Spec Finish

ROUNDTABLE 20 www.thefis.org T he COVID-19 crisis has sent a shockwave through our industry and required us to radically rethink the construction process. As we start to emerge from the initial impact and look forwards it has become clear that the industry can’t return to normal – we must start to reinvent a new normal. The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) has been interrogating this new normal and the Roadmap to Recovery identifies three distinct phases of COVID response, restart, reset and reinvent. The reinvent phase echoes the findings of seminal reports – from The Egan Report through Dame Judith Hackitt’s ‘Building a Safer Future: Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety ’, the Construction Sector Deal , the now infamous CAST report Modernise or Die and themore recent CBI report FineMargins: Delivering Financial Sustainability In UK Construction . The aim is to encourage the industry to evolve to “a more capable, professional, productive and profitable sector, which delivers better value to clients, better performing infrastructure and buildings, and competes successfully in global markets.” Against this theme, FIS organised a roundtable, drawing together leaders fromall parts of the fit-out and finishing supply chain. The aimwas to examine the impact of COVID-19 and review how, as a supply chain, we need to work, communicate, and collaborate to ensure that the finishes and interiors sector evolves to meet and define this new normal. What havewe learned? A key positive has been the unprecedented examples of how the industry is working together for the greater good and the adaptability shown in terms of howwe have been able to change and embrace newworking practices. Throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, initiatives such as the Nightingale Hospitals, the work of the CLC and groups like the FIS Health and SafetyWorking Group had demonstrated that we can work together as a supply chain when we put our minds to it. “For an industry that does not collaborate, we have collaborated like never before,” Iain McIlwee, stated. Nigel Ostime felt that a focus on productivity was being driven by the changing working practices. In the design world, remote working, leading to less time commuting, had resulted inmuch greater productivity in some aspects of their work. “Design-wise we are not just working internally, we are collaborating with other architects,” he said, adding that in order to kickstart the economy, productivity AFTER THE COVID-19 CRISIS: REBUILDINGCONSTRUCTION A panel of cross-industry experts came together to discuss what we can learn and how we can progress at a recent FIS roundtable. STEPHANIE CORNWALL reports.