Investing in Standards During a Recession

Going back to the 80s I was one of the greatest critics of the BS5750 and the Quality Assurance process. I remember wading through huge documents and ticking thousands of boxes just to be able to demonstrate we had carried out everything in accordance with our procedure. The reason for my criticism was that I was not convinced that this delivered any real value to the business.

However, over a number of years the standards have been reviewed and have been changed to ISO 9001 which used the Demming plan, do, check, act model.

We spent a lot of time as a business reviewing ISO 9001 and decided to develop our own continuous improvement wheel based on plan, do, check, act. We used the 9001 standard as a base however. I remember in the past when we had a QA audit there was two weeks of frantic activity before the Auditor arrived to make sure that every box was ticked and every piece of paper was in the right place. Now we look forward to the auditor arriving and make no special arrangements for these particular days. We use the audit as opportunity for continuous improvement.

We have named out internal management system _scils (_space Continuous Improvement and Learning System) and have been able to integrate other standards within it without major change.

We have recently been accredited with ISO 14001 in relation to environmental standards. Far from believing that quality standards are a hindrance I have now moved my thinking to believe that such standards are imperative in time of recession. Particularly with ISO 14001 it has structured our thinking in relation to waste and risk. We now look at every aspect of the business and consider where waste is being produced and how we can minimise it. By measuring what we use in the first place we can monitor resource movements and percentages against others.

We are now aiming to include the ISO 18001 standard within our _scils model to ensure that our Health and Safety achieves the highest standards.

During a recession when process, waste and risk are very important I would recommend any business to invest in these standards to ensure that the organisation is run as efficiently and effectively as possible as I believe they add real value.

The Big Four O

Life begins at 40... / photo

I reached a major milestone at the weekend. On the 11th July I hit the grand old age of 40. Some say life begins at 40 and I look forward to what that may bring. I have to be honest usually birthdays have little impact upon me however, I got to thinking that if 80 is a good innings, by the time you get to 40 you are half way there meaning that its all down hill from here!

My 30ies were an exciting time for me and this period generally coincided with the last 10 years of growth. Whilst growth was very exciting it provided its own challenges and headaches.

It is likely that my 40ies will have a different set of challenges as we steer the business through a difficult period.

For the man who has everything birthday presents were always going to be a challenge. The best present was the party which I had last Saturday night. These are rare occasions where all of your friends are gathered together in one place at the same time. Obviously one is your wedding providing you only have one and the other is likely to be your funeral which you won’t be at.

The one thing that struck me on the evening was that friendships are recession proof and in my case I have been fortunate enough to have a solid bunch of friends through the ups and downs over the years.

Batten Down the Hatches

Wikipedia

Over recent months one of the terms which I keep hearing in our industry and in particular from architects is that they plan to ‘batten down the hatches’ and ‘ride out the storm’. I think in the past this has been the way many architectural businesses have responded to recessions and generally the profession is badly hit by such down turns. Much of this is caused by the fact architects depend upon capital spending and in recessions this is one of the first things to be cut.

Over the past decade our industry has made huge strides forwards in relation to its approach and technology. There is no doubt that there is still further to go but my worry is that much of the hard work we have done in relation to partnering or integrated working will be stopped and potentially be forgotten.

As an industry we need to continue to invest in training and development.. With Building Information Modelling and integrated project delivery we are on the cusp of a revolution. Unfortunately many companies are battening down the hatches and cannot afford to invest.

I also worry that by battening down the hatches the storm will happen around us and when many companies open the hatches there will be no industry left.

At _space we made the decision to think very carefully about how we move forward but do not intend to batten down the hatches or bury our heads in the sand. We will continue to invest in our people and technology and think differently about our industry.

Hopefully this will stand us in good stead for the future and in fact help us weather the storm.

We are always looking at how we can diversify our offer to enable us to sustain our business for the long term.

An Old New Town

Milton Keynes/Wikipedia

I spent sometime in Milton Keynes last week, this was the first time I had had the privilege of visiting this much talked about town.

My first challenge was getting there, as a regular train traveller cutting across country was going to be problematic. The answer was to head into London and back out to Milton Keynes. I was on a secret mission and the first thing that struck me on that particular day was the incredible heat with temperatures reaching 32 degrees.

At _space we talk much about sustainable communities and I am always looking for the collective elements that can make this happen. Clearly, at some point, Milton Keynes was thought to be state of the art. Many years later the masterplan has been developed and the new community created.

What I am not sure about is, if this is an integrated or sustainable community. It has all of the pieces but many of the elements operate in isolation. It has to be economically sustainable in that it is operated for several years and continues to grow. However the roundabouts and road system gave little priority for pedestrians with huge industrial zones being surrounded by forests of trees.

The housing seemed to be remote lacking the usual mix of a buildings and styles developed over many years.

Much of the architecture was of a similar 60ies and 70ies style again with little response to human scale.

It would seem from the outside that commercially Milton Keynes has been successful, possibly due to its good links to London by both road and rail. I would challenge however, whether this is the best place to live if there is the rich mix of uses, ages and architecture which can create a place.

I came away from Milton Keynes believing that it was difficult to force a community to happen on a rigid plan such as this. Communities need to evolve over time and respond to the times in which they develop.

Places also need to be particular to their geography and I did feel that whilst I thought I had not been to Milton Keynes before I had visited the same place in Telford and Washington.

North-South Divide

North-South Divide map/Wikipedia

The recession is starting to have quite a cultural impact on the architectural profession. My view has always been that in architecture there has been a London market and a regional market. Much of what has been delivered in the capital has been commercial responding to the asset boom driven by the banks. This has included offices, hotels and high end housing.

The majority of the construction industry is now driven by Government spending and investment in education and healthcare. This has encouraged many of the businesses in London to look further afield for opportunities.

The concentration of skills in London will help to increase the quality of public buildings being procured across England.

With regards to the upgrading of the of the schools estate, Partnerships for Schools are now very reliant on CABE as the custodian of design quality. Over the last few years the BSF process has been driven by delivery and the procurement itself. CABE’s involvement will undoubtedly raise standards and encourage bid teams to respond to the need for design quality.

This shift will give the opportunity to promote the benefit of the investment in design as part of the huge capital investment being made by the Government. As a northern business we must ensure we are part of the dialogue with bodies such as CABE and the RIBA which are traditionally based in the south.

America, Economics, Apple and the genius of Walt Disney

I haven’t completed my blog for two weeks now, and with good reason. I have been on holiday in Florida spending time at the beach reading books along with Mickey Mouse and friends.

The pattern for my holidays is that I return with lots of new thoughts from the books I have read and what I have seen. This holiday is no exception.

Economics

I have taken an interest in economics after the events of the last few years. The books I have read have been fascinating and enlightening. I am now sure things will never be the same again, and we need to ensure we don’t make the mistakes of the past.

Over the last 10 years we have had unprecedented growth and many of the risks taken by banks have been too high, with no consideration of ‘what if’. The rewards were huge for the banks in the short term however; it is now clear that they didn’t understand the complexity of what they were doing. The fallout is huge and the construction industry is affected more than most.

Disney

You would think that it would be difficult to find much to comment on from a business perspective in a theme park. Nothing could be further from the truth. At Disneyland there are many lessons for all businesses.

Disney is by far the best in class. The service is as high as I have ever experienced and I would guess their customer satisfaction is the highest in the world. They employ 55,000 people in Orlando with the vast majority upholding the Disney values. Maintenance of the facility is of the highest standard despite being operational every day and having thousands of visitors. They also continue to surprise, and since my last visit several years ago there are new attractions with relevance to current culture.

Disney World is the size of a city yet it runs efficiently and effectively. It also generates revenue of over $6 billion per year.

USA 2009

I have also taken onboard many aspects of the American culture while I have been away and will be sharing my thoughts over the next few days on the various aspects which I found interesting.

America on the Environment

America has woken up to the environment however I would say they are between 5 and 10 years behind Europe. They are starting with recycling but have not moved to energy conservation and in particularly Florida there is a huge amount of air conditioning. Car sizes have reduced with fewer SUV’s and 4 wheel drive vehicles on the road.

We stayed in a hotel on the Gulf Coast which claimed to be the first NEEAT hotel in America. All I could see was recycling bins and cartons made from recycled material. However this is a positive start and importantly this is now of interest to the American people.

America and its Car Industry

The American car industry is in a huge mess. General Motors filing for bankruptcy is unbelievable. It would appear that it has made some dreadful decisions over the past 20 years and the issues it faces now are not new. It did not continue to innovate and has been content to continue to manufacture average products. It even invested in Hummer when everyone else was investing in R&D of the electric vehicle.

Toyota has continued to develop its product and now produces the most popular cars in America.

The Global Recession is linked to the downfall of the motor industry in the US. In Detroit there has been a huge drop in manufacturing jobs leaving people with lower incomes or unemployed. These are the communities which have been encouraged to take up sub prime mortgages.

America and Apple

We visited several malls on the trip and by far the busiest and liveliest was the Apple Store.

There were people using the many apple devices from music to computers to phones. Microsoft may have lost its way in innovation and understanding what society wants and needs. Steve Jobs and Apple have great intuition when understanding contemporary cultures.

The Apple revolution is building in the UK and I am sure it will become central to youth culture within the next few years.

America and Steve Jobs

Whilst Disney has managed to remain a leader when it comes to theme parks through its imagineering (imagination and engineering) other parts of the business have fallen behind Walt Disney was an innovator and won more Oscars than anyone else for his work on animated movies. Disney lost its way with movies after the death of Walt and failed to push the boundaries.

I read Steve Jobs biography and he has made a fortune and lost a fortune and then gone on to make another one.

Now Apple and Steve Jobs are such a huge success it is easily forgotten how different it could have been. He invested everything he had and was very nearly bankrupt developing Pixar. He took huge risks but made a huge success with movies such as Finding Nemo and Toy Story.

Disney was left with no choice but to buy Pixar with Jobs becoming a major shareholder in Disney.

I have now read the stories of both Walt Disney and Steve Jobs and there are many parallels. Both of them are entrepreneurs and both are innovators. They are visionaries and single minded. Most of all they have a talent at reading the emerging markets.

Steve Jobs is the Walt Disney of our time.

Steve Jobs/Wikipedia and Walt Disney/Wikipedia

A Brave New World

We have now officially entered the brave new world of social networking. Our new _space Life site is now up and running and we are going through our tests as we build up the content. I believe that social networking is building more and more momentum with increasing numbers of the people that I meet inadvertently mentioning YouTube or images on Facebook.

We are really hoping to bring the site to life and my vision is that it becomes a centre for all of the stories for the communities which we work within.

I spent the last few days in the South looking at several new schools and academies as I am always keen to see what is being done by others. On my travels I can across a very interesting new private school which had open air corridors giving students a good blast of fresh air. With a likely change of Government we are keeping our eyes open as to how a new Government may want to reform the education system. There are models in Scandinavia where education is delivered by the private sector under a voucher system. This has to be a realistic possibility under a conservative Government.

The racing season has started and I attended my first meeting in York last week. One of my favourite things throughout the summer is horse racing. I love the atmosphere and meeting people however, I am not a huge gambler. There are many meeting throughout the year and we hope for a glorious summer. It has to be better than sitting at St James Park.

At the end of the week I am off to Florida to spend some time with Mickey Mouse and my 5 year old daughter. I will be wearing my Mickey Mouse ears and really getting into the spirit of things. A trip to Orlando is far from an architectural pilgrimage but still great fun.

There are unlikely to be any great revelations in my blog upon my return however, I have packed my usual collection of business biographies so who knows how this may influence _space over the months ahead.