BAM Nuttall: Taking construction online
A detailed look into how the quality team at the construction and civil engineering company, BAM Nuttall, worked to incorporate technology and digital integration using Quality 4.0 to support the organisation’s transition to a sustainable digital future.
Businesses and organisations are continuing to evolve out of necessity, responding to global-scale disruption, new business models and technology. This continuous change, including that precipitated by the global coronavirus pandemic, is affecting business operations at all levels, with customers demanding real-time interactions, regulators applying increasing levels of scrutiny and governance, and stakeholders requiring assurance in this complex and dynamic risk environment.
BAM Nuttall has been embracing technology and digital ways of working to improve the safety, sustainability and buildability of their projects, believing strongly that technology is enabling change rather than creating it. The organisation worked towards changing mindsets, finding it important to look at problems and see which technologies could best assist. This case study explores how the organisation incorporated a digitalised system, in which their risk management, efficiency, and planning activities were improved using data science and data analysis from Quality 4.0. David Anderson, Head of Business Process and Quality at Bam Nuttall, took part in this case study. He commented, “We're driven by a desire to deliver outcomes for clients and their customers, in a way that modernises the industry."
“We're driven by a desire to deliver outcomes for clients and their customers, in a way that modernises the industry. We use digital engineering, a net-zero carbon approach; placing sustainability and great people at the heart of our organisation. We strive to enhance the lives of people and the copmmunities where we work."
David Anderson, Head of Business Process and Quality Bam Nuttall
The CQI believes that ‘Quality 4.0’ (Q4.0) and the principles which underpin it will directly affect an organisation’s ability to deal with these huge changes in the digital era and, by extension, its ability to successfully uphold the established seven quality management principles.
Before this can happen, however, Q4.0 needs to be properly understood, defined and developed. Consequently, they have funded a research project into the why, what and how of Q4.0, which has been carried out by the Oakland Institute and Leeds University Business School.
The how, or the implementation of Q4.0, has been examined through a series of interviews with practitioners, structured using the CQI Competency Framework elements, to determine which practices, technologies and tools are being used in their organisations. Part of that work has led to the development of case studies, of which BAM Nuttall: Taking construction online, is one of the firsts.
Read more about the programme of research commissioned by the CQI on Quality 4.0