Podcast - Two Mics
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Darren Richards: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Industrialized podcast, where today I'm joined by Tim Carey from Mace Construct. Hi, Tim

Tim Carey: Hi, nice to meet you. Thanks for your time

Darren Richards: Please tell us a little bit about yourself and, uh, the work that you do as head of design

Tim Carey: Okay. So I've been with Mace Construct, uh, since twenty twenty-three. Um, before that, I spent a long time with other tier one contractors. Uh, my role, I suppose it's a bit misappropriately titled actually 'cause we don't really design anything. What we do is, uh, we design manage. So we manage the output of others, the external consultants, and that's quite, uh, an important differentiator, which we, we might circle back on a bit later.

But effectively, across the portfolio of projects that Mace delivers every single year, I have overall responsibility for making sure that they're designed to, uh, the right standard of design. I also pick up things like the Building Safety Act and, uh, how we respond to construction to production, which is our flavor on the MMC and industrialized construction, uh, [00:01:00] landscape

Darren Richards: And that's a very broad portfolio of sectors, I presume, from MOD at one end, is it, to commercial offices at the other and

Tim Carey: Yeah, we go from, um, uh... I mean, I'd say historically or in recent history, we've, we've, we've not really delivered, uh, the programs of works, and there's a reason for that in terms of, uh, on a lot of the programs of work like new hospitals program, uh, Mace Consult as they, as they, as they are, or Mace as it was before the demerger, were often client-side on those programs of work.

So often Mace Construct were conflicted out of those. Uh, now, as you would have seen in the press, Mace Consult have been sold off, uh, or acquired, um, uh, by Goldman Sachs. So we demergered. Um, now, hopefully from a Mace Construct perspective, what that will do is open up the opportunity for those programs of work.

But our current portfol-folio can span anything from most of the, uh, new build and commercial buildings going up in the city to, uh, work at Heathrow and Gatwick and HS2 [00:02:00] to any myriad of life sciences buildings, data centers. The, the whole range, really.

Darren Richards: Right. Okay, good. Interesting stuff. So, um, I want to talk about this construction to production, uh, philosophy, this phrase. I think it's a great term, by the way. Um, and, and just try and maybe tease out what, what it actually changes in an operating model or a design philosophy or what it influences.

Clearly, it's a, it's, it's a broad spectrum of activity, but my understanding of your philosophy here is about maximizing the potential for offsite delivery, advancing digital design, et cetera. But give us, give us your f- your real kind of, um, f- um, description of what construction to production means to

Tim Carey: Yeah, it's, it's probably e-exactly as you just spelt out, and I s- I suppose it's, it's probably industrialized construction before that term came into the latest fashion. Um, and for me, it was one of the things that attracted me to Mace. So in, in a past life when I'd, when I'd been at [00:03:00] Willmott Dixon, one of the things that I'd advocated was, you know, modern ways of doing things and not just MMC.

It's a vital component part, but it's also digital integration, and then ultimately it's about the quality of the end product you deliver from a sustainability point. So Mace's innovation strategy, which dates back to twenty twenty-two from memory, maybe twenty twenty-three, um, is called speed and scale, and it's still very valid for me, hence why we've not updated it, and it's effectively got those three pillars: low carbon delivery, um, digitalized, uh, construction and processes, and the use of off-site manufacturing to deliver more productively and a better product.

So I suppose to, to kind of expand upon that point, one of the other things that attracted me to it was the fact that y- that, that, that C2P model is really kind of founded on an integrator approach. So we don't, uh, we, we did in the past, but we don't currently own any manufacturing facilities, [00:04:00] and I think that's actually a good thing because I think sometimes if you do own your own factory, um, you could be prejudiced in your way of thinking to think that that necessarily is the answer.

And if you go back to that spectrum or that portfolio of projects that Mace delivers every single year, there's no one factory that would be able to deliver the volume or the variance in output that we would need to be able to deliver against those things. So really our strategy is about, from an, from an off-site manufacturing point of view is, is, is about finding suppliers and solutions that sit across all seven categories of the MMC definition framework and using those either in isolation or in combination to meet the specifics of a particular project

Darren Richards: Yeah. So you can be agnostic to the material type and, and, and the form, whether it's volumetric or hybrid or panelized

Tim Carey: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and one of the things that we've developed, we've developed an online, uh, digital library which ho-- We've got about a hundred different [00:05:00] solutions. So the online library hosts information about each of those, whether it's, um, you know, technical information, links to manufacturers, uh, lessons learned importantly, so that we, we incrementally improve on those delivery.

And then we align that to, um, a supporting online decision matrix. So every time an opportunity comes in the door, we ask our project teams, with support from some of us centrally, to register the project. Uh, and that includes the type of asset that it wants to deliver. And then based on the specifics of the asset type, whether it's a, a medium-rise commercial building, a data center, so on and so forth, the decision matrix back of house, the algorithm, will look across those hundred or so C2P solutions, and it will make recommendations, uh, that fit, that we, we think will provide the best value.

As we then go through developing our build strategy, we'll rule some in it-- some [00:06:00] in or reconfirm them, we'll rule some out, and we might then choose to trial a technology. But it's all based with value in mind.

Darren Richards: And is that taking you towards a platform-based approach, repeatable standardized solutions?

Tim Carey: Uh, y-yes and no. So I'd say repeatable platforms of components, but maybe not as far as in past lives I've gone where you've got fully repeatable building designs, although we are kind of exploring that in the data center market. But again, because we currently don't do programs of works, uh, the opportunity is probably slightly more restricted than it would otherwise be to explore that.

And I'll go back to the f- kind of the initial point I made is we don't design. So often, a typical project from my experience that we will inherit will be a two-stage process for procurement, although we, you know, we do have others, but generally a two-stage process for procurement, and we will generally inherit a stage three set of information.

So many [00:07:00] of the, uh, many of the options, uh, that don't sit on category one to seven, so for example, standardized grids and just making design efficiencies be baked in, sometimes that, that moment may have passed

Darren Richards: So I think what you're saying is we're still designing buildings first and then asking how do we industrialize them afterwards?

Tim Carey: Often that's the case. Yeah. Obviously, wherever we can get involved, so we are starting, as I say, on, um, things like data centers, we're starting to get involved at RIBA zero, RIBA one. That gives us a real opportunity to bake those efficiencies in from the off

Darren Richards: And do you find yourself working with, uh, re-repeat, um, architects where they get to understand the way you wanna deliver, so they reflect that in their designs? Or is it often an architect m-might be novated, they've been working with a client for months ahead of you?

Tim Carey: Mo-more often than not, um, it d- it does depend on the sector, but more often than not, they tend to be novated. So they'll sit client side until end of PCSA or main contract execution, then be novated over to us. [00:08:00] So it's more of a kind of influencing and thought leadership role to, uh... It's something, you know, we can learn as much from them sometimes as they can from us, but it's more just pointing them in the direction and giving them the tools and the evidence to be able to, to consider it when they go through design.

Darren Richards: But the successful delivery of industrialized construction and your kind of C to P philosophy is, is around getting, getting the brief right to get the design right, to coordinate it right and plan it

Tim Carey: Easy. Exactly that. Yeah. It's about use the right solutions at the right time on the right projects. Yeah. And don't shoehorn in MMC or off-site manufacturing just for the

Darren Richards: If it doesn't

Tim Carey: it. It doesn't fit. Yeah. Because we've done that time... Not we, but as an industry, we've done that time and time again. We don't reap the benefits.

Quite the opposite. It costs money, and then it gives it a bad name.

Darren Richards: we've done A-a-and on the topic of benefits, um, if the benefits are visible, why does industrialized construction still struggle to scale? You know, 'cause w-we're-- you and I are kind of preaching to the converted here. You know, we're talking to ourse- uh, each other. [00:09:00] We, we know this is the future of construction, but, but often it's difficult to articulate the benefits to get people to really buy into it.

Do you know why that is?

Tim Carey: It's an interesting point, isn't it? I mean, we've, we've just commissioned or we're just about to publish a report called, uh, Build Smart, Build Better, which is, um, a kind of first step as a tangible evidence of what will be Mace's public commitment to driving the productivity agenda. You know, ultimately, we want to make sure that, uh, you know, we're aiming to become the, the most productive construction firm in the UK by twenty-thirty.

Part of that report looked at a number of areas. It-- We, you know, we undertook, um, twenty-five, uh, interviews with key clients. So whether that's the likes of Heathrow, AstraZeneca, Skype, UCL, um, Mitsubishi, et cetera. More importantly, we looked across two hundred and thirty-four of, uh, of projects that we delivered over the last seven years and really pulled the data apart to see, well, y-y-you know, where does it drive?

And it, it does [00:10:00] show a correlation between, you know, the more pre-manufactured value you do, you know, I've spok-spoke to Mark really, Mark Farmer regularly on this, but the more pre-manufactured value you do, the greater productivity you get. Uh, but again, that goes back to driving the most appropriate PMV into the project to drive the productivity.

Why do I think it's not scaled across the industry? Generally, I think because people don't like to share their data. Uh, we, we are making the commitment as part of this report to share our data and to be transparent in the way that we do that. We're just working through, um, the right, uh, the right governance and, uh, to, to give that, to give that confidence to, to, to the, to the people that, uh, rely upon it.

Um, so we don't like sharing our data as, as an industry. But also as well, I think, and to be semi-critical, probably a government policy in the past, we targeted the wrong sectors. We've-- Like [00:11:00] every single time we pick the housing sector, which is the hardest sector to crack. And, you know, you know, in the past, you know, government policy is to-- been to, to, you know, to put money in capability, but, but not make a commitment to a demand.

And, and, and, and so effectively, you know, good taxpayers' money went into developing capability. The demand wasn't there because it wasn't like, for example, the government committed to an affordable homes program and became their own developer to provide one solution, and effectively then you ended up backing, uh, you know, or UK PLC backed techno MMC solutions that weren't able to pivot.

You can't really pivot a volumetric modular factory to go and produce another f- another product- No ... in the same way that you can a panelized. Sure. A panel is a panel is a panel. Goes in the school, goes in the house, et cetera, et cetera. So I think there's a-- it's, it's a complicated subject

Darren Richards: Very much so. Back on the point of productivity, I mean, it's a passion of mine. We spend, uh, I spend most of my life [00:12:00] inside factories looking at productivity improvements, continuous improvement. We're analyzing, we're measuring, we're capturing data. Uh, we're putting in changes, and then we're measuring again to see if it's getting better.

One of the challenges we have is agreeing what the metric is. You know, productivity, uh, you know, whether you measure it in, in terms of value add or output per pound or output per hour or whatever. So, um, very noble, uh, thing that you're doing in terms of putting your data into the public domain in the future, and I think it's a great aspiration to become the most productive contractor in the UK in the next five years.

How are you gonna measure it, and how are we gonna consistently compare you with your peers?

Tim Carey: So that's a good question. So the report looks at kind of three measures of productivity. So the first one is, um, gross value add per, per worker per hour, effectively. The second one is, um, gross contribution per worker per hour. So you can be productive but not profitable, uh, [00:13:00] and then you don't have a business.

So, yeah. And, and then the last one then is, um, tracking margin erosion versus when you, when you bid, you know. And, uh, and, and part of that is, is making sure that the, the plans and the strategies that you put in place at bid stage, you adhere to. You know, too often, uh, I see this across the industry, there's a whole load of work that goes in at bid stage to set a strategy and then teams change, uh, and then all the governance and the goodwill goes out the way.

So I mean, interestingly, we didn't-- You'll see it in the report when it's published, but we, we didn't actually find any direct correlation between the GVA measure and, uh, and the gross contribution. So, you know, at times projects can look, uh, productive, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they are, you know, they are as, as efficient as they could be.

You know?

Darren Richards: It's an interesting move. And I, you know, I'll say I admire, admire your, um, commitment to that 'cause I think productivity and, [00:14:00] shall we say, the nemesis of the construction industry is productivity. You know, not only have we flatlined for twenty-plus years, we've actually, in most recent figures I've seen, we've actually gone backwards in twenty years, you know, versus other more mature industrialized sectors, whether it's automotive, aerospace, or whatever, however you measure it, who, who have all made significant gains in that period.

So clearly, there must be an endemic, either a cultural thing or a technological thing or... I'm not sure what it is. Mm-hmm. Our sector's got a problem with productivity, isn't it? Full stop.

Tim Carey: Yeah, and it, I, I I wrestle with this from different perspectives all the time. You know, on, on one hand, I kind of, I kind of think, "Well, do we, do we need the external stimulus as an industry? You know, do we need the government to keep putting their hand in their pocket to force us to do it? Or do we just need a bit of Darwinism that it will rise?"

But the problem is, is, is that, you know, when you-- I suspect when you compare the productivity of all major contractors at the moment, it's probably fairly similar. [00:15:00] And so there isn't necessarily a market disruptor. And I think that's one of the things that, you know, Mace Construct wants to do moving forward is, is to put that market disruption in to, to do that.

Now, if we're gonna hang our hat on that, going back to the previous question, we obviously need to make sure that, you know, we're transparent in our reporting and in a way that people can rely upon the figures. So w-we're just going through that process at the moment to find the right third-party assurance to, you know, to, to put their stamp on the figures, similar to what we do from a carbon perspective as well.

Um, but yeah, it, it's-- we do-- we need to disrupt ourselves. And I think the other thing is as well, that we, and I talk about this all the time, you know, we talked about it in Industrialized Construction Conference, is that, you know, I think also we only focus too much on one piece of the puzzle, and that piece of the puzzle is like, "Okay, well, if we, if we use off-site manufacturing, if we drive PMV, we'll be quicker on site and therefore happy days."

And that's great, and no one would argue against [00:16:00] that. But for me, the equal prize is the preconstruction period, which is where I come in from a design perspective. And like I said, even though we don't design in-house and we use third parties, every single week that we save in preconstruction is equivalent to a week earlier on site.

So i.e., the asset gets handed over to the client, and they can start generating an income. Those two weeks are worth exactly the same. They might not save the prelims that, that it would do, but I think we need to target everything. We need to target faster delivery times. We need to fa-- target faster preconstruction programs as well.

And we can do that through standardized components, through pre, um, pre-agreement with supply chain for rates, so we don't have to reprice the thing every single time

Darren Richards: And I think the more you move down from construction to production, um, the more easier it will be to measure that productivity as well. 'Cause anything that's measured in a manufacturing environment is, is much more visible and controllable and [00:17:00] measurable than it is on a construction site

Tim Carey: Exactly. I mean, we, y-you know, we, you know, we're big on, um, planning and production control, very big on it. Uh, you know, historically, we've been very big on it during the delivery and manufacturing stage. We're now driving that through f- to the design stage as well, and actually t- looking at volume pieces, uh, and, and, and just certainty of delivery outcome from a design perspective.

The equivalent of takt time for design, isn't it?

Darren Richards: Yeah. Yeah. You're talking my

language now. Yeah, yeah

So you mentioned the conference, Industrialized Construction Conference. Uh, I was in the audience for that. Great presentation. You titled it Designing for Production: Embedding Industrialized Thinking from Concept to Delivery. So that was your, your, your, your kind of mantra for the day.

So I suppose my question is: how do we embed industrialized thinking from concept to delivery? You know, you've gotta start with it, you know, really early on. It's a cultural thing, isn't it? So, um, how do you convince your client and their team, and that [00:18:00] novated architect, that you-- your vision of this delivery that you've got is the right way to go?

How do you embed it in that team?

Tim Carey: Uh, I think that for a start, I think we're seeing, uh, you know, more, uh, more and more clients coming to us with, with that desire, you know. So, so they w-- Their desire of a sort of that outcome, and I think that's where we can provide the value to, to draw upon the experience that we've got to, to help them navigate through those, through those waters.

And it's, you know, every contractor's gonna say the same thing, isn't it? But the earlier that we can get involved, the earlier we can influence it before too many dies are cast in, in the stone. Then it is things like, well, can we provide the tools to the client and to the design team where we, we don't have to reinvent the wheel?

So we do, like I say, through our C2P library, where we do have a reliable source of, uh, a reliable data set across historical projects where we can prove the value of each [00:19:00] solution, and we can prove that it works against a specific asset type or type of building. And that way, we don't have to go through business cases every single time because we've done it, we've done it at a holistic level.

Then it's like, well, then can we, through our supply chain, if we've got libraries of digital c-- like components or sub-assemblies, like Revit models, can they be free issued to consultants? That saves the design period, then you can work it through. Can you put a digital ecosystem in place? Because it's the sprints between the work.

It's not the work, is it? It's the sprints between the work. And, you know, the answer isn't from a digital point of view. My view is the answer isn't one single piece of software. It is a connected ecosystem of various off-the-shelf pieces of software. We're not gonna go and create an equivalent to Revit, you know, but we don't need to.

But it's that connectivity that speeds up the, the baton changes and ultimately drives, drives the value.

Darren Richards: And clearly, we may come back to it later, this is where AI could be transformational, isn't it? In connecting all of those sub-elements of that [00:20:00] ecosystem

Tim Carey: A-and this is, this is interesting. So I mean, again, from a ge-- I've just, you know, I'm a big proponent of generative AI, you know, not just in construction. You know, I have a side hustle on music as well, and I use generative AI for certain things on that. But o-obviously, going back to it, we, we don't design.

So generative AI, we can, we can be, uh, exponents of it, and we can, we can promote it to our consultants, but ul-ultimately the-- it sits with them to, to take up. I think there's a lot of potential for us for, uh, AI-related technical checking. Obviously, every time a drawing comes in, it would be righ-- it would be nice to assume it's a hundred percent right, but we still have to do our due diligence, so we still check it against all the regulations.

And, and if you think about it, they're just things that could be scripted. Uh, and so ultimately, if we can script or use AI to, uh, with, with checks and balances to, to do that, again, it speeds that process up. So you-- I can imagine a workflow where every time we use Aconex as a common data environment, that [00:21:00] every time a consultant drawing is uploaded to Aconex, it is automatically in the background reviewed from a technical compliance perspective through AI, a report generated, and then a human factor then comes in to give it a double check and make sure there's no hallucinations or anything.

One of the things that was just a throwaway comment from me at the conference, I think we all latched onto, you know, it's one of these spitball comments that comes out of your mouth before you think, was about, well, actually, if you talk about generative AI, does AI care whether or not you're using standardized components or not?

And it was just a-- it was a, it was a, you know, a verbal, verbal shot out thinking aloud. And then the more I think about it, the more I think, "Well, it doesn't." It, it... You know, my thought process two years ago would've been, well, if we standardize and pre-author everything, we'll use the AI to weld it together.

So we'll design all the standard spaces, whether it's in a hospital or a school, and then we'll use AI to knit it together and to create the corridors and, and the, [00:22:00] and the things that are non, non-static, so dynamic components. Now, I kind of think, well, by the time we've done that, AI probably doesn't care 'cause it's just about volume of work.

And actually, if you give the AI enough bandwidth, all you've got to do is give it a brief, and it'll come through. So that becomes really interesting. Scary, but interesting as well.

Darren Richards: But it, it takes us into a world of configurable products, you know, and configuration tools and, you know, um, dynamic design, doesn't it? You know, you can do, you could do a hundred iterations of a certain building model in- Yeah ... not quite seconds, but do you know what I mean? But the right processing power.

Yeah. You know, the power of it is phenomenal, isn't it? It's almost mind-blowing.

Tim Carey: Uh, uh, yeah, and it's, um, it's just how you keep your discipline with that. It's a bit like, you know, so I'm a musician in my spare time. I've got a home studio. Because I don't-- Because I'm not paying for a studio by the hour, I can fiddle about to my heart's content, you know? So you kind of need a bit of self-imposed constraint and discipline that if you can iterate forever using AI, you still [00:23:00] need to draw a line down at some point in time as well.

So there's always gonna be the human factor that needs to take the ultimate decision.

Darren Richards: And in terms of your, um, client engagement, just coming back to that, um, client and procurement models and rewarding the right outcomes, 'cause ultimately it's about outcomes, isn't it, Pal? It's about the building that client gets. Are clients wanting to be involved in this exciting new AI generative, um, design future, or do they just say, "Give me the building in the most efficient way"?

Tim Carey: Well, I think it varies. I think there's some clients that wanna be on the bleeding edge. I think most clients probably wanna be a close second, and I think that's probably a safe space to be. Um, but ultimately, I think we get so enamored with how we deliver something. You know, when I go-- to use a car analogy, when I go to buy my car, I don't really care how Ford or Mercedes or BMW built it.

That's, that's their problem, isn't it? I just wanna pick the keys up and know about features and [00:24:00] benefits, and that it's gonna turn up when it says it's gonna turn up, and it's gonna cost the price I got quoted in the showroom. It's not a lot to ask. Um, so I think we can get really self-absorbed in the process of how we deliver a product.

Um, and, you know, being-- I, I know you had Matt Randle from Mason in the last season of this, um, and I, you know, I was on a call with Matt, and one of... another throwaway line, you know, kind of come out with is not to contradict everything that we're doing within Mason Productivity, but being productive doesn't-- isn't a guarantee of a good product.

You can be really productive but deliver a product that isn't very great. So it's equally important alongside our drive, uh, what will be our public drive for-- to be the most productive contractor, is to make sure that the end product that we give is as great as it possibly can be and as good as our clients demand and deserve, you know?

Darren Richards: So let's move on to the challenges of low carbon delivery with industrialized, um, industrialization. So obviously, we're [00:25:00] looking at a, some R&D that you've done around, um, low carbon cassettes and various other, and low embodied, uh, carbon solutions. Um, that goes further on. It goes into circularity. It goes into design for deconstruction.

There's a whole raft of things that the sustainability, uh, angle teaches us. Um, do you think with an industrialized construction approach, we can deliver better performing lower carbon, better future-proof products, products that are... Um, by products, I mean buildings that, you know, in the future can be reconfigured, deconstructed, relocated even?

Tim Carey: Yeah, I d-- I, I think we can do it now. Um, so as an example, we delivered, um, a large student accommodation, uh, project directly opposite, uh, Battersea, um, Battersea, uh, Dogs and Cats Home, uh, for Urbanest, which was, um, Passivhaus. It's probably the UK's biggest Passivhaus and, you know, I'm a massive proponent of Passivhaus as a standard for-- as a really [00:26:00] robust, reliable standard for delivering low carbon.

Um, and that was delivered, uh, as an example. That was-- That, that not only did that... It's a really good example of our approach actually, 'cause not only did that deliver to a Passivhaus standard, it delivered using, uh, our own low carbon cassette solution that we developed a couple of years previously. Um, so it, it goes to show that you, you, you, if you get the right solutions, there's no reason why off-site manufacturing CTP can't deliver low carbon.

Most of the jobs that we do now, a lot of the, especially the commercial jobs that we do in, in London are, um, f-retrofit or have retrofit elements and a big-- We're seeing more and more clients, um, you know, pushing for circularity on, on our projects. So we've got, you know, many jobs that we've, for example, reused steel, uh, taken down the existing steel frame, repurposed it, put it back up again.

Uh, often, uh, cladding is repurposed, t-taken away, repurposed, [00:27:00] and, and brought back. Um, so I, I, I, I don't see them as, I don't see them as binary choices. I think if you find the right solution, you'll, you'll deliver something that, that meets circularity agendas, that meets low carbon, and that meets the industrialized construction that delivers the productivity.

Darren Richards: Yeah. Ticks all the boxes. A-and, you know, fundamentally, you're reducing waste, aren't you? You're taking waste out of the system- Exactly ... with this approach. You know, let's face it, there's a-

Tim Carey: and we can't afford waste. You know, this is the thing that we j- we just... You know, we don't have enough people in our industry. That is it. We've got loads of people leaving. We've got a big churn rate, and we-- you know, equally in our, in our report, you know, we find that we, you know, where, where products churn people, productivity goes down.

It's an obvious statement again, but we've got the metrics to back that up as well. So anything that we can do to get waste out of the system is, is gonna be beneficial to all.

Darren Richards: And on the people point, um, I, I read an interesting-- might be a few years old now, but I me- I re- I read an interesting Mace, uh, another report that came out, which was [00:28:00] Mace's Industry 4.0 Insights Report. And it actually highlighted in there, um, a major future reskilling challenge for construction. So it was about, you know, how do you actually define in this new world that you're talking about what the future workforce looks like?

So, um, in moving potentially your business model from client advisory to delivery side, clearly you're gonna have to address some of those issues 'cause the whole industry has got a workforce challenge, isn't it?

Tim Carey: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, uh, I've got two, uh, I've got two daughters. One's twenty-two and one's sixteen going on twenty-one. But, um, and, you know, the, the reality for those is that by the time, by the time they finish their careers, whatever careers they choose to do it, they probably would have gone through three or four jobs whose job titles don't even exist now.

So e-everything, you know, everything in this world is changing and changing at a, a much faster pace. Do, do I believe that we need... So I think it is a combination approach that we need to-- I think there will be new roles that [00:29:00] emerge, and they will be specialist roles. But equally, you, you can't be a lone voice in the wilderness.

So if you really wanna get back to, you know, going back to the earlier point you were making about scaling things up, absorption, we've gotta bring the masses up. So we've gotta, you know, we've gotta educate, we've gotta train, we've gotta make everybody feel confident and competent in this arena to do that.

And that's part of my role within Mace and, you know, supported by others, is to i-i-is to make this stuff not scary, to make it exciting so people choose to do it rather than be told to do it.

Darren Richards: And do you think there'll be more hybrid roles in the future because AI can enable, you know, you don't need a specialist skill set in terms of a designer, you don't necessarily need, need to be an engineer. You just need to be a good integrator or information manager or something. Just need to write a good prompt

Tim Carey: I think it-- Yeah, I mean, it's, that's danger-- Yeah, I mean, [00:30:00] was it Larry Ellison said, you know, like, "AI won't take, AI won't take jobs away. Just, just people who can use AI will take the jobs from people who can't use AI." Yeah. And it's just, you know, we don't sit there and typewrite and type our letters up anymore, do we?

It's just another tool, but you still have to have the knowledge. You still have to know what you're talking about to check the AI because as I say, it's a dangerous path to just rely on an automated output that could be right but equally could be wrong. So you-- We still need to upskill people to be able to do that.

It's just

Darren Richards: And I think it's fairly obvious we're gonna need new personas. There will be new job roles. If you're gonna move from construction to production, you're gonna need design for production leads, platform integrators, which maybe, you know, isn't a job you could define today, but you probably will in the future.

Digital production managers, manufacturing literate design managers that speak the language of the manufacturer. That's gonna be a challenge, isn't it?

Tim Carey: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you looked at our headcount in our digital, in the [00:31:00] digital arena within Mace, you know, compared to five years ago, the, the amount of people that we have already operating in that, supporting our projects has, has gone up dramatically because that's where the need is. That's where, that's where it goes.

Um, same with our design managers. I th- I think, you know, we've got many, many of our project directors and supporting teams that feel comfortable in the new emerging arenas as well, but equally, there's people that we need to support on, on the journeys. It's a, it's a never-ending thing, and, and unfortunately, you know, it's difficult to know when to commit, isn't it, to training or anything?

Everything changes so quick that you could do something today, and it'd be, it'd be... y- with the right intentions, and in six months' time it's out of date. And so the rate of change is going ever quicker, but that doesn't mean you can't do it. You've still got to do it, haven't you? Because the temptation is that you wait, and you say, "Well, we'll wait for it to calm down," but it isn't gonna calm down.

It's only gonna get quicker. So I think, I, I think the biggest skill for people is, is, is [00:32:00] people to be... is, is gonna be for them to be flexible in their thinking and open to new ideas and malleable is the wrong word, but you- Adaptable. Adaptable is, is, is the, is the word I was looking for. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

People that, people that feel comfortable with uncertainty. Yeah. Yeah. 'Cause it's, it's a more uncertain world now- Yeah ... isn't it? And that, and, and that can feel deeply uncomfortable to people, but you almost have to kind of embrace the anxiousness and, and then go through it, go with it.

Darren Richards: Yeah. And that comes down to corporate culture in many ways, doesn't it? Giving them the scope, the freedom, you know, to be able to make some errors or to have to change the direction of travel and various things. You know, it's a cultural thing, isn't

Tim Carey: Absolutely. And if you, if you, you know, if you walk in Macy's, you know, you walk in at one five five Morgan, Macy's HQ, and you, you know, our, as-- you know, our vision is redefine the boundaries of our ambition. Well, you, you can't do that and feel comfortable at the same time. You have to kind of feel deeply uncomfortable.

And if you, if you don't feel uncomfortable, we're probably not redefining it [00:33:00] to the degree to which we should be. Yeah.

Darren Richards: Great analogy. So let's look to the future then. So, um, what's the next evolution for Mace's construction to production strategy? You obviously had this strategy for some time. World's moving at a fast pace. We've talked about what's influencing it, but what is the next evolution gonna be shaped by? Is it gonna be AI or is it robotics?

Is it automation? Is it humanoid technology? What is it? A mixture

Tim Carey: I buy a lottery ticket, if I get the answer to this one right. But, uh, I think it's a combination of things. So I think... I know that, you know, we're, we're kind of longer term, we're looking into, you know, we will be looking into the potential for robotics on site, definitely.

Um, I, I-- There's-- The whole digital integration piece is, is a huge thing. We've got a big initiative within Mace called Project Lift, which is about lifting the load and the burden on our people, uh, automating what we can safely automate, [00:34:00] integrating what we can do, reinforcing, uh, much of our reporting and our processes so that we've got, whether it's...

Whether you look at project A, project B, project Z, we're reporting in a consistent digital manner, which means that we can then slice and dice our data. So things like our productivity report, we've got access to the data to be able to, to be able to become a truly learning organization. So every time you're learning from the one that before with reliance and robustness.

Um, uh, y-y-you know, in terms of the MMC side of things, I think we're pretty mature in, in that space, and I don't necessarily see, I'm happy to be proven wrong, I don't necessarily see too many new technologies emerging. I think, uh, maybe some of the value from an innovative point is in the combination of existing technologies.

You know, like I said, we go, we go across one to seven of the definition framework, and actually a lot of the value is when we, when we put that together with that and we deliver it, and we deliver it with, you know, [00:35:00] most of our jobs will have multiple MMC solutions on it in combination, and that's where we drive the value.

The interesting part of the data will be, will tell me what combinations make the most difference. 'Cause if you-- Un-un-unless you capture the data, it's very difficult to know which one did, which combination or which couple did make the difference if you do a lot. Does that make sense? Yeah. Um, so yeah, it's exciting times.

Darren Richards: Good. Well, time flies. I look forward to reading the Build Smart, Build Better report in the next couple of weeks. Thank you, Tim, for your time

Tim Carey: Anyways, thank you very much. Thanks