In an industry in which women are still substantially underrepresented, the WICE Awards offer an opportunity to champion the contributions from the most outstanding female workers in construction and engineering, as they compete against hundreds of high performing nominees from across Europe to win the top accolade within their categories.. With their focus on ‘breaking down barriers and building new heights,’ the WICE Awards report that just 9% of current UK engineering roles are occupied by women and only 11% of jobs within the construction industry.. Bryden Wood, who pride themselves on being driven by the core principles of maximising innovation, efficiency and creating pioneering and value-driven solutions to the industry, are proud that so many of their team members are women.. ‘50% of our Architects at Bryden Wood are amazing, talented, creative and inspirational women,’ says Board Director for Architecture Paul O’Neill..
Evaluating Risk and Driving Value.That said, there will be risks going forward and we need to guard against them.
We’ve got to try and avoid bad practices -and report them.We can’t focus exclusively on ‘cheap,’ driving a race to the bottom.The focus must be on broader value.
In terms of implementing policy decisions, we need to provide more evidence, more data, more measurement.It’s vital that we’re able to demonstrate clearly that these new ways of operating will deliver the outcomes we seek.
It’s not enough just to measure cost and time.
We need to make a strong case for the other value outcomes as well, including productive growth and social value..Lean design encourages optimised material usage within the building.
This might be improving the optimisation factor of steel, reducing the thickness of concrete slabs, or balancing insulation thicknesses of walls, floors and roofs with operational energy savings.A reduced quantity of building materials reduces a building’s weight.
This in turn reduces the load on the foundations, allowing a further reduction in materials used in the substructure.Lean design places a renewed emphasis on optimum sizing, without unnecessary redundancies or capacities.