SBEnrc Newsletter – November 2015

Industry research continues

I’m pleased to announce the SBEnrc has confirmed a major funding package to continue its unique partnership – now six years after the end of Australian Government funding through our predecessor, the CRC for Construction Innovation. The research model we have created and nurtured over the past 15 years is globally acknowledged as a highly successful model of industry, government and research collaboration. It is thanks to our strong national and international partner network that we are able to continue our work.

My sincere thanks to all involved.

We are now embarking on seven new projects within the housing, building and infrastructure portfolio. Our Governing Board has signed off on these projects and new Project Steering Groups are meeting soon to affirm the industry-led team, research objectives and dissemination strategies – and to get to know each other better and build valuable cross-industry relationships.

These projects are:

• Valuing Social Housing
• Innovative Industrialised Buildings
• Retrofitting Public Buildings for Energy and Water Efficiency
• Scenario Planning Transport Futures
• Transport, Technology and Big Data
• Whole-of-life Value of Constructed Assets through Digital Technologies
• Sustainable Asset Management

At our last Board meeting, the appointments of John McCarthy AO as Chair and myself as CEO of the Centre for the next three years was confirmed with the unanimous support of our partners. John and I are excited about balancing new projects and project leaders with our experience and proven partnership. We are grateful for the ongoing trust that the Board and our partners have placed in us. We are committed to focusing on the challenges set by our partners to build on achievements of the CRC for Construction Innovation and SBEnrc to benefit our partners and the Australian built environment community.

Welcome BGC

I am pleased to announce BGC Residential has joined SBEnrc as a new core member. BGC is one of Australia’s largest privately held firms in the industry and operates nationally across the building supply chain.

BGC has a focus on growth and embedding new ways of working through organisational and technological change. They will initially be supporting the following projects:

1. Valuing Social Housing – This project will deliver a validated decision support and policy guidance tool to evaluate the performance of social housing policy and delivery, identifying to whom the return on investment flows, across nine objectives: community, education, employment, environment, economic, health and well-being, housing infrastructure, social engagement and urban amenity.
2. Innovative Industrialised Buildings – This project will support policy development and capacity building across the supply chain by demonstrating how an aggregated offsite construction model can deliver cost savings, reduced environmental impacts, greater productivity and the creation of new skilled jobs, as well as result in high quality, well-designed, smart buildings.
3. Whole-of-life Value of Constructed Assets through Digital Technologies – This project will further develop and test an on-line industry benchmarking tool to monitor and measure benefits realised from implementing BIM in buildings and infrastructure.

Kiwis win again

I was disappointed to see that the last day of October a few weeks ago saw Australia soundly beaten by our New Zealand cousins in the Rugby World Cup Final in London. But it was a game well played and I congratulate the Kiwis for the teamwork, consistency and focus they continued to display on the football field.

New Zealand is taking a similar approach to industry research – teamwork, consistency and focus. The New Zealand Government has developed a series of eleven National Science Challenges designed to take a more strategic approach to science investment. They provide an opportunity to align and focus New Zealand’s research on large and complex issues by drawing scientists together from different institutions and across disciplines to achieve a common industry goal through collaboration.

I am delighted to have been invited to serve as an international assessor on the panel for the New Zealand Challenge “Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities” these past few months. I am looking forward to seeing the transformational outcomes in the NZ built environment over this next nine years.

BIM Value

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a game-changing phenomenon gaining momentum across the construction world. Recent research by SBEnrc has now been translated into an online interactive tool, BIM Value. It provides industry with a free, step-by-step guide to identify potential benefits, metrics and tools for implementing BIM. This tool will help managers identify benefits that are most important to them, how to achieve them and how to measure progress towards those goals.

BIM Value has been developed in partnership with NATSPEC, a not-for-profit organisation improving the construction quality and productivity of the built environment through leadership of industry information. NATSPEC has published the National BIM Guide and other BIM documents to help implement BIM in the construction industry.

The first module of the tool was launched in early November and is now freely available through the NATSPEC BIM Portal. Visit www.natspec.com.au and click on the BIM logo.

Upcoming events

The International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB), the Finnish Association of Civil Engineers (RIL) and the Tampere University of Technology (TUT) are jointly hosting the World Building Congress 2016, 30 May – 3 June 2016 in Tampere, Finland.

The theme for WBC1, Intelligent built environment for life, highlights the importance of built environment and its development to society. For more information and to register go to www.wbc16.com.

Best regards

Keith

Dr Keith Hampson, Chief Executive Officer
Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre
Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia
E: k.hampson@sbenrc.com.au

Our challenge is to continue growing the value and impact of our applied research more deeply and broadly across Australia.

Dr Keith Hampson
CEO, SBEnrc

John V. McCarthy AO
Chair, SBEnrc