From left: Tom Barton, Nicola Hodson, Mark Beard, Paul Nash, Stephen Hodder
The Manchester Hub held a series of events during August focusing on the issue of quality, featuring big names in construction.
Its key event was a panel discussion on quality in construction. The virtual event was introduced by Mark Beard, CIOB’s president who is known for his passion for quality and ‘right first time’, with presentations from: Paul Nash, on the new Building Safety Bill; Stephen Hodder MBE, CIC chairman, on the revamp of CIC Design Quality Indicator (DQI) to Project BEQueST (Built Environment Quality Standard and Tools); and Tom Barton, executive director of Get it Right Initiative (GIRI), on the importance of right first time and driving a quality culture.
The presentations were followed by discussions on clerk of works, the role of the commercial team in quality, value engineering and how professional bodies can drive industry culture change.
This main event was followed by two further events on quality. Andy Almey from Red Jam, business and process transformation and change management specialist, presented on continuous improvement, how to use technology to improve quality processes, and opportunities for training – including Red Jam’s one-day continuous improvement session and Six Sigma apprenticeships.
The final event was from Perry Shard, head of operational excellence for Balfour Beatty and GIRI trainer, discussing behavioural quality – an insightful presentation on how he drives quality in highways and the importance of the right culture and behaviours. This sparked a lot of discussion around accepting that quality is everyone’s responsibility and driving a positive improvement culture rather than a blame culture.
All the events were chaired by Nicola Hodson, standards advisor for Wates Group and chair of CIOB Novus Manchester, due to her passion for quality in construction. In total the events were attended by over 400 people, and the Manchester Hub and Novus plans follow-up events to keep the discussion going. Recordings and slide decks from the webinars are available.
View the recordings:
