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Speaker: [00:00:00] In this episode, host Darren Richards, director of Courageous Consulting, sits down with Oliver Novakovic, technical and innovation director at Barratt Development. Oliver shares how the UK's largest house builder is scaling up offsite delivery and why standardization is their secret weapon for driving onsite quality.

They discuss managing over one hundred and thirty innovations in their pipeline, the power of open source industry trials, and the race to hit net zero carbon by twenty-forty. Now, let's join the conversation

Speaker 2: Welcome to the Industrialized podcast, where today I'm joined by Oliver Novakovic from Barratt Redrow.

Hi, Ollie.

Speaker 3: Hiya. You all right?

Speaker 2: Yeah, good. Please tell us a little bit about what you do, about yourself and what you do as a day job at Barratt Redrow.

Speaker 3: Yeah, sure. So, uh, Oliver Novakovic. I'm Technical and Innovation Director is my title, but, uh, probably the best way to break it down is very much I deal with innovation coming into the business, uh, very much around [00:01:00] sustainability or off-site construction, smart technology, and things like that.

I then also bu- deal with a lot of the building regulations, most importantly sort of Future Homes Standard and Part L that's coming in. But I do ventilation and other things. Overheating comes under my remit. And then finally, I do a lot of building physics stuff, so where we've got things that we're looking at on our houses, whether it's condensation, ventilation, things like that.

Again, that'll come across thermal imaging. That'll come into my side. So really interesting sort of combination of things that all lead into each other.

Speaker 2: Keeps you busy. So we're gonna talk about industrialized construction today, which is a term that's not often used around housing, and particularly low-rise housing.

It seems to be applied more to infrastructure of various other markets, but it's certainly creeping in. Uh, and this is obviously about industrializing and scaling up, um, delivery of housing. So I suppose first question is, is around how Barratt Redrow are scaling up. You've obviously invested in timber frame technology, uh, at [00:02:00] least the first phase of that.

Be interested to know, um, how you see that scaling up and industrializing further, and what other techniques you're looking at in terms of off-site manufacturing.

Speaker 3: Yeah, sure. So, uh, probably start, you know, as always at the beginning of the story, which, and it's 'cause it's important when it comes to scaling up.

Um, when I joined, uh, 13 years ago, uh, what was recognized is there was a key, uh, drivers around skill shortages, the materials availability. There was a movement around sustainability that was continually growing. So all these things basically led us to look at different ways of delivery, as well as improving our current way of delivery and bringing new technologies in, so both new technology and traditional and in off-site and other areas.

So i- in a way, uh, the business saw the need for scaling up, so then the question was how do you do it, and why do you do it, and how do you... Hearts and minds, as always with a big company, you need to bring everyone along the journey. They all need to become innovators. So what we did is we, we first set out clearly what, what were the drivers.

We then set out what do we need to do, what are, is [00:03:00] out there to enable us to meet those drivers. And of course, the easiest one would be to say, "Look at timber frame." So timber frame, what it did is it gave us, at the time, it gave us speed, it gave us a change of material, a change of skill. We've gone on to invest £40, 50 million in factories.

We bought Oregon in 2018. We did vertical integration. But You know, there are other things. We've got over a hundred and fifty innovations in our pipeline, from bathroom pods to flooring systems to new smart technology to different types of radiators and emitters to air source heat pumps. So all of that is a combination that we've basically set clear roadmaps.

We usually set a three or five-year roadmap. We go to our board, we discuss that. We do talk about ten and fifteen years, but that's further out, and we pull that all together, um, and then we basically chase that down to basically bring into the business the relevant innovations. And, and, you know, re- you know, industrialized con-construction, like many things, y- it means different things to different people.

It is what it means [00:04:00] to you. So for me, industrialization is about we've, we've worked towards standardization of our product to enable things to happen. Industrialization is basically a word of enabling, bringing in a different approach, an innovative approach here and now. One of the biggest sort of things to talk about is offsite, obviously.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And, and, and obviously through standardization, you can develop platforms, you can develop kit of parts. You know, the whole philosophy kind of feeds itself, doesn't it? Once you kinda get the, onto the journey, if you like.

Speaker 3: But more importantly, sorry, just to break in, is what standardization also brings, uh, and people miss is, is quality.

Yeah? Because standardization means that the people on site are putting the same thing in the same place constantly. There's not, there's what we would call not changes, and most errors occur in change, especially if it's not carefully managed. So that's what standardization brings. And again, you remember I said hearts and mind.

Well, that's a heart and mind. If you say, "Well, we're gonna de- help deliver a better [00:05:00] quality product through standardization," means our customers are happier, means we get less the return, uh, queries and, and issues, well, then why wouldn't you buy into that? You know, that, that will only help you sell more homes.

Speaker 2: And when you talk about management of change, it's, it's usually a long journey and a slower journey than most people would like. Um, so you've been in, uh, timber frame yourself personally now for twenty-five years plus since the late nineteen nineties. Barratt's, um, obviously have a history of timber frame, but in the modern, uh, iteration of timber frame, the Oregon acquisition and, and, and the investment in the factory, um, what volumes are you targeting as a maybe a percentage or how many thousand units a year?

How big an impact or, or contribution is timber frame to your business?

Speaker 3: Yeah. So, um, when we-- when I first joined Barratt, we, the board, uh, set a clear target basically to do twenty percent MMC by twenty twenty, and that included timber frame, roof cassettes, uh, foundation systems. We-- At [00:06:00] the time, we also had concrete and steel systems in there.

Um, we got to twenty percent, uh, a year early. Uh, we then set ourselves, uh, twenty twenty-five, twenty-five percent by twenty twenty-five. Uh, that went to thirty percent because we were just motoring on off-site construction, driving the benefits. Of, you know, we've, we, we-- you'll see we've just made our announcement, uh, today, uh, for end of year.

But what will come out when our papers come is basically our, our MMC has gone beyond that thirty percent. Um, I, I wanna say we're around twenty-nine percent timber frame of our houses so that... You know, we're talking four to five thousand homes being built with timber frame construction. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think-- But, but it's important it's not just timber frame.

It's, it's the found-- It's the, uh, ground floor solutions like Nuspann and Spannfirm. It's iRoof. It's, it's, you know, it's roof space. It's, it's lots of different innovations. Um, and that will only be enhanced going forward with us going to a higher percentage in the future [00:07:00] and bringing in things like bathroom pods, cladding systems, and other things.

Speaker 2: So a complementary suite of innovations that, that you, uh, have innovated and brought in as part of the journey. So I, I don't know what the capacity is in, in, uh, the Oregon manufacturing, uh, capability, but do you see factory number three, factory number two, factory number three, factory number four downstream?

There's that bigger commitment to that technology.

Speaker 3: I think the-- look, the commitment from Barratt's, uh, Redrow has always been that, that basically that they will fund what is needed by the sec- by us as a, as a company. So originally, obviously, we recognized that probably, um, there were risks to, to buying our timber frame from an external market.

Timber framers were being sold. Peop-- uh, house builders and other people were interested in them, and that's why we decided that it was important for us to vertically integrate as well as for us to gain a better knowledge of manufacturing and, and be able to work with [00:08:00] know-how. That's-- We bought Oregon importantly because they already had the sort of knowledge around timber frame, so we just combined that into the family of Barratt Redrow.

Um, now So, so for us, if we then move, if, if, if, as an example, if we were saying, uh, the average age of plumbers, I think, is coming in at forty-seven years old. Say we start running out of plumbers, therefore we would struggle to build bathrooms. That means we move towards bathroom pods, you know. Because what that means is we can get different types of skills, not plumbers, still high skills, but just not plumbers doing bathroom pods.

If there wasn't sufficiently big enough supply chain out there to deliver our bathroom pods, we would then look at should we be vertically integrating. Now, you know, we've just announced a five point five billion pound turnover, you know, with eight hundred plus million pound profit. It, it does mean, you know, we're lucky that we're in a position that, you know, should there be a strong enough reason to [00:09:00] invest in vertical integration in anything, uh, we're very lucky that our, our board and others and our investors see that as a positive and a strength to basically maintaining us building and become-- and maintaining being the biggest house builder, you know, and building the best quality homes and all the different aspects that we look at.

Speaker 2: And obviously, you've been a leader in sustainability, and you've done the Zed house, and you've done a whole series of innovations around that. You've kind of-- I think you've kind of cracked that. I know you're very in tune with future home standard, and you've got new house type ranges coming through.

But putting aside the driver of sustainability and sticking with the skills shortage element, so recognize the plumbing, uh, could be a challenge. Roofing I know is a challenge. Bricklaying is a challenge. I-is it primarily now the skill shortage that is driving your innovation rather than the per-performance of the product, which it was a few years ago?

Speaker 3: No, I, I have to say i-it's just one part. I mean, yes, definitely skill shortages are. You know, we just had a, a, a meeting with all the technical directors across [00:10:00] the, uh, the divisions so, you know, twenty-eight plus divisions. Um, and a lot-- a few of them, interestingly enough, mainly in the south, were saying that, you know, bricklayers are becoming a constraint.

So yes, that's definitely a requirement. But we, we've also got, um, you know, concerns around the availability of certain materials. Um, you know, there, there are those constraints coming through. We've also, you know, very much seen the strength of sustainability, you know, from our investors, you know, science-based targets.

So, you know, embodied carbon, um, you'll move towards, you know, that twenty fifty. You know, we've obviously set a, a net zero carbon target by twenty forty. That's driving us towards looking at new systems. So there, there are so many quality, um, acceleration of build. You know, should-- when the market turns, and it will, how do we go from, you know, we've been clear in the marketplace, we're looking to build twenty thousand homes.

We're currently in sixteen thousand. How do you jump that for three and a half thousand plus [00:11:00] units? Um, you know, and with the current shortage of skills and materials and other things. So that's why, you know, offsite and other things so.

Speaker 2: That's why you've got a hundred and fifty innovations in the pipeline all running in parallel 'cause, um, I guess it's just a cyclical thing.

You solve one challenge, and you have to move on to the next one, yeah. So that obviously requires a lot of supply chain engagement and getting the supply chain to hear what your objectives are, what your strategy is, you know, to, to, uh, effectively come up with the innovations that suit your solution that you want.

Speaker 3: How do you go about

Speaker 2: that? H- What, what's your method of supply chain engagement? Kinda sandpit sessions or, uh, I know you do a lot of, um, prototyping and trial units, which we'll come back to in a minute. But, uh, uh, what-- how does supply chain engagement work?

Speaker 3: So there's a number of ways we do that. Uh, I think probably three are the key, three key ways.

So, so one is, you know, obviously we're at Offsite Expo, we come and speak, we walk around, you know, we get-- we talk about our drivers, we talk about our challenges. You know, [00:12:00] we, you know, we had an article in, in The Times on the weekend. You know, we, we have articles in magazines. You know, we're, we're very open sourced about what our drivers are and our needs are, and also we're very open doored.

So, you know, I probably weekly have Teams calls of half an hour with people that have come up with an idea when they're cutting their grass to corporates that have come up with a new idea. So that's the first one. We're very open source, and we go out and talk about that. The second link to what you said is we do lots of sandpits and we do lots of sort of, uh, challenges to the marketplace.

You know, uh, we've done at least four or five sandpits where we get something like 80 suppliers together, and we talk about those challenges, and they have to work together, uh, to develop that. And the third is, is the trial. So, you know, and, and again, not only doing the trial, so we do everything from trials in factories to trials on, on a single site to the Zed house and Energy Home, to where they're at a university and we can test them through to actually on a big development of twenty thirty where we bring [00:13:00] people to see it.

Those trials are also open source, so we invite the supply chain, we invite our competitors to come to those because we think, you know, volume is a requirement if you're gonna be successful. So those are probably the three things about, and I think it's just about being open, uh, about what your challenges are, being honest, you know, about what you want.

Listening to what others-- people's challenges are. I think we take a lot of effort in doing that. Well, the biggest one, I, I think we spend anywhere between Oh, I'd say six to twelve thousand person-hours with any innovation that we truly think has a chance. And that's, you know, that's the team basically sitting down and helping them through everything from third buy to simplification, to understanding cost, to understanding what, what it will take to get onto our marketplace.

If we think an idea works and it might have some legs to it, you know, the innovation and technical department spend a lot of time with those suppliers.

Speaker 2: And of course, one of the big things you've got, being [00:14:00] one of the UK's largest house builders, is you've got pipeline. I know the market's relatively, um, sluggish, uh, at the moment, but the numbers are attractive.

So my guess is when you want to, um, uh, bring a sandpit session together or create an innovation challenge, people know that you've got good volume to go after.

Speaker 3: Mm.

Speaker 2: And that's important.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yes. Uh, yeah, uh, yeah. You know, I wanna-- Yeah, interesting you say that. So I don't think-- I think there are another fifteen to twenty companies out there that could be doing what we're doing because of their size of their pipeline.

And actually, I think some-- I think the medium-sized house builders can do a lot of what we do. I actually, you know, one of the things I'm proudest of about the, the Barratt Redrow ethos is that from, from, you know, from a, from the chief exec down to the site manager, we actually wanna do innovation, and we actually, you know, we walk the talk.

You know, we do trials, we listen, we help, you know. And they, and other companies could do that, [00:15:00] you know. And I, I mean, I'm, you know, you know, I think innovation at Barratt Redrow is so strong because we actually commit to supporting it and working with it. And of course, that then delivers success. I don't think, you know, in many instances, being the biggest is what, what makes that happen.

Speaker 2: It's more the culture.

Speaker 3: It is the culture and, you know, you know, I, I mean, you know, we walk around Offsite Expo today, I've walked around. I, I would say that pretty much every other stand will say hello to me or one of my guys 'cause they met 'em, they've chatted to 'em. You know, whether we've gone and done business with them or not, they, they know us.

And that to me, I think, yes, we're doing the right job here because people know us and they've been allowed to, you know, they, they, they've been talking to us.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And they know that if they've got a new innovation, they come knocking on your door, you'll give them the time. Always. Which is the most important thing, isn't it?

Speaker 3: Yes, definitely.

Speaker 2: Okay. So Y- your, we talked about trials, we talked about Zed House, and we talked about that. What's around the corner in terms of [00:16:00] innovations, your next immediate innovation or your next trial or demonstration units? What's around the corner?

Speaker 3: So I think what we've done with the Zed House and Energy Home two, which were single units, uh, one, as you know, in an environmental chamber where we can really test from minus twenty to forty degrees, making snow and all that.

So we're testing that the technology does what it says on the tin with climate change. Is now going to flagship projects. So, so big, big projects with numerous units on a site with customers, and that's the next. So taking the lab and pilot stuff that we've done and taking it live on a site where we're actually selling units, where we're actually gonna get customers to move in.

And we've got two very exciting flagships coming through, um, which sadly I can't announce yet, but, uh, just watch this space in the next few months, I would say we will be announcing what we're doing. Um, and, and for me, you know, like yourself, we've been around a while. These two projects are, I think, the two most exciting projects I've been involved in.

And I [00:17:00] have had, I've had some great projects like the BRE Innovation Park and others, but these two, I think, really are a combination of all the drivers and all the big, big things that are going on. Not just about off-site innovation, but biodiversity, placemaking, you know, water, SuDS, all of that stuff. So, yeah.

Speaker 2: Oh, good. So you never stand still. Keep moving.

Speaker 3: I'll stand still when I retire.

Speaker 2: Okay. So going back to the, the concept of the wider house building industry now and a little bit away from what makes Barratt Redrow unique and what you do unique, to, to the broader challenge, let's say, of how do we get more of the house building industry, um, to adopt industrialized construction processes.

So this is kind of more of a, you know, the wider picture perspective. So I'm aware seven of the top ten house builders have followed, followed your, uh, example, invested in timber frame technology, and they're scaling up. Mm-hmm. Um, which is great. Uh, I'm not sure if they're following the same strategy, you know, uh, as you are per se in terms of rollout.

[00:18:00] Um, but I see that as a very encouraging sign. Yeah. Yeah, that that many of the big house builders are moving. So do you collaborate tech-technically through the HBF, through the House Building Forum or through other forums, um, with those house builders to say, "Look, you know, if we do more of this together, we can create a massive industrialized manufacturing sector for house building"?

Speaker 3: Yeah. So I mean, obviously, um, with the C-CMA and all that, you, you've got a collaboration has to be done in the right way. So we do collaborate, and we do have very much open source around technical aspects. Obviously commercial, we don't have any collaboration 'cause of the rules, rightly so. But on the technical, where there's a challenge or we need to work around, we, you know, with building regulations where we see that we need to pull together our thoughts to-- our learning to help get through a, a reg and we do that.

Where we also see that we need to bring volume to an innovation, you know, um, you know, I think- [00:19:00] Whether we, I, I, I don't know if collaboration is the right word, but we, we sort of partner to, to a point where we will say, "Yes, we've tried this technology. It works. You know, we're going to go for it." And then they will make their own decisions.

But yeah, there is, there's definitely a lot more collaboration by the housing sector. Um, and, you know, I think to myself, whilst, you know, obviously the, the big house builders have all invested in their own timber frame factories, there are still some great timber frame companies out there. You know, we started our relationship with Stuart Mill, now Donaldson's.

You know, they, those guys can support the medium size 'cause there's still, you know, there's still, you know, if, if there's 160,000 homes being built, whatever, 70,000, 80,000 nine-- it may, will be built by those big guys, but there's still the rest, and there's quite a big section there for the timber frame market.

So I, I just really hope that, you know, 'cause those guys won't build their own factories, that they will then go and work with, you know, the, the other companies out there and that are delivering timber frame. And

Speaker 2: I think the point you were [00:20:00] making, um, we're trying to choose the, the terminology right around partnering or whatever it is.

I think the point you're making is you've, you've, you've created some aggregated demand to make some of these innovations work. Yeah. And I think it-- that's because perhaps on your own as Spowt Redware, you don't have enough volume, and you want the others to provide some demand in parallel. Yeah?

Speaker 3: Yeah. Not only, and not only that, if I'm really honest with you, um, you know, there, there, there are some very strong technical teams in other house builders.

So they, they look at that system. They, they, you know, between us, you know, it's much better to get sort of 20 really technical people looking at something and working out how it works. But, and, and technical's not just, oh, it, you know, it gets third party certification. It's how's it installed? How's it delivered?

If you get 20 people from five different companies looking at it, and they're all saying, "Right, you know, this is how we think we can help this work," that, that's only gotta be a, a, a good thing because actually, in many of those instances, it's, it's not, it's a sort of not a competitive [00:21:00] area, as in the innovation isn't gonna give you any competition in the market.

It's just gonna allow you to meet a regulation or something along those lines.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And obviously regulatory change can be a, an, a enabler of innovation. You know, building regulation changes, Future Home Standard, it forces the industry to innovate and, you know, raises the bar, which is a, a, you know, I think a good thing.

But I, how do you see, um, certification and product accreditation? Uh, we do quite a bit, uh, in that space, and we've often come across a lack of capacity, you know, within the test houses or even within the accreditation bodies and sometimes a lack of technical skill. Does that hold back any of your innovation that you're working on?

Speaker 3: It slows it down sometimes. I mean, you know, I think, you know, I'm gonna put two sides to the argument. So I, I, I ran, you probably, as [00:22:00] you know, the BRE certification business for a short while, and if I was sat there with the BRE certification hat on, I'd say a lot of the time the companies come to us with out the lack of information.

They haven't done the test. They haven't got the information. And then there's, you know, you basically, in a way, certification companies can become product developers for those companies. So there's that side to the argument. But I, I do also agree strongly that those certification bodies don't have enough personnel with the right skill sets.

Now, I, I think a little bit of it is that they need to get experts in certain areas as consultants to help push that through, is my view. Um, because I think, I think, you know, it is a start. It, it, it is slowing innovation down, and I think in the coming five to ten years, we will need to fast-track innovation in a very safe, risk-averse way.

You know, don't, don't... That never goes without that statement. But we can, you know, we can speed innovation up in a safe way and still get it out into the marketplace, and we have done that. So, so yeah, I, I, I do think it's, it [00:23:00] stifles innovation, but I do also think that they can fix it.

Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I agree.

Agree entirely. And, and they play an important role in ensuring that standards are where they need to be, you know. So, um, let's see how the investment, uh, and the expansion of those certification bodies happens over forthcoming years and whether they can keep pace. So we've got some big numbers flying around, um, from government, and obviously the market at the moment feels a little bit, uh, down.

Obviously, first-time buyers not coming into the market, it feels quite flat. But the government's announced a one point five million, uh, program in the lifetime of this parliament. So given that last year was a relatively flat market, if you carry forward the under, uh, output from last year, I think it calculates out at about three hundred and seventy thousand units a year now in the next four years.

Um- I suppose the question is, how realistic is that?

Speaker 3: So back in, I wanna say '48 to '52, the [00:24:00] UK, um, built anywhere between four hundred and five hundred thousand homes. Yeah. Uh, what they did actually is they, they, they used sort of companies that had been building Spitfires and other things to build houses.

So they took manufacturing. That was the earliest of offsite, really, in some ways, yeah. I mean, you could probably go back to the sort of Greek and Roman times for real offsite that was done. But let's, let's start with that for now, eh? Um, so the country built, seventy years ago, four hundred to five hundred thousand homes.

Now, if you then go and look at those homes, they were pre-manufactured. There were some issues, and everyone can quote that. But actually, they did it, and we've learned so many lessons that I don't think that would happen again. I know it wouldn't happen again. One of the issues was those houses were very, very standard.

I don't know, if you go and look at them, they were very much very boxy and, and we can't do that. But I don't think so. I think, you know, we could do it, but it would take an almighty effort of partnership between government and industry, and it would [00:25:00] need to be a sort of, you know, a, a real, you know, "The country needs you to deliver."

But you would also need someone to buy them or for either for sale or for rent or for social housing. You'd have to get the pool to get the demand. So, and I was, uh, interestingly, when, when I was presenting today, though, that was a similar question about pipeline, and I should have said, "Look, you know." You know, the, the question was, "Well, we can't-- can we really make offsite work unless we have a pipeline?"

And I said, "Well, what we've done at Barratt Redrow is we've made sure that offsite, our timber frames cost Effective against traditional build. We're not relying on government bringing out some new regulation 'cause I could be waiting forever, and we've just invested tens of millions in a factory. We need to make it viable.

So I think, I think, um, I think the other thing we need to recognize is, is that number isn't about offsite. Everyone likes to say, "Well, if we just brought all of offsite in, we'd make..." We'd, we'd definitely help it, but it's not a silver bullet [00:26:00] because, you know, the bit that stops that is you need to have gone through planning and got planning permission.

You need to have then-- you need to then designed it, you then need to build it, and most important, you need to sell it, and you need to find people that wanna buy it. Now, you know, I, again, I think the market's changing. We've got these private rented sector companies coming in. You know, you've got Citra, Kennedy Wilson, and others that, that we do a lot of work with that bring a different dynamic to the marketplace.

So I dunno, it's probably a long way around saying I actually think, you know, if we truly, truly put our minds to it, actually the off-site manufacturing capability to deliver, let's say add in another fifty thousand units wouldn't be the difficult bit.

Speaker 2: No, the investment would come. I think if there was certainty on volume of pipeline, to your point, there are enough entrepreneurs, enough business owners in the off-site manufacturing space that would tool up to meet the challenge.

I agree, I agree with you entirely. So wrapping up and coming back full circle now to the Barratt, um, strategy and, and, and, and [00:27:00] what you're doing. So nothing ever stands still. You got a hundred and fifty innovations in the pipeline. Um, how do you prioritize what's gonna make the biggest impact? What, what, what is your selection process?

If I came to you and said, "I've got a super fantastic facade system, you know, how do I get it up the list?" I- is it, is it speed? I- I-- you know, what, what, what's the key driver for you to prioritize what you look at?

Speaker 3: So we, we have a very clear innovation process. The pro-- we call it a product implementation process, um, which basically sets out a pro- a process from one to five in the journey of any innovation.

And of those, you know, I think now we're at a hundred and thirty-two actually innovations in the pipeline. Of those a hundred and thirty-two innovations, they are either at level one, so we've just had a look and thought, "No, it's not for now," or they're at level five, which is basically we have tested them, trialed them, and we're just-- we're rolling them out in a certain thing.

What, what gets them-- So what, what basically [00:28:00] defines where they are at that stage is basically how much of the drivers they meet, uh, and how much-- and how big a need it is from us. So timber frame is at level five because we have skill shortages. We needed to build quicker, and we needed to ch- to have some, um, flexibility around materials and skill availability.

So it's at five, and we're rolling it out. We made an investment. Uh, robotic building of houses currently is sort of at level two. We've had a review. We've done a bit of a literature review. We've seen a few trials on site. But right now, it's not ready to go any further because frankly speaking, we don't need to build houses with robots right now.

Um, and every single one of those sort of- At a very high level, has a one-pager with all the drivers and basically data associated to those drivers that will define where it is, and that, if I'm honest, gets transferred into a, into a number that says where is it on-- in the list. So it's been very systemized.

The team have really sort of systemized it. We've had a lot of good input [00:29:00] from, from all around the business actually, around how we should do that. Uh, and, and, and over, over the last thirteen years, we've kept improving on it. And we've had quite a big jump in the last two years actually, so.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I've been privileged to see that NPI process and, and, and how thorough that is.

You know, it's very impressive. But how do you select which region, uh, or which, uh, element of the business is going to be selected for doing a trial?

Speaker 3: Um, so, uh, it's down to need really. We don't, we don't select, you know. So it could be anything. It could be, it could be that someone within that division is, is a real champion, and you need champions, yeah.

So, you know, if I've got a... anything from a managing director to a site manager that says, "You know, I think this is the future, and I really wanna put all my efforts into it," we'll go with them because we know they'll put heart and soul into it, yeah. Um, through to just your classic, you know, this site has this...

is, is perfect for. So if you look at our flagship project, [00:30:00] uh, it-- that flagship project was picked because it, it had set criteria to meet, and that specific site met all the criteria, and we picked it, and it went with the division. It could have been any division in any location. So we don't... I don't, I don't say...

You know, I, I would say the only thing we sometimes help with is if, if, if the manufacturer, we try and get something closer to the manufacturer just to help them with travel. 'Cause as you know, we, we're from John O'Groats nearly to Land's End, so you could, you know. And if you're doing something in Scotland, and we put you on a site in Plymouth, you won't be happy with us.

So we do try and do a little bit of that. But there, there isn't any picking from a, from a geographical point of view.

Speaker 2: And so when we get to the point where you've gone through trials, you've ostensibly embedded a technology in a particular region, what's the process then for rolling that out? Because, you know, you're, you're a behemoth, massive business, you know, with thousands of units per annum and several hundred sites live at the same time.

Um, it's quite intimidating, uh, to me. How do you roll that out across the group?

Speaker 3: So y-you tell them, [00:31:00] you tell them again, you tell them again, and you tell them again. And you ensure that you have all the relevant literature, all of the videos, all of the designs. You do frequently asked questions. You go on the first few sites with all the divisions.

You do lunch and learns. You just, you owe, you can't do enough help and information to make a good success. Because if it's easy to do, then it will get done well. Yeah. If you bring an innovation on the site, you know, where, which, you know, hasn't been trialed, has low information, you just drop it in a house, the chance of a successful outcome are close to zero.

And, and sadly, what happens is that innovation dies for the next ten years 'cause the thing we do have is long memories as an industry. That's the reality of it. You know, if I, you know, I get so much of, "Well, we did this fifteen years ago," [00:32:00] you know? Um, and it's like, "Yeah, I know, but it's fifteen years later.

What's happened in fifteen years?" So, uh, and that's just the sector, you know. And actually, I have to say, you know, one of the things I'm proudest of is Barratt Developers does, doesn't use that language. It, it's very much about, right, what's, you know, what, what, okay, that's what happened then. What, what's happening now?

What can we do about it? But yeah, so rollout, in some ways rollout's the toughest bit by a country mile, you know. Because actually testing and trialing it, we're engineers, we're scientists, we're building physicists. We love that. You know, it's our lab. But then when you say right now, four hundred sites, six thousand people, you know, w-whatever that is, you know, we do give or take a house on every site a day, a week, you know, give or take point eight of a house a week, you know, and that's a lot.

Um, so yeah, so, so that's actually probably for me the one of the things that I'm very lucky. At Barratt, we've got a r- some real strength in, in how we transfer [00:33:00] information out and how we support it

Speaker 2: And it takes strong management as well, doesn't it? You know, you've gotta remind yourself of the strategy, the direction of travel, what you're looking at- Yeah

on the horizon- Yeah ... you know, as to why you're doing it.

Speaker 3: I sort of say, yeah, you're right. Uh, it takes strong leadership. So from, from, from the very top, you know, we're very lucky. We, we, we've had, uh, some great, you know, proud leaders. You know, whether, whether, you know, we've got chief exec in David Thomas, and we had a chief operating officer in Steven Boyes.

Now, now that's changed to Mike Roberts. All of them, you know, all the sort of really senior people, um, you know, are supporting of innovation, recognize its need. The whole board, in fairness, has a, a recognition of its need, and it supports it. It, it, it, it recognizes that it's a journey. There are mistakes.

They're along the journey, but as long as we manage those risks, they, they continue to support us. But then it's not just them. It... You know, you know, I've got some fantastic site managers that, that, you know, you know, y- you know, l- literally are, are, are, [00:34:00] are trying to... are, are constantly saying, "Well, where's the next innovation?

I'll do it." Or, or t- a managing director or, or a technical director or a technical manager. There are people in our company, there are c- people in every company that want to do innovation. They want to help with change. So I just think we, we, you know, we just... Sometimes I say we, we just help the journey.

We're not really the key component of innovation. We're just the thing that sort of helps that process.

Speaker 2: You're the enabler.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: So if you were to lay down the gauntlet around innovation now, and so if I said to you, um, what would you like to see? What would be a game changer? Um, something perhaps that's not even invented yet, but you'd, there's...

you'd like to solve a problem, and you said, what would it be that if you laid the gauntlet down now to the industry to say, "Bring me this," what would it be?

Speaker 3: So sadly with these things, it wouldn't be one things, so apologies. It's, it's, it's many things. Uh, but I think, I think probably one of the key gauntlets that, [00:35:00] that i- is coming is, is that whole embodied carbon approach and solution towards enabling us to hit our net zero carbon by 2040. So my gauntlet would be carry on doing what you're doing, you know, and bringing innovation, but, but bring it to me where you can show me that you're ma- if you're not net zero carbon, you're definitely ve- reducing your carbon substantially.

That, that would be my challenge to the industry, is to say, look, you know, 'cause I've got a lot of innovations, but when I, you know, when I speak to them and I say, "Hey, great, this is brilliant. What's your E- EPD?" And the first question I get is, "What's an EPD?" I say, "What's your em..." Sorry, "What's your environmental performance declaration?

What's the embodied carbon in your product?" "Oh, we haven't done that." So I say, "Well, that's, that's critical to me." So that, that would be my, if that's a fair one to give, Darren, is you know, that would be my challenge is think about your embodied carbon when you're developing your pro- And you and me know that actually if you're reducing [00:36:00] embodied carbon, usually you're re-engineering and making the product cheaper and better anyway.

Speaker 2: Yeah. It's that value engineering process.

Speaker 3: So actually, yeah, it's a double, double, double to it. Yeah. So but yeah, that would be my challenge.

Speaker 2: And when you think about it, you know, your target of 2040 for net zero's gonna come around pretty quick, isn't it? You know, time- Yeah, yeah. Yeah ... time flies, you know, so you've gotta keep going and innovating at pace.

Okay. So thank you for your time today. It's been an absolute pleasure to discuss your views on industrialized construction, innovation, new product development, et cetera. Thank you.

Speaker 3: Thanks. Thanks very much.

Speaker 4: 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 not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Radar Media. For more information, head to www.industrializedconstruction.co.uk.