National construction management training centre

ACT-UK centre builds on their government commissioned reports Rethinking Construction and Constructing the Team.

Sir John Egan and Sir Michael Latham back groundbreaking GBP8.5 million national construction management training centre.

Sir John Egan and Sir Michael Latham have given their support to the first national virtual reality training centre for construction managers and professionals in the UK - and only the second in the world.

The pair say the GBP8.5 million ACT-UK centre, to be built on a site at Coventry University, builds on their government commissioned reports Rethinking Construction and Constructing the Team.

ACT-UK was launched on Thursday at the National Motorcycle Museum to more than 200 construction and education professionals.

Sir John was keynote speaker at the event alongside Sir Michael, who was unable to attend at the last minute due to illness and whose speech was delivered by a colleague.

The Advanced Construction Technologies centre, the bulk of which will contain the world's second ever virtual reality simulation training centre for construction managers and professionals, should be up and running by autumn 2008 and could provide training for several thousand people a year.

It is modelled on a similar centre in Leeuwarden in the Netherlands, whose owner Michiel Schrijver gave a small scale demonstration of how the final result would look.

The simulation centre will take training of construction managers to a new level.

The centre will also include a continuing professional development centre, collaboration centre, industry showcase and business centre.

The CPD Centre will particularly focus on the technical and inter-personal skills needed for effective collaborative working.

ACT-UK won GBP6.3 million of Advantage West Midlands funding in November and has also received GBP0.7 million from the Learning and Skills Council Coventry and Warwickshire via TEC legacy funding.

It needs an additional GBP1.1 million from industry to draw down the AWM grant, for which it is offering a range of benefits.

Thursday's launch revealed an initial GBP250,000 has been pledged by construction firm KB Benfield Group , and ACT-UK received further pledges from a number of smaller companies immediately following the launch.

Sir John, chairman of Severn Trent and former Jaguar and BAA boss, urged businesses to dig deep to back the centre which he said built on his 1998 government report Rethinking Construction.

"The construction industry provides 10% of the country's GDP and employs around two million people.

"We are almost certain to get 2.5% growth this year and next.

London has had the confidence to take on the Olympics.

Every city in the land is making the effort to regenerate itself.

This is an exciting time for the industry.

But the industry has to take itself seriously.

This is where ACT-UK is important to all of us.

"At Severn Trent our projects are achieving year on year productivity improvements thanks to the supply chain working together to achieve productivity gains.

ACT-UK can accelerate this improvement process.

The only way we can get world-class performance is through collaboration within the supply chain.

"In my report I had a vision that that professionals practised on computers rather than on customers.

If we can design and build on computers we can practise best methodologies and innovation.

At ACT-UK engineers, managers can practise in a virtual scenario.

This is also extremely important for safety planning.

"More and more companies are, like Severn Trent, using fewer suppliers and choosing those who show they have strengths and expertise in training, pre-planning and collaboration.

Clients expect a higher level of training.

"The public sector has made the running.

Now it is time for industry to stand to the mark.

It would be disgraceful if all this effort has been put in and we can't raise the GBP1.1 million needed.

It's important to dig deep for the future.

The team behind ACT-UK is also urging construction companies to contact them to discuss how they might work together with ACT-UK to make the best use of the Virtual Reality Simulation Centre.

Sir Michael, said, in a speech delivered by Sandra Bell, West Midlands area manager for CITB ConstructionSkills of which he is chairman: "ACT-UK is a beacon of partnership, collaboration and innovation.

Not only does it champion partnership and collaboration as part of its make-up - working closely with the public sector, industry bodies, educational establishments and representatives from private companies - but through the innovative use of technology and a real understanding of the modern day industry, it will enable the current and future managers within the workforce to experience successful, collaborative working at first hand.

"All of this is vital, because the need for the construction industry to be at the top of its game has never been greater.

We have a large number of high profile projects we need to deliver on time and to budget - from the Olympics and the Thames Gateway, "These projects will need to be delivered by an industry that is still highly fragmented - made up almost entirely of small and medium sized businesses that only come together on major projects.

And all of this has to be done at a time when the industry is under increasing pressure to deliver on sustainable, environmental and social challenges - from the GBP60,000 house, to the zero-carbon home.

"The Blueprint for UK Construction Skills, published by our own Construction Skills Network last year, predicts that the industry needs 348,000 new recruits by 2010 - an average of 87,000 new recruits every year.

What's more, those recruits will not just have to be at trade level - our research predicts that almost half of the workforce requirement will be made up by managers, architects, engineers and other design and technical professions.

"This clearly means we need to be thinking now about the real need for new entrants to the industry, and up-skilling the work-force we already have.

"The proposed Building Management Simulation Centre at ACT-UK will be able to take this approach to training into the 21st century, by re-creating the very best of site training conditions, in safe, controlled and repeatable conditions.

"And from the experience of the Simulation Centre in Leeuwarden we know that the approach not only works very well, but at a profit.

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