Chapter 3: The Construction Industry

Put simply, the built environment needs to perform better, and be cheaper to deliver and operate. To achieve this, the construction industry needs to deliver more assets, that are better performing, with less resources, quicker and at lower cost. At the same time the industry is facing several real and significant challenges, including global supply chain disruption and skills shortages, historically low productivity and a fragmented, litigious industry. This chapter starts by describing what the construction industry is, what it includes and what it doesn't and how it impacts other related industries. It introduces a simple model for describing supply chain processes that can be used to compare models. It describes how the industry is currently structured and how it has performed in recent years compared to how it needs to perform going forward, before identifying some of the key challenges that will be faced.