Events | 8 Oct 2024

An ear to the ground: Re-flow discoveries at UK Construction Week

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Since 2015, UK Construction Week has brought together thousands of international exhibitors for the UK’s largest built environment event. Between 1-3 October, at the Birmingham NEC, the Re-flow team spent three days demonstrating the software, gaining industry knowledge and meeting new and old clients alike.

As with any trade show, the talks and panel discussions were an opportunity to keep up to date with industry issues and innovations. We’re going to have a look at a few of these in this article. Many of these topics were also covered in our recent Construction Report.

Talks at the show

The talks at UK Construction Week covered a wide range of industry-relevant topics, from manufacturing processes to equality in construction.

Manufacturing Transparency
One repeating topic across a few talks revolved around the need for greater transparency in manufacturing processes. Both the Roofing Today Panel and a talk titled A Spotlight on Safety: The Importance of Accurate and Up-To-Date Product Information looked in depth at the CCPI.

The CCPI – the Code for Construction Product information – is an organisation aiming ‘to raise standards in construction product information and marketing and drive positive culture change’. Established in the post-Grenfell era, with the goal of making manufacturing processes more honest and open, the CCPI is working to promote a culture of accountability within the industry and to improve the clarity of marketing and sales information for construction products.

The talks argued that standardised construction product information is crucial for streamlining the supply chain, facilitating efficient sourcing, and ensuring materials are safe and fit for purpose.

New regulatory requirements and transparency are on their way to the industry, and helping companies maintain compliance and gain client confidence via transparency over materials are going to be important features of construction life in the future.

Equality in Construction and Workforce Challenges

Equality in the workplace was another prominent theme. A talk, Gender Balance in Construction, looked at the benefits of increasing the number of women in the industry. With women making up only 14-18% of the workforce, speakers emphasised how boosting these numbers could address the ongoing worker shortage. There was also a notable conversation by Mates in Mind on mental health in construction, which suggested that the macho culture prevalent in the industry discourages open conversations about wellbeing. Speakers suggested that improving gender diversity could help the industry break free from these norms and contribute to a healthier work environment.

Challenges of Regulation and Homebuilding Goals
The construction industry has seen more regulations introduced in the past three years than in the previous three decades. While this was seen as a positive shift, especially post-Grenfell, the discussion also highlighted the challenge of scaling up homebuilding efforts to meet government targets. As discussed in the talk, UK Construction Industry Outlook: Navigating the Impact of External Economic Factors and Government Policies on the Construction Industry, the UK aims to build 1.5 million homes in the next five years, a significant increase from the current rate of 140,000 homes per year. The consensus among experts was that achieving this ambitious goal will require a stronger role for SMEs.

This would have a second benefit as SMEs are more likely to bring in apprentices and to therefore help address the skill shortage. Lastly, AI was briefly discussed. But rather than replacing jobs, it was agreed that AI could also help fill gaps in the workforce.

Improve processes and gain visibility with Re-flow’s intuitive field management software

Issues around compliance and having a lack of clarity over job progress can hold construction companies back. Standardisation is a major problem within the industry and something that can be combatted with field management software.

Re-flow aims to give businesses the clarity and compliance needed to run at the highest efficiency. Easy-to-use forms take the headache out of paperwork, making operatives feel more compliant and process driven. Mandatory tasks that have to be completed before jobs can progress ensure that all forms and sign offs are done no matter what. Re-flow automatically collects every form submission across an entire business, building a water-tight audit trail. Re-flow manages every job, asset, document, operative, and more – and gives managers visibility of where their teams are, what they’re working on, and what they’ve done.

Re-flow is:

A real-time job, document, and workﬂow management solution.

Comprehensive, with a seamless workflow around job progress, worker qualification libraries, asset scheduling, instant in-app communication, on-site streamlining of health and safety processes, risk assessments, and vehicle checks.

Reliable and functional offline with no hanging, crashing or complicated menus. Operatives have everything they need to get the job done in the palm of their hand, even in the most remote areas.