australia, construction industry, engineering, skills crisis,
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The scarcity of qualified skilled workers is one of the biggest challenges facing the construction industry and it cannot be solved by migration and training alone.
The scarcity of qualified skilled workers is one of the biggest challenges facing the construction industry and it cannot be solved by migration and training alone. To help the construction, design and engineering sectors build Australia with current resources, the Australian Constructors Association and Consult Australia have joined forces in a new partnership for change initiative to bring forward practical ways for the industry to become more productive.
Kickstarting discussions between government, contractors and consultants, a series of thought leadership papers have been released today to help the industry achieve more with less. The papers provide recommendations to aid the adoption of technology, improve reliance on tender information, streamline design reviews and for government delivery agencies to lead the way.
Consult Australia CEO Nicola Grayson said an additional 105,000 workers will be needed by mid-2023 to deliver the enormous pipeline of work facing the construction industry and we must think differently about how we deliver projects.
“Tendering practices requiring lowest price at the tender box are driving adversarial behaviours. Onerous and unnecessary contract terms and conditions further drive these negative behaviours and are more likely to lead to disputes instead of collaborative problem-solving. Our Model Client paper boldly calls on government clients to commit to behaviours that will drive positive cultural change and lead to an uplift in productivity,” says Jon Davies, the Australian Constructors Association CEO.
“Given the current shortage of resources, it is crazy that a client will engage engineers to prepare design information, such as geotechnical reports, but force multiple bidding contractors to engage their own engineers to verify the information because they are contractually not allowed to rely on it. Provision of documents such as geotechnical baseline reports on which tenders can be legitimately based will not only save resources at tender, but it could also significantly reduce the amount of time spent on disputes,” said Mr Davies.
Ms Grayson said despite the emergence of digital tools, the construction industry has become 25 per cent less productive compared to other Australian sectors over the past 30 years.
“To get the greatest benefits from technology we must adopt digital methods across the entire supply chain and the asset lifecycle. The capacity to introduce new digital technologies against the backdrop of national skills shortage requires significant investment and resources to generate meaningful change and sustainable outcomes. Our digital paper provides key actions to set the industry on a transformational course,” said Ms Grayson.
With a new look government, now is the time to act and address the long-term reform challenges that are preventing the industry from realising major productivity gains
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