CIRIA sets out cast in-situ concrete project

The project outline from CIRIA follows:

Defects are a constant irritation to the industry, are very costly to fix, lead to delays on projects and undermine industry initiatives to improve performance and productivity as set out in Construction 2025 July 2013.
 
Following on from CIRIA’s approaches to industry and the findings from the Get It Right Initiative research CIRIA decided to focus on defects associated with cast in-situ reinforced concrete, which was cited in the research report as having the greatest frequency of error and greatest financial impact.
 
To support CIRIA in this endeavour Useful Projects, a sustainability consultancy for the built environment, were commissioned by CIRIA to undertake a desk study followed by a workshop and take an error led approach in developing proposals for industry good practice. The aim of the desk study was to identify common and costly errors in the concrete cast in situ reinforced concrete process and use it in a workshop to develop ideas to tackle the issue.
 
The industry is fortunate to have plenty of expertise, sources of knowledge and good practice when it comes to this activity however it is not always adopted.
 
The workshop was held early September with project supporters, including the BTS, to build a core process model for this construction activity, analyse and prioritise root causes of errors, look at organisational maturity and develop solution proposals.
 
The next phase of the project will be to take forward the suggestions and recommendations of the report and deliver an output that will improve organisations’ ability to reduce error in their processes. As one delegate succinctly put it “The error that you don’t make today is positively impacting your P&L in a matter of weeks” (1) CIRIA expects the output to be deliver in the autumn of 2020. 

Reference: (1): Useful projects, CIRIA Zero defects in cast in-situ reinforced concrete, 4 October 2019 draft