Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1198887
www.sketchup.com 1.0 Introduction: The problem of productivity in building services A substantial proportion of building services projects are now delivered through large to very-large building services firms, organized into equally large offices with at least 50 staff. These firms often operate at small profit margins of around 5%, despite high multipliers (often over 2.5x base wage) and theoretical efficiencies of scale. Although there has been downward pressure on fees for some time, it is often argued productivity growth across the whole industry is poor (1). One observed theory relating to low productivity gains in the industry might be that it does not cost-effectively manage technical staff that well. It could be argued that this is especially true for junior to mid-level technical staff who themselves are not yet managing projects. Observed signs that these technical staff are not working productively could include the following: ● Failure to plan out work on a project properly before commencing ● Periods of idleness while staff wait for instructions on what to do next ● A tendency to work towards deadlines rather than getting individual tasks done as quickly as possible ● Frequent context-switching as managers compete for staff attention ● Prevalence of inventing new workflows and processes rather than seeking out efficient and tested ways of completing project tasks ● Preference for investing time in "fun" tasks rather than "high priority" tasks These problems are not confined to the MEP design space. They are, instead, commonly observed in other industries, including amongst engineers in software design. The main difference is that the software industry is highly proactive in searching for ways to improve processes to reduce these productivity costs. 4