5.1 UK's Problems: Clients
5.1 UK's Problems: Clients
5.1 UK's Problems: Clients
SUPPLY CHAIN
Low use of
prefabrication and
standardisation
Fragmentation
Non integrated supply
Chain
Adversarial attitudes
Skill shortage
Low training
Need of new contracts
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Construction Problems
POLICIES AND REGULATIONS
Long tender lists
High dependence in
economical stability
Too easy accreditation
of firms
Low Research and
Development
Inconsistency of
regulations across the
country
Duplication of processes
between agencies
Regulatory regimes
FINAL PERFORMANCE
High cost, waste and inefficiency.
Low productivity
Low and unreliable profits
Bad reputation: high reportable accidents,
low wages, tough work.
Over budgets
Bad predictability in time
Table 5.1.4 UK construction industry final performance
The Construction sector has some features that complicate a better performance and
might explain, to some extend, why the construction has not improve as other
industries in the last twenty years. However, the industry acknowledges now, that it
must not still be blaming on these issues to justify its poor performance.
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Construction Problems
CONSTRUCTION PARTICULAR FEATURES
Other Industries
Construction Industry
30
Construction Problems
31
Construction Problems
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Construction Problems
The disbanding policies. It is true that some councils have no human and
technical resources to deal with certain projects, but this problem is not as
important as it is in the UK.
Problems awareness. The problems are quite the same but it seems that
public and private clients either are not aware of them or if they are do not
see the big scope for improvement that could come if they were sorted out.
However, there exist other parties such as contractors, subcontractors,
engineers and consultants, who feel that the industry needs to improve a lot.
Skill shortage. It is the principal problem in both countries, however, the
Spanish construction sector is still attractive for many people because it
is well paid; in comparison with the UK. The Spanish average wage is nearly
two times UKs one see table 4.6.3. The differences are even higher, if we
consider the different standard of living.
Fragmentation. As in most of the developed countries the fragmentation is a
serious problem, because of the large number of parties involved in the
project. However, the atomization of the Spanish sector seems to be more
acute compared to UKs construction sector atomization. Graph 4.6.5 shows
how in Spain about 22 % of the total output is done by firms with less than 9
workers; that means that a high percentage of works are done by companies
with little resources and high indexes of subcontracting. Consequently, it can
be argued that besides the need of tackling the disintegrated supply chain,
there also exists a need to recover from the atomization that damages the good
running of the sector.
No need of contracts. The Spanish contract regulation (Ley de contratos)
allows the contracts to be amended with quite freedom, although they have
always to obey the work frame of the law. Therefore, it seems that there is not
the same need for new contracts in the Spanish construction industry, as it
was claimed for the British one in the Latham report.
The quality. The industry agrees that it should deliver better quality products
and a better after sale service, but the Spanish clients do not agree as much
in the need of a bigger range of products or in the possibility to choose the
final details.
The distribution of the market. The Spanish proposals promote a register of
companies in order to have more knowledge about them and principally in
order to distribute fairly the construction market according to size, technical
and financial resources and experience that means that big companies could
not apply for little projects and vice versa.
On the other hand, UK is not promoting very much this fair distribution may
be because the British policies usually do not want to regulate the market. It is
well known, that the UK has a freer economical policies. Even so, some
public authorities, like the Cardiff council, are taking some measures to
distribute more fairly the market, as it can be observed in chapter 8.
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