Lets talk data and lets talk about building a new construction confidence roadmap
Rebuilding confidence in NSW construction will be underpinned by trustworthy data. Good certifiers and regulators will be depend on it. The days of opaque, un-regulated, multiple data sources that do not feed to single sources of truth are rapidly coming to an end. At least in NSW. This week was a milestone for the future of construction data use in NSW.
Since taking on the Role of NSW Building Commissioner in August last year, it was clear to me that data would be the central ingredient to support the future roles of good certifiers and regulators. This week a number of important initiatives were launched. Advertising for the start-up intake for new Occupation Certificate Auditors was the first. The second was the supplier briefing for the Building Assurance Solution - RFT - DICT 691221. In the next month a similar Request for Tender will go out for a Multi-Party Risk Rating Tool.
Over the last few months the team in BRD has been building a new capability that will join up existing internal data pools to provide a single view of projects across the inspectorate team. This capability will enable the sharing of data and better allocation of resources. This capability will start to role out from September 2020. It will enable remapping of all our processes as we look to new capabilities to help transform the regulator's business model.
Its been a great time to be developing these capabilities and thinking of the new normal as we all face into a post COVID-19 industry. The industry is now witnessing how new ways of working are found to be very productive. We have had the opportunity to rethink our work flows, how we can become more proactive and measurably more effective. The conversation has turned to how new performance based dashboards can be deployed to inform consumers, industry and government in real time of how data is defining our future.
About Public and Private Sector data pools
These days the depth of 'non-consensual' data available in private sector data pools is very powerful. These data pools draw heavily from public data sources that are open to all to see. For example, details of company directors and their past relationships with other directors of insolvent companies are simple to find. Matching these relationships with profiles of directors of construction companies with similar histories requires a bit of work but powerful algorithms used by ratings companies with these capabilities is simple. As is matching all of these players with certifiers who have left behind a trail of lousy buildings.
Consensual data is normally held by Public Agencies. However, even this information can be shared by private risk ratings agencies under tight conditions. Examples will be licensing registers, taxation histories, and financial transaction tracking. The NSW e-Planning Portal is an example where once disaggregated data will now join up an extraordinary amount of development consent, drawing lodgement and and documentation tracking through building certification, as-built drawing registers and into a building's digital life. The edges between public and private data pools will increasingly become blurred. Both are regulated.
By the middle of 2021 the digital construction landscape in NSW will have dramatically changed. We expect that emerging Artificial Intelligence will soon be available to enable design and as-built documentation to be compared. Consumers will benefit from both regulators and strata managers being able to access a single source of truth for the buildings they live in. The lodgement of these documents will be governed by new digitally enabled protocols where only accredited or licensed players will be able to access these systems. By 2025 we expect all industry practitioners who have important roles to play in building assurance having a digital twin, just as will the individual buildings that they help make.
No one should imagine that things will not be radically different from 2020. From as early as September 2020, the assembly of the data that will nest in these systems will be collected. In the interim the joined up data already available from the new Regulator's 'Single View of Building Site' and an externally sourced 'Multi-Party Risk Rating Tool' for each project will be in play. These tools will inform the selection of projects that have the potential to be less trustworthy than others. They will help inform the the Occupation Certificate Audit teams now being hired. The intent of Occupation Certificate (OC) Audits have already been well canvassed. In essence this work will target raising the trustworthiness of OC's, now.
A call out to Certifiers
There are good certifiers and there are compromised ones. The latter have left behind them a trail of poor building outcomes. There is another group of normally well intended certifiers who see themselves as caught like meat in a sandwich. They may have under quoted, they are under pressure to tick the box and mostly they are dealing with projects that had inadequate documentation in the first place to support a good build. Well, the certifiers who bleat that they are the meat in the sandwich need to think very seriously about their futures. We want them in the industry, but we do not want their compromised selves. I am now hearing that some of these certifiers are already saying enough is enough. Some have already resigned off projects they are not happy to be associated with. There will be more. Some have started to come in and share with me details of why. They see the changes on foot.
Good certifiers now know that a better future for them awaits. I urge them to hang in. They should place a new value on what they bring to the table. Confident building certification.
The Office of the Building Commissioner (OBC) and the regulator (BRD) are well advanced in the preparation of a NSW Certifiers Practice Guide (CPG). The CPG will not involve any new legislation. The guide will simply visit the existing legal requirements for certifiers. It will however reset the language from minimum standards to best practice. It will call for much more rigor in the process of verifying certificates and the evidence needed for a trustworthy Occupation Certificate (OC). All of the key stakeholders are involved in drafting the CPG. They include the LGA, AAC, AIBS, AIB, MBA, HIA, AIA, EA, RICS, OCN, SCA, UDIA, PCA and others. There will be no surprises, just a more viable compliance landscape. I want to call our Michael Lambert who is chairing the CPG working groups and working closely with our BRD, OBC teams and stakeholders. Expect to see that the Building Code of Australia and Australian Standards being a centrepiece of this work.
Rebuilding consumer confidence with NSW Residential Apartment customers now, has never been more pressing. Our post COVID-19 economy needs as much confidence as possible to lift the supply of new housing and to create jobs. Anyone who puts this mission at risk should think very carefully about what the consequences will be.
About the Building Assurance Solution
The current RFT calls for a service provider for this capability. The problem is the need for a single source of truth to contain all of a building's certificates on a common platform that will go with a building forever, and be available to future owners and maintainers. This solution must be multi-jurisdictional. The construction industry draws from long global supply chains. As more construction is performed away from a building site in future, it becomes critical that a single trustworthy source of truth is able to sweep up all of a project's compliance certificates from - source of material, product, assembly, installation and commissioning. The RFT offers service providers who see this opportunity to be 'first movers' in this space to come forward. Our role will be to provide a collaboration sandpit to help develop and credential what we believe will be a globally applicable product.
There is amazing potential to leverage existing proven applications from other industries and transfer these to construction. We are excited about some of the possibilities we have seen.
The RFT calls for respondents to demonstrate proven capability for 4 'use cases' described in the tender documents. That is a start point. Such a capability presents other opportunities. For example the Building Assurance Solution could also host certificates for the amount of embodied carbon that relates to every building's inputs. Importantly it will be possible to rate the trustworthiness of certificate providers throughout the full supply chain. It should then be possible to model the trustworthiness of all of a building's certificates to provide and individual compliance rating. Insurers would then be able to price building insurance risk based on these ratings. From this, we hope to help facilitate a 10-year first resort insurance product to be available to the most trustworthy building makers. Not a legislated requirement but, market led. Our role will be market making, proof of solution and service procurement. There will be others beyond regulators who see this assurance solution as important - financiers, insurers, and customers for a start.
Let's talk data is about building a new construction confidence roadmap. As the NSW Construction Industry navigates the 20th year into the 21st century, its time to be measurably better, smarter, more efficient and customer facing. It will be.
Please note: Any job applications for roles with OBC the OFT or the Building Assurance Solution must be lodged via the links above.
Construction BIM Manager at Intel
3yDamien Cutcliffe
CEO Blacktown City Council
3yDavid, greatly support your leadership!
Director at Concise Certification Pty Ltd
3yWe have a good leader making the right changes once and for all. Keep up the good work Mr Chandler.
Executive Leader | Digital and Data Transformer | Delivery Director | IT Portfolio & Project Management | Change Maker
3yMy team and I are excited about joining the data dots and developing the data capabilities to support this critical agenda.