Greening in construction: a

straight road to more teamwork?

The WALQINGresearch project

research project funded by the European

Commission

investigated the linkages between new and

expanding jobs, the work and employment conditions

in these jobs, and the impact on work and life quality

11 European countries studying in total 5 activity

sectors (home care, cleaning, catering, construction

and waste)

Belgium: focus on construction and within the

construction sector on the building of new energy-

friendly private dwellings

But the findings and trends may be relevant for other

industries

The two companies

ECOBUILD: passive houses, 200

employees, active growth strategy

with diversification

TREEHOUSE: wooden-skeleton

ecofriendly constructions, 30

employees, steady grower in

specific niche

Key message: similar company environment but highly

contrasting organisational choices with huge differences for

workers

I. The „green“ construction sector

Terminology

• Energy-friendly constructions: buildings in conformity with the

European E standard, that gradually grows stricter (has come

down from E100 to E60 at this moment). The E standard takes

into account the insulation quality of the dwelling and the heat

source(s)

• Passive houses (criteria: low energy consumption, airtightedness,

limitation of the room temperatures during the hot season)

• Eco-friendly constructions: energy-friendly or passive house + use

of sustainable and low-carbon building materials

How do you build a “green”

construction?

Characteristics of passive or E40 dwellings

• Triple glazing

• Precise finishing of windows, doors, corners…

• Absence of cold bridges

• Reinforced roof and floor insulation

• Cavity walls/wooden skeletons with reinforced insulation mats in-

between

• Airtightedness (to be certified with performance test)

• Mechanical ventilation device equipped with a heat exchanger

Impact of greening on the

construction process

• A paramount requirement of accuracy, sense of detail

and high quality performance

• Detailed specification of all components and

processes

II. The greenifying of the sector:

evolutions and their impact on the construction process

KEY MESSAGE: GREEN CONSTRUCTION

REINFORCES AND ACCELERATES GENERAL

ONGOING TRENDS IN CONSTRUCTION AND

OTHER INDUSTRIES

1. First trend: integration of design

and production

Traditionally: separated

1. Design and ‘production’ are separated

2. Triangle: customer/architect/contractor

Trend: integrated

1. Growing importance of design for production and concept

construction

2. Detailed plans are required of all construction elements

3. Strict control on all steps of the process is necessary

1. First trend: integration of design

and production

Response:

1. Shift of design of detailed blue-prints from architect to

principal contractor

2. Increased importance of central planning and drawing office

at principal contractor

3. Expansion of central work shops for pre-fabrication

2. Second trend: standardisation

Traditionally: improvisation

• Every construction site is unique

• Continuous change of workplace and environment

• Typical: underspecifications of plan

• Requiring high levels of contextualisation and improvisation

• The next in stage repairs the errors of the previous…

Trend: standardisation

• A paramount requirement of accuracy, sense of detail and

high quality performance

• Detailed specification of all components and processes

• Are a prerequisite for the performance tests

2. Second trend: standardisation

Response:

• ‘Professionalisation’ : growing use of management

techniques (e.g. ex ante and ex post cost calculations, total

quality management, just-in-time delivery, lean principles…)

• Just-in-time delivery, reducing flow times within production

as well as response times to customers, eliminating stocks

and organising in-flow logistics in a ‘pull’ rather than a ‘push’

system

• Prefabrication of components: walls and roofs

• …

2. Second trend: standardisation

Response:

• …

• To be produced at central workshops or specialised

subcontractors with Just-In-Time delivery

3. Third trend: the construction cluster

Traditionally: vertical relations and stable teams

• Subcontracting mostly as capacity regulator

• On site: a succession of small teams of 2-4 craftsmen each

Trend: increasing specialisation and technicity

• Energy-friendly constructions make heavy demands on

specialisation (plastering, flooring, domotica, solar pannels,

heat pumps, ventilation,……)

• Increasing specialisation in one subtask requiring specific

tools and materials

3. Third trend: the construction cluster

Consequence: growing complexity and lengthening of the

value chain

• Micro-enterprises and self-employed specialise in one

specific subtasks

• Construction sites get crowdy: the “travelling circus”

• Growing importance of coordination and just-in-time

• It becomes difficult to share technical specificities with all

involved

4. Work organisation

Traditionally: stable teams

• Building a house is done from A to Z by relatively stable

teams composed by craftsmen for each phase and system

(brickwork, masonry, plastery, electricity…)

• Succession of small teams (2-4) per system

• Front-line supervisor - teamleader: task allocation,

equipment and material, control and supervision

• Endproduct was clear for all

• Committments and responsbilities were clear for all

4. Work organisation

Consequences of greening and related changes

• Growing importance of co-ordination and just-in-time,

increasing need to control and monitor the whole process

and all the different tasks and subtasks

• View on the end-product dwindles

• The process is more vulnerable to errors and disturbances

and there is a risk of an increase of failure costs

• … while these disturbances are more difficult to resolve

Responses

• Lean production as a general managerial concept

• But different corporate strategies and organisational

choices…

5. TEAMWORK

Scenario 1 ECOBUILD

1. Top-down management, detailed instructions and strict time

shedules are paramount

2. Building a house boils down to assembling standardised

elements

3. Lead-times are considerably shortened, constant

productivity increase is the leitmotiv

5. TEAMWORK

Scenario 1 ECOBUILD…

4. Increasingly shift to operation-based work organisation

5. Optimised logistics and planning/JIT of all resources

6. Outsourcing is maximised, vertical relationship between

main contractor and subcontractors

7. Team-leader is mainly a planner and controller

8. The sweet and the sour: stable work conditions and a safer

work environment versus attenuation of craftmanship, short-

cycled work and dwindling autonomy

5. TEAMWORK

Scenario 2: TREEHOUSE

1. Working with construction teams during the entire process –

mutual responsibilities

2. Decentralised (construction site) regulation and problem

solving

3. Basis is participation and collaboration in view of building up

contextualised knowledge

4. Subcontractors as ‘side-contractors’ (long-term basis)

5. Experienced builders having an insight in the why and how

of eco-friendly construction techniques

6. Teamleader is the coach

7. High autonomy

8. Craftmanship is paramount

6. Conclusions

• Building green houses puts technicity, accuracy and high sense

of detail in the centre of the building process

• This leads to reinforcing on-going growing specialisation,

standardisation and division of labour in the construction value

chain

• Risk for disturbances increase and they have high

consequences

• Co-ordination and logistics are more complex

• Contrasting corporate strategies:

Collaboration, decentralised regulation and contextualisation

versus

Centralisation, standardisation and control