Product Platform Rulebook drives a path from development to deployment

PRESS RELEASE

The Construction Innovation Hub has today published the first edition Product Platform Rulebook. Following consultation with over 200 industry and government stakeholders the beta Rulebook has been updated and is published today with a clear path to deploying a platform approach to construction.

The Product Platform Rulebook is an open-access guide to support industry – clients, consultants, contractors, manufacturers and product suppliers – in building capability and capacity to develop and deploy product platforms to meet demand.

Following release of the Beta Edition, the Hub ran an extensive consultation with industry and government stakeholders. Taking this feedback, the authors made a number of important edits and additions, including adding an eighth Rule for Circularity, additional guidance on intellectual property and liability in the context of the Demand, Develop, Deploy Product Platform Framework and enhancing the case studies to provide practical application of the defined product platform rules and models.

Turning to what will happen next, the Construction Innovation Hub is pleased to have secured funding from UKRI for a targeted six-month programme of activity. This will focus on accelerating platform deployment and working with industry and government clients to move from concept to delivery providing a bridge to full scale adoption and deployment.

Commenting on the publication Hub Director Keith Waller said:

Today’s publication is an important milestone for the Hub’s legacy to industry and government. The updated, improved Rulebook is a practical tool that will help deliver the schools, hospitals, homes and buildings of the future.

It addresses the Government’s ambitions – set out in the Construction Playbook and TIP Roadmap – to accelerate the development and adoption of a platform approach – boosting productivity, innovation and quality.

Our focus will now turn to deployment, taking the Rulebook and working with industry and government to embed it in projects.

Construction Leadership Council co-chair Mark Reynolds said:

The publication of the Rulebook is another step forward in the work to transform our sector and ensure we are equipped to answer the increasingly complex challenges we face.

The Rulebook will provide a vital route-map as we deploy and embed a platform approach for construction, ensuring clarity and a focus on real results for not just the construction sector, but society as a whole.

Ben Carlisle, global practice leader for DfMA, Mott MacDonald said:

It is a pleasure to see today’s publication of the first edition of the Rulebook and to be part of the very welcome launch.

The journey so far to create the Rulebook has been neither straight forward, nor easy, but we have brought together individuals from across the sector, often from competing organisations, to collaborate on this vital work. This is a testament to our collective determination and commitment to addressing the challenges we face in our industry and indeed in society.

Crucially, this is not the end of the journey. This Rulebook is an enabling and guiding tool for platform approaches, but, to continue to drive transformation, we need to establish the commercial models, feedback mechanisms and increased application to allow product platform development and deployment to thrive. At Mott MacDonald we have committed to this through the establishment of a dedicated practice team and a strategy to support our approach and meet the increasing demand we are seeing both in the UK and globally. I know we are joined by many of our clients, partners and competitors and I look forward to working with them towards delivering a better built environment for all.

Notes to Editors:

1. The first edition Product Platform Rulebook can be found here:

2. The Construction Innovation Hub four-year programme as part of the Transforming Construction Challenge concludes on 30 September 2022

3. From 1st October 2022 the Hub will lead a six-month programme of activity focused on the deployment of three key outputs: the Product Platform Rulebook, Platform Deployment and the Value Toolkit

4. The Rulebook establishes the Rules and Principles for product platforms in construction and provides supporting explanations. The eight Rules are Deployability, Configurability, Common, Repeatable Elements, Defined Interfaces, Quality Standard, Structured Approach to Configuration, Openness and Circularity. The Principles are requirements which should be applied in conjunction with the Rules.

5. With over £75 million funding from UK Research and Innovation’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, since 2018 the Construction Innovation Hub has focused on enabling transformation by working with over 300 partners and experts to produce market-ready solutions that improve the construction sector’s performance and productivity.

6. This success has been achieved by combining world-class expertise from the Manufacturing Technology Centre BRE, the Centre for Digital Built Britain and with industry partners and government.

7. For more information about the Construction Innovation Hub’s platform programme visit: https://constructioninnovationhub.org.uk/platform-programme/ or follow the Hub on Twitter or LinkedIn.

ENDS

More information:

Ruth Day
Ruth.Day@the-mtc.org

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Jamie Hillier

Partner
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jamie.hillier@akerlof.co.uk
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With a penchant for tweed and jackets with leather arm patches, Jamie began his career as a quantity surveyor, before climbing the ladder to lead major projects for a Tier 1 contractor.

Eventually expanding his book collection beyond copies of SMM7, Jamie has interest in a broad range of subjects linked to delivering better outcomes for society and the environment.

His strategic insights on MMC and behavioural science have made their way into numerous government, industry and academic publications, including the Construction Playbook, Transforming Infrastructure Performance Roadmap to 2030, the Platform Rulebook and the RIBA DfMA Overlay.

John Handscomb

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07305 486 581

Construction is in John’s blood. Learning from his father who was a planner and project manager, John began his career by working on some iconic projects in both the public and private sector.

As a procurement expert and integrator of new ways of working, John has pioneered the integration of platform principles, DfMA processes and supply chain within over £5bn projects in the last 15 years, for some of the largest building programmes in the UK. Despite his considerable expertise, John keeps it simple, communicating complicated ideas with ease and helping to equip the industry with new knowledge and skills.

Outside of Akerlof, John enjoys his executive role with technology start-up ScanTech Digital, spending time with his family, taking trips down the football, playing a bit of golf with friends and the odd pint. 

Our name is shared with George Akerlof, a Nobel Prize-winning economist.

His seminal paper, Market for Lemons, demonstrated the devastating consequences of making decisions under the conditions of quality uncertainty and unequal information between buyers and sellers, increasing the chance of buyers ending up with a ‘lemon’.

This 50-year-old concept continues to retain parallels within the construction industry.

Through our insight and experience, we can rebalance this information asymmetry on behalf of our clients, levelling the playing field to deliver better outcomes.