive industry or the aerospace industry. But, um, the construction industry for me, we've-- all we've done really is expand on the way you approach your house extension.

So when you're going to get your house extension and at some point the builder's building, you go, "Actually, no, you know what? I wanna move that, um, that plug socket to there," or, "I wanna ma-- oh, but let's just change that, that window size," because that's what you want. But that's a culture we've expanded on and built upon, and we expect to still be able to do.

What we don't realize now is then when we've got these very complex buildings, that change of the plug socket unwinds then that ripple effect across a really diverse supply chain, and all those small bits add into a really difficult, um, end, uh, product. And that's where we see waste, that's where [00:08:00] we see cost out-- overruns.

So I think, I think the nature of we've grown organically as an industry from essentially people building stuff on site. We haven't changed our procurement methods or our systems to reflect what we actually want as buildings. So I think the biggest thing is treating everything as bespoke, um, because you're getting bespoke buildings, you get bespoke outcomes.

How do we make it less bespoke, I guess, is the question. And some of that will come no doubt through some of the large government programs where they're looking at, um, aggregated demands, serialized procurement, repeatable, uh, uh, typologies and building types, uh, which I know you're involved in, you know, whether that be from prisons to hospitals.

So maybe we're just at this kinda tipping point or maybe starting to get to a point where it will scale if that government-led leadership is there across the, the five major markets. Yeah. And we're absolutely seeing it in [00:09:00] the small secure house blocks program, the MOJ program, where the alliance partners, different contractors, different designers are working together.

And we were talking earlier, the-- there's a brilliant, um, opportunity here because you are getting that feedback loop, which we all benefit from. So one prison to another, the, some of the personnel are moving across, that knowledge is moving across, and they're iterating and improving the design each time, which is quite unusual.

Um, and if, if they can lead the path there and show the data and the, the actual improvements, hopefully others will see the benefits Yeah, measuring and capturing and sharing that data, 'cause obviously there are other tier one, uh, and large contractors on the same frameworks. Yeah. You know, and I think the fact that that type of client leadership is encouraging you or mandating you maybe, uh, to share your innovations, your benefits, your learned, you know, that in, that in itself is a different culture, isn't it?

Complete- Yeah, and a certainty of demand for, for supply chain as well [00:10:00] is really important because we'll see every day you open the, um, news and another supplier has gone into administration. So it's impossible for them to think about systems learning and think about im- continuous improvement if they don't have that certainty of supply, uh, of demand.

Um, so big programs like the MOJ program has the opportunity to drive a certainty of demand, which allows people to spend more time on delivering good value and great outcomes And, and I think when you consider your business model, when you're vertically integrated, so you've removed a lot of, uh, interfaces across your entire value chain.

Now you've, you've, you've integrated... I'll just use two examples. You me- you rattled off a number of, uh, businesses within the Laing O'Rourke group. But, you know, if we look at Explore with the precast set up and then maybe Crownhouse Technologies just with the MEP, and you have the benefit of integrated design, of [00:11:00] integrated manufacture, logistics, site delivery, coordination.

You do go-- You've got this streamlined process because it's all within, within the control of the group. And- Yeah ... you know, are you finding that you're now able to, because of these government programs where they've created the right ethos, the right culture, are you now able to really truly demonstrate added improved productivity, added value for-- of the process now you've got the pipeline?

Absolutely. And actually, one of the knock-on benefits beyond ones that people would always think about in terms of productivity and program is the space it's giving teams to think even more creatively. So yesterday, I was on a, I explained I was on the small secure house block at HMP Humber, and even small things, s- seemingly small things that have big impacts is, you know, the team had a, an opportunity to look about the temporary work support for the cactus walls.

So they're these walls that create the shower [00:12:00] cubicle in a prison. Typically, what would happen is you'd use raking props everywhere, and people had to kind of do a bit of a gymnastics approach to getting in and out of units to then do the follow-on trades. Because we're doing this so often that our team could focus on how do we eliminate that risk, we could put props right at the above head level, which meant you've got free, free reign for people to move around.

And we can also look at things like the internal air quality environment for our workers. So we're able to focus on more added value than if we were to start w- w-- We were having to focus on redesigning every time And you're getting response, I presume as well, from the guys at the coalface when they see you're going to site, you're physically listening, speaking with them, hearing what they're saying, and then you're going away and acting upon it.

That must be quite encouraging for them as well. And even building to building, they're, they're improving it. They're, I mean, they're the ones doing the work. They're the ones going, "Look, how about we change this [00:13:00] next time?" And people do, and you see that every time everyone's learning continuously, which is something we don't get the opportunity to do a lot of in construction.

No. And my guess is you would see continuous improvement would be quite obvious within the manufacturing environments, 'cause that's usually part of the DNA of a manufacturing business. Yes. You know, we talk about Kaizen, or we talk about continuous improvement as a philosophy or as a, as a process, but we don't see it very often on a construction site, do we?

No. So- But now we get both. Yeah. Which is brilliant. So you're getting a kind of double, double upside. Back to the presentation from Industrialized Construction Conference, and I wrote another note down around DFMA actually, and I thought this is an area that I'm very passionate about and understanding what DFMA actually is.

And you made a statement that DFMA only works when the whole system allows it to work. Mm. And I think that's what you were just alluding to now, wasn't it? You were just saying, if you don't have those feedback loops- Yeah ... and you can't feed it back into manufacture from the assembly process or whatever, you're not seeing the whole system, I think.

Was that the point you [00:14:00] were trying to make within that statement? It's exactly that. It's, it is understanding And it sounds like a, a lot to ask, but it's understanding every element of how we go to build and work. But also, I mean, if you speak to James Langley, who runs our Explore Manufacturing, his, his feedback would always be like, "We, we don't really focus on design for manufacture.

We probably focus on design for build." And that's a really fair challenge because they're possibly slightly different things, so finding that balance between ... And I think that's what I meant by the system, is there is a trade-off and a balance between all the different parts of it, so, and understanding how you as a collective in terms of design are tr- treating and thinking about each of those different trade-offs.

So there is a perfect size to run through our factory for a lattice plank, but that might not be perfect for installation or for the client needs, so it's that balancing act. Yes. And there'll always be a hierarchy, [00:15:00] won't there? There'll always be something will always win out. Mm. You know, it's whether you want the efficiency at the coal face on site, or whether, you know, it's better to have all the efficiency in the factory and therefore slight compromise.

I mean, I think any form of design, any form of manufacture, construction generally is about finding, you know, compromises all the way along the route, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. But it's about understanding, and I think that's what I mean by the system, is going from ... 'Cause often we'll, we do design in a space, and then we do delivery in a space, and it's understanding actually all of those bits need to link up together to really make it work.

'Cause I, I, I think there is a, sometimes a preconception that DfMA is very much about a standard pattern book at the beginning, but that's not really it, is it? That's a, that's an, a one element of standardization that doesn't work. Or it does work to solve some of the problems, but there are more that we need to try and get.

And you can't get panacea, but it's, it's a, for me, [00:16:00] it's really recognizing that we have to look at the interfaces and the knock-on ripple effects in everything we do. Yes. And, you know, appreciate, you know, behavioral impacts as well. The way people, you know, behave and the culture you create. You know, if you're going to be, you know, truly embrace a DfMA culture and ethos, you have to develop a certain DNA in the way people communicate with each other.

Yeah. You know, the way you run your, your workshops, your R&D activity. You know, you've got to have that culture at every level within the business, haven't you, to make it work. Yeah. And what's interesting recently as part of that initiative I mentioned, is I did a bit of a kind of data gathering across different- People that, that are part of the chain.

And one thing that kept coming on was that sometimes we know manufacturing constraints. We talk about them at the beginning of a design, and we talk about it a lot, but then we forget about it or we choose to, to put it to one side when other drivers come in. So how do we have that consistency of [00:17:00] approach and decide if we're gonna do it, let's, let's stick to it and keep doing it?

And on that point, I, I made another note, interestingly, at the conference, and it was around how you built the business model. I think quote I wrote down was, "Designing once and deploying many times," I think was a phrase that you used, which brought my mindset close to ostensibly platform construction.

Mm-hmm. You know, that, that kind of ethos of platform design. Is that where you think you're at now as a, a, in a, you know, the kinda culture design ethos? Is it focused on platforms now? That would be a, an ideal goal, and where it's worked really well is in our digital bridges system. So that definitely was going from, let's not have bespoke bridges designs, let's design once and deploy many times.

And we are seeing the benefits and clients are seeing the benefit of programs going from months to days. So absolutely, that would be a [00:18:00] direction of travel. I think when it comes to buildings, that system becomes slightly more complex and there are more interfaces to think about, and the traditional build model makes that really hard.

And I mean, I think you maybe underplay the success of the bridges, you know, the expanded business. You know what I mean? I think they won Industrialized Construction Award this year, you know, for the work they've done in, in really picking and then, you know, kind of standardizing and creating a platform model.

It's been super successful and maybe 'cause it's a little bit niche, it hasn't had the accolades it deserves. I mean, I thought it was incredible project and well deserving of winning that Industrialized Construction Award. But because it's a bit niche and, and bridges are, you know, not in everybody's daily life.

But they're everywhere. Yeah, kind of. We drive past 'em all the time, and the pain and headache we all have if you close down part of a motorway for weeks on end to do this, whereas we are now saying we can do it overnight. It's, you know, it is in- incredible. Yeah. And I know there's also a [00:19:00] concept that bridges are simple, and they're not.

The ones we do are very ... and they are bespoke to the situations they're in, the sites they're in. But the beauty there again, has been marrying manufacturing designers and our, our construction teams and delivery and logistics all coming together. That's been really brilliant. A- and you're then kind of evolving what would've been a construction process more to a, a co- configurable product platform, aren't you now?

Yeah. Absolutely. You have the base, the core of the concept for the bridge, but you're able to almost mass customize, aren't you? Mm-hmm. To configure it to suit these unique environments, which, you know, a- a- a- again, is a major step forward, I think, in terms of the philosophy of how you approach the problem.

Yeah. Yeah, and it absolutely would be a brilliant way forward if other sectors would adopt it too. Hmm. Okay. So are you using the great examples within the bridges side of the business then to try and influence thinking elsewhere? Absolutely. And particularly now we're looking at much more repeatable sectors.

So [00:20:00] our, our priority sectors are in science and research, healthcare Rail, defense, green energy. You're seeing that a lot with the Great Grid program and the green energy program. We're trying to bring the benefits of that thinking to pretty much everything we're doing, to a lesser or greater degree of success, depending on the kind of procurement model and the, the client aspirations.

And where does that get driven from? Does it get driven from you and your team as a, as a, as a technical solution, or is it a, is it a procurement one, or is it driven by commercial or... I, I guess you'll say it's collective, but there must be something that's driving it At a higher level I mean, the aspirations of our business, the vision set by, you know, our founder and then also the MD always drives that.

So that's from on high, but it is very much based in the culture of the business, and that's something I really learned from moving into Laing O'Rourke is [00:21:00] when I'd been at other companies, the concept of trying to take this approach was something that you faced a bit of friction to. But actually, our baseline assumption is that we will be trying to do this as much as possible.

And I think it's more that where we can't do it is the challenge. Yeah. It's almost a reverse model of most other contractors certainly that I encounter, which is we'll approach it as a traditional build methodology, and if an opportunity exists to industrialize it somewhere or use a bit of offsite, well, then maybe we'll do it.

Yeah. You know, you come at it from the reverse of that, which is we're gonna start with the premise of it will be as off-site manufactured and as industrialized as it can be. Yeah. And only if you need to, you'll compromise in other areas and do it traditionally. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I, you know, I think there's also the element that at ten, 15 years ago, the business put a big upfront investment into it.

So I think the initial drivers may have been, let's keep this factory [00:22:00] viable by keeping productivity through it and production through it. But that's now moved on to more to an overall philosophy for we really can't move on as an industry unless we all change fundamentally. Yeah. And I think that's really part of what we do.

Yeah. And obviously, you're, you're a global business. You've got in a big activity in, in, in other territories around the world. I know Australia's been a big market for you. How, how do you globally share the learning either from the UK outward or from other territories around the world inward? H- have you got some worldwide kind of R&D team or?

Well, we do. We have a, our T&I technology and innovation team, which are worldwide, but it's actually more about sharing knowledge by sharing people. So we've sent a, in terms of, for example, if we we're doing, we de- we're doing Hinkley right now, we are delivering Sizewell too, and then in, in Australia, we're looking at helping them with nuclear programs.

So we're sending some of our really experienced people from Hinkley over to Australia, and they'll also come [00:23:00] back to us at some point, and that's how we are sharing and that network. It's a very relationships built, based business too. So that network of knowledge share is a big part of what we do. Okay, that's good.

And obviously, we're, we live in a, an era where we're very fortunate, I think, to see a lot of digital innovation. Mm. You know, we've got platforms now that can allow us to communicate a lot of information very quickly and seamlessly in seconds. So obviously, at the heart of the business, there must be some significant digital integration strategy to be able to scale the manufacturing and design and things.

How, how is... Again, it's mind-boggling for me 'cause it's a large, it's a massive multi-billion turnover business, you know. And getting people to adopt new systems, processes, software, et cetera, is quite, quite interesting. So how, h-how do you go about doing that? 'Cause that's the spine of the business now, isn't it?

Digital workflows and things. Yeah. Well, it's, it's something we're actually looking at right now in, in terms of improving. [00:24:00] Because we have our can-do attitude, there's been a lot of... And we, we encourage innovation. Project by project, th-they've set up their own ways of, of working, and we call it dashboard fatigue now.

So then there is an element where c-we create ways of reporting and monitoring, and they are quite unique to different projects. They do have an, an undercurrent of the same data, so through the different manufacturing outfits. But realistically, that is changed depending on the client, depending on the project, and also the people in the team.

So what we are trying to do is look at can we work out collectively what is the baseline minimal viable product that we need, that we can then customize by project and by teams. Because there is an element where we want people to s-to still feel ownership and the ability to innovate, but around a baseline of consistency.[00:25:00]

Yeah. So you've almost got this kind of skeleton, and then off, off the skeleton- Yeah ... there can be these strands of either software being trialed in certain applications, then you've got the feedback loop into that again. And, and somewhere in the middle of it, it'd be remiss of us not to raise AI, and somewhere in the middle of it, I guess you've got somebody spearheading an AI strategy for the business, 'cause that's obviously game changing on virtually every walk of life nowadays, isn't it?

Yeah. I would imagine for a business of your type, the opportunities are even greater because of this integrated model to be able to streamline processes and use AI to move information through the business quicker. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we, we do have a team sp- like you say, spearheading AI. We've also been encouraged to become very AI con-conversant as individuals because, again, as a business that encourages innovation and critical thinking and problem solving, some of the, our best solutions are ones created by people on the ground.

But- We're still in that space that everyone else is. We're trying to work [00:26:00] out where best to put it. We have Cordy, which is a, an AI consultancy as part of the Laing O'Rourke group, and a lot of the work there has been about how we can use AI to look at productivity and planning to really maximize options for, for our teams and our clients.

So looking at where is the critical path in a construction sequence, and can we think about it differently? Because we, we're using things where a planner might have to do several iterations and take them months and months. We can do it in a matter of minutes and give ourselves some options and different metrics.

So it's, it definitely is playing a big part in the planning logistics productivity space. In the design space, it's something we're still looking at and working out where it's best used. Interesting. And I guess you at some point will create this fully interconnected process whereby your planners, you know, at the press of a button will know what the capacity on a certain day at [00:27:00] the manufacturing facility will be.

Yeah. You know, which often you don't see that nowadays, and you've got, you know, manufacturing capacity planning going on in isolation to construction project planning. Yeah. I guess you can join all those dots then. Yeah. So at, you know, at a really basic level right now, one of the things we look at, for example, into Explore is we always want eight to twelve weeks of design ready in the hopper for, for that, and we can monitor what's blocking that depending on the process.

The ideal way it goes is that all becomes fully integrated into your design decisions at stage zero, stage one, and, and you can do that end-to-end scenario planning, looking at where are the pinch points And on, on the basis of the fact that, you know, these manufacturing facilities are hungry beasts, aren't they?

You know, let's face it, you know, the manufacturing facilities need feeding. You have to kinda, you know, create the pipeline, create the capacity. Once you've created the capacity, you've gotta sustain the, the, the, the capacity, haven't you? And [00:28:00] that obviously, you know, is challenging from a commercial model perspective 'cause, you know, if a project goes into delay or hits planning issues, you know, and the factory doesn't have that demand at the level it needs to be optimized and productive and efficient, it's quite a challenge, isn't it?

And how, how do you manage that? Because I guess if we just take the Explore facility as one, it's servicing multiple projects in parallel for multiple sectors with multiple different types of- Yeah ... building panels. That's quite a complex beast. And that is where the digital thread is really valuable.

Yeah. So they, we can ... Because we've got that 8 to 12 weeks of design ready, then we can work out where to kind of move production around if you say if a project is delayed or, or if there's a different, you know, a client decides to put something on hold. We've got enough kind of spare capacity in what we're playing with to be able to move things around.

Yeah. The buffer buys you the time to [00:29:00] work out different scenarios- Yeah ... and make an informed decision, I guess, at that point. Yeah. Yeah. Less easy to do maybe with something like a Crown House where you've got super complex, you know, obviously mechanical, electrical, plumbing services, but I guess more bespoke as a business.

You know, there's probably less standardization, I'm guessing, in that business. Well, it's funny actually. I think there's ... If you look at Crown House's kind of options and components for, say, the data center sector, they've got a really good, like a catalog, which is actually a bit further along than where Explore is in terms of some of its components.

So I think it has the same challenges, but I don't think it's necessarily much harder. I think with all of it, it is about that. And the challenge we do see coming, and we are thinking about it and planning ahead, is our, I think our productivity, our production is, is forecast to double next year. So right now, we've got a mixture of our design buffer, but we've also got a lot of [00:30:00] human behaviors that help us go along.

So we're able to ... Projects will call each other up and call up the facilities. And between all the humans, we can, can really make things work, and we can, you know, we can maybe delay product onto one site because it's not in the critical path and push something in another. With the kind of the future pipeline, that becomes really dependent on using digital, a digital thread, having that discipline, and we're really working on getting a lot of that discipline Put into a process and a system which is clearer.

And I guess that might require some make for stock strategy rather than make to order, you know? Yeah. I mean, there are different ways of, you know, addressing that capacity constraints or growing that capacity. Yeah, yeah. You know, there's always elasticity in a system, isn't it? It's just where do you push it and where, where do you kinda move the balance from, I guess?

'Cause factory utilization and balancing that, I think regardless of scale, is, is a perennial challenge for [00:31:00] anyone- Absolutely ... making anything. You know, variability is a bit of an enemy, or it can be come to times. And our T&I department is also spending a lot of time looking at what kind of factory do we need to turn into to accommodate, like you say, changes, but also to accommodate future products, future direction of travel, and make it more efficient.

Because the current sy- facilities we have are very kind of traditional long line factories. We know nowadays that factories are set up in different ways, and how do we get to that- Yeah ... you know, manufacturing 5.0? Well, I guess the philosophy will become, you know, it will, will probably some- at some point evolve from standardization being the absolute key to more adept manufacturing and design processes that allow a mass customized approach.

Yeah. You know, which is really where the automotive industry went. Yeah. You know, having spent 50 years trying to standardize and produce, you know, base components, I think they realized actually you can mass customize efficiently and maintain and improve [00:32:00] productivity levels. You know, so there's a lot, there's a lot to learn from other sectors, I think, you know, not, not just automotive.

So we obviously know the benefits of the s- the philosophy of industrialized construction. Okay. In terms of w- faster, safer, less environmental impact, however you measure it. There's lots of things we could talk about that would say you really need to embrace industrialized construction as a method. How do clients see it, and how do they value it?

Because Laing O'Rourke's got a lot of unique characteristics to it, whether it's technological or people based or culture based, and not every client will get it. Mm. I guess. Not every client will realize the benefit of working with a business that is as integra- vertically integrated and as industrialized as yours.

So how do you bring the client on that journey to make them realize that there's real value in the way you go about delivering your projects? I think there's, for me at the Eastern, I can't speak for the whole business, it's about making clear [00:33:00] that we are totally aligned with what the client is after, what they're wanting.

I think there's sometimes a misconception, particularly in the DFMA world, that there's this desire to force a client to change their, their value drivers to accommodate DFMA, you know, industrialized construction. I think for us it's very much about saying, "Yes, we, we see you want these things, but we also think we can, we can do it better.

We can, we can have a safer site. We can deliver you value. We can deliver you quality." But the other bit is there are two things I think. One is bringing clients to finished buildings and letting them see the quality speak for itself. We opened the Stephen Schwarzman Center for Humanities in Oxford earlier this year, and that is a really beautiful building, and the quality there is exceptional, and that is 80% pre-manufactured.

And Steven Schwarzman himself was like, "This is incredible. We're not doing anything [00:34:00] like this in America. Why, why isn't everyone doing it?" So there's a, there's a hearts and minds piece to it like that. Yeah, and we just profiled that project actually in Industrialized Construction Journal. You know, it's picking up a lot of profile within the press.

Yeah. You know, and I think good buildings do that. You know, people shout about them, they talk about them, they celebrate them, they produce the case studies, you know, and, and, you know, good buildings naturally, almost by word of mouth, you know, become acknowledged as being such. Yeah. You know, that's a fantastic project.

And of course, you know, uh, you can see a lot of the amount of repeat business we have. So yeah, I c- I can't remember the exact numbers, but a, a good o- well over 50% of our clients are repeat customers because they've experienced the offering and they see the benefits. But I will agree that it's hard when you're comparing upfront costs, the, the stated costs in a tender.

You might not ... And, and if that's your only metric for comparison because they're saying basically all [00:35:00] construction's the same, then it's hard to make that argument. Yeah. Yeah. And it- You don't want to be in the lowest cost tender competition really, do you? You know, you want to espouse all of the other benefits.

Yeah. You know, and you know, it's about value for money, isn't it? Where's the value in the process and, you know, program certainty, carbon reduction, and quality, as you say, you know. And, and especially for complex projects, that complexity being given clients certainty that we can deliver on a really complex project is a real value, w- particularly in the, you know, the science and research world, where clients need a very high quality space because they need it CL3, CL2 labs.

You need to have that certainty, which only MMC can really give you. So I think there's a huge element there. We know already that the government is encouraging it through the construction playbook, so the way that the MOJ and, uh, those parties are behaving is similar because they understand the value's there.

So I think [00:36:00] the other bit I try to Kind of spend a bit more time with contract clients talking about is the, the benefit of an integrated supply chain means that you're not losing time or money in those interfaces, which you often do on a project. And how many projects is it where the client's saying, "Gosh, this isn't, this isn't what I asked for.

This isn't how you said you were gonna behave." And there's something about how we're delivering on our promises as well. Yeah. And you know, the, the type of client which I would describe as the blue chip client, which, you know, is a, a lot of your clients fall into that space. You know, they're, they're very smart people, aren't they?

You know, they understand, you know, the benefits of this ethos, this methodology, you know. And if you deliver, if you do what it says on the tin, they'll come back. You know, and I think you're seeing the benefits of that, aren't you, with these long-term repeatable clients? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And we're able, because of that, we're able to bring [00:37:00] knowledge across sectors.

Like you said, we've got people working at Hinkley in the, the high requirement space of nuclear. Some of the things we're learning from that we're able to apply onto other projects. So you're benefiting from other industries and other sectors on everything you do. So there's that piece as well. So wrapping up, clearly you're pioneering.

I mean, I admire the Laing O'Rourke business. You know, I can't speak highly enough of what I think you've achieved and where you're going and what you're doing. It really inspires a lot of my thinking and personally, and a lot of the initiatives that we're trying to create through the Industrialized Construction Advisory Board, various other things.

So let's just kind of future gaze a little bit then. So, and looking into the future, what's the next evolution for Laing O'Rourke's industrialized construction model? What's the next big thing, or is it, is it now just about incremental refinements, just shifting the dial a little bit? [00:38:00] It's, it's about industrialized construction at scale with advanced manufacturing.

So we're helping Sizewell in the same way that we've helped Hinkley with a kind of advanced manufacturing facility, and we're looking at how we can do that for other projects and more. So it's really kind of, it is refining the model we already have, but almost amplifying it. We're really, really focused on showing to the industry that our 70/60/30 paradigm, where if we have 70%, at least 70% of our construction elements manufactured offsite, we save time and, and labor, and people see the benefit in cost.

We really believe in that, and we are looking at demonstrating that. Exactly what that holds for the next 10 years is something that's being developed. So we have people looking at robotics. We have people looking at cobots. We are looking at platform design. [00:39:00] We're looking at configurators. But where that all kind of coalesces to is still gonna be determined by what works in the market and, and the direction of travel of that as well.

I mean, I think, you know, ultimately it's, it's, it'll never stop, will it? You know, innovation will carry on. You know, there'll be something new, there'll be a different challenge, there'll be a, a different pressure, there'll be a new opportunity. And, and I think what comes across from you, you know, in this conversation and seeing you speak at the recent conference, you know, is there's a passion, there's a real drive, a genuine belief and enthusiasm to make construction better, safer, less impactful on the environment.

You know, all these things align around this industrialized construction ethos, you know. And as I say, I'm, I'm full of admiration for the work you do and, you know, long may it continue. Well, thank you. Thanks very much for your time. Thank you very much. Cheers. Bye-bye. Thanks. Thanks for listening to this edition of The Industrialized Podcast.

This podcast was produced by Radar Media. The views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the guests and do [00:40:00] not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Radar Media. For more information, head to www.industrializedconstruction.co.uk.