“Safety in Numbers: Resilience and Certainty Through Data” was the topic of the 2020 JCT Povey Lecture, presented by Dr Damien Buie, group technical director at Laing O’Rourke, on Wednesday, 18 November 2020.
The JCT Povey Lecture was broadcast live as a webinar for the first time, in light of the restrictions in place due to Covid-19. Attendees were able to register in advance via the event website and the interactive online interface enabled questions and comments to be submitted in real time.
With over 400 registered attendees, it made the event the largest JCT Povey Lecture to date, in terms of audience.
Dr Buie described Laing O’Rourke’s own journey toward Construction 4.0 – a strategy to deliver closer alignment with clients, create a safe working environment, and consistently deliver quality engineering solutions that are on time, on budget, and sustainable across the project lifecycle – by harnessing the power of data.
Dr Buie explained that data not only enables a culture of transparency and collaboration that is more customer focused, it also provides greater ability to resist and absorb shocks and unknown events – particularly relevant as we go through the Covid-19 pandemic – and provides more certainty and confidence in particular outcomes:
“Building a data driven culture is in the best interest of our clients and key stakeholders across the construction industry. It will translate into greater value and lower risks.
“The world of opportunity around data is broader than any company’s ability to address it. You need to partner and collaborate to achieve the scale and pace required to win.
“While there are barriers to building a customer aligned industry, the steps to move forward are simple.”
The full presentation of the JCT Povey Lecture 2020 is available via the JCT website at https://corporate.jctltd.co.uk/jct-povey-lecture-2020, or via JCT’s YouTube channel.
JCT chair, Richard Saxon CBE, who hosted the event, was also able to inform the audience about JCT’s wider digital strategy, aimed at providing a range of JCT digital products to meet the demands of a modern industry, and assist in flexible working by delivering practical working and learning tools for professionals as the industry gets back on its feet.
A range of online contract tools are available at www.jctltd.co.uk/jct-digital, and a new online training programme, is available at www.jctltd.co.uk/jct-training.
Image: JCT