This is where we code construction cadets and apprentices to accept business as usual as the predictor of the future - this has to change

The industry's next generation of construction talent typically spend a year or two on building sites to cut their teeth and learn from experienced practitioners about the realities of the business. It's no wonder that no-one really imagines much changing when those on-site drum into them, to expect more of the same. This is understandable as life at the blunt end of construction is pretty much the way it’s always been. Most feel pretty disconnected from any prospect of influencing change upstream. It always seems beyond them.

Despite all of the new technologies and examples of modern construction shown to the industry's cadets and apprentices during formal training, their daily grind reinforces the reality of poorly coordinated design, variations to remedy inter-discipline mistakes, oversight of planning conditions or standards, supply chain disruption, trade-skill shortages, delays due to weather, rework and of course, their own often undetected mistakes. The full article on this subject was published in the FifthEstate this week. This conversation could become a major construction theme in 2019 - with wide ramifications for the industry.

A design and manufacture challenge like no other before it – ‘to help change the face of construction management on-site, one site shed at a time…’

?Next month a group of leading construction management academics from 8 universities in Australia and New Zealand will join a Roundtable to be hosted by Western Sydney University’s Centre for Smart Modern Construction. They will be invited to share their views on what a modern construction workface might look like by 2025. They will be invited to help imagine how on-site work will be managed, procured and undertaken once more than 50 percent of construction fabrication performed on-site today moves off-site.

This conversation followed another, about how the construction industry might make itself more attractive to young girls and boys who could consider a modern construction career if the image of the industry and its working environments were transformed. It became apparent that a modern construction narrative was needed that painted a smarter image of construction than the community can observe today. Transforming the construction experience will not be a journey that all in the industry today will be coming on. Alas those who cannot adapt will struggle to survive. Modern construction employers should also imagine that tomorrow's construction graduates will not sit comfortably in outdate on-site facilities. Especially those who are experiencing the modern learning experience elsewhere.

The idea of a Smart Site Hub was born out of these conversations. A competition to design and pitch to have a new Smart Site Hub made and put into service will be launched early in 2019. This will be an open competition in Australia and New Zealand for teams comprising at least one undergraduate student, a contractor, a designer, a techco and a off-site manufacturer will compete. To register interest email: [email protected] marked Smart Site Hub before the end of January 2019. Further details will follow.

For more information about the Centre for Smart Modern Construction at Western Sydney University visit the c4SMC web site. See link below.

This conversation was co-authored by David Chandler - Industry Engagement Lead, c4SMC and Professor Srinath Perera, Director of the Centre for Smart Modern Construction.