Dr Mike Hammond, Research Manager, SummitSkills 
A review of a recent major research project on the industry
As part of its remit to assess the industry’s current training provision and future market requirements, SummitSkills – skills council for the building services engineering sector – conducted a major research project which forms part of its work towards a sector skills agreement for building services.
Presenting to the conference, SummitSkills Research Manager Dr Mike Hammond discussed the productivity drivers within the industry and looked at how these might impinge upon future business performance.
Key findings
Major findings included the following:
- Seventy-five percent of companies surveyed said they had experienced the incorporation of environmental technologies within tender documentation. Only 44% of respondents, however, felt they had the requisite skills to meet any increased demand. With this market only likely to grow, this apparent skills gap potentially makes way for increased globalisation.
- Although the industry recorded high levels of investment in information technology, it did not consistently engage in research and development to improve its services.
- The concepts of quality, service and company strategy figure highly within the industry, but findings show a lack of scientific thinking within this process. Dr Hammond summed this up by saying “I think it would be fair to say that many companies in the building services engineering sector do not actually know for certain what, if anything, makes them better than their competition… If you do not know what your competitors are doing, how can you know what your competitive advantage is?”
On a positive note, the findings suggested that some ground could be made up by embracing partnership and Supply Chain Management to develop more efficient, productive relationships with suppliers and ensure the right materials are on site at the right time, at a fair price.
Click here to download Dr Hammond’s full presentation.
