The supply chain changes that could improve construction

Construction materials Ellis Fox Blog

In trying to improve construction output and margins, the focus is usually on bidding, planning permissions and finance as the usual stumbling blocks. While it’s true these factors are often the cause of delays that add to project costs, there are other areas that warrant focus too- specifically the supply chain.

Following Brexit, the UK experienced a great deal of uncertainty with regards to materials. Price increases were inevitable, compounded by materials shortages and delays at ports. Now that the industry has mostly weathered these challenges, it’s looking for new ways to find efficiencies and cost savings in the supply chain. Here are a few ways in which this is being achieved:

Digital procurement

Historically, supply chain was notorious for volumes of paperwork that needed to be manually captured. Procurement orders, delivery slips, inventory manifests were often misplaced or incorrectly captured and this impacted efficiency. Also, if primary suppliers were out of stock, it could delay projects further.

Digital procurement is being used to overcome these challenges by digitizing documentation from quotation through to project completion and in the process creates a more robust audit trail. An added advantage is that this provides data that can be used for other purposes such as tracking a project’s carbon footprint and levels of waste. This type of data is becoming increasingly important as new environmental legislation gets passed.

Materials packaging

A relatively large percentage of construction waste comes from materials packaging. The reason for this that it’s designed for only singular use, with the intention of being discarded once the materials are used on site. A prime example is wooden pallets that are used to transport windows, doorframes or bags of cement. Plus consider the reams of plastic wrap binding these items on the pallets that’s simply discarded after delivery on site.

Alternative approaches are to use plastic pallets made from recycled plastic. These pallets are more robust and have a significantly longer lifespan. They can make a big impact on volumes of waste on site and are proving to be more cost effective. Spending money on things that are only going to be thrown away make little sense. In this way reusable materials packaging can help streamline procurement budgets.

These two examples highlight how relatively simple solutions can help expand margins and make operations more efficient. The added benefit is that these solutions don’t rely on government or industry to be effective.