How to boost collaboration

Andrew Shepherd | Ibstock Futures

How to boost collaboration

Collaboration is increasingly recognised as a cornerstone of progress in the construction sector, particularly as the industry embraces industrialised methods and seeks to innovate for the future.

The sector as a whole faces a pressing need to collaborate more effectively. This includes working across the supply chain, engaging with government and financiers and ensuring that responsibilities and risks are shared in a way that drives meaningful results.

Andrew Shepherd, Managing Director at Ibstock Futures, reflects on how the industry can work together to develop new products and deliver better outcomes for stakeholders.

Andrew suggests the challenge is to scale that success across the industry. Embedding a culture of partnership is critical if industrialised construction is to realise its potential and deliver on the promises of industrialised construction.

How to boost collaboration

The need to work together

From schools and hospitals to homes and factories, the ultimate outcomes depend on supply chains working together.

Andrew highlights the importance of collaboration in industrialised construction, stressing that no single product or solution can deliver success in isolation.

He argues for openness and knowledge-sharing, noting that true innovation is protected by the investment behind it, while transparency builds trust and attracts partners.

We make products and those products need to work with other people’s products to create the ultimate outcome, a new home, a new school, a new hospital, or a new factory. We need to work together across the supply chain to think about how to deliver the best results.

There is no single magic bullet, no single panel or solution. It is going to take a lot of hard work to make it happen.

That means people must be willing to roll up their sleeves and invest. When you do that, you inevitably create intellectual property and IP is valuable, especially in the UK because of the patent box tax incentives, which are very positive.

But that does not stop you from sharing. My view is that we should have an open door, share what you are doing and be transparent.

If you really have something innovative, it will be difficult for others to copy anyway, because you will already have made the investment.

So, my approach is to share, be open, be frank and excite people so that they want to come to you and work with you.

From schools and hospitals to homes and factories, the ultimate outcomes depend on supply chains working together.

Andrew highlights the importance of collaboration in industrialised construction, stressing that no single product or solution can deliver success in isolation.

He argues for openness and knowledge-sharing, noting that true innovation is protected by the investment behind it, while transparency builds trust and attracts partners.

The need to work together

Moving forward

For Andrew, the future of construction lies in shifting the conversation to the very top of the supply chain.

He argues that innovation cannot simply be pushed into the market; it must be pulled through by real demand, particularly from major government programmes. That, he believes, is where genuine collaboration can begin to reshape the industry.

I think what has to happen now is that things must start at the top. It has to be demand-driven. There is no point making products and ideas that nobody wants.

Demand has to come from programmes like schools, the New Hospital Programme, the prisons programme, big government initiatives that need to deliver real value for money.

Start at the top, engage with the main contractors and get them working down through the tiers.

One of the problems we face is that there are too many tiers. There is a long chain between the main contractors on something like the hospital programme, the subcontractors, the sub-subcontractors and the manufacturers.

We need to shorten that distance and bring collaboration earlier in the process. If we do not, collaboration happens too late.

We need to bring manufacturers and customers closer together. That way, more informed decisions can be made earlier. And once you have that, it allows you to invest.

You can invest in new products, new ideas, new factories and create the jobs we need to accelerate the economy. Collaboration, in that sense, becomes a powerful enabler.

For Andrew, the future of construction lies in shifting the conversation to the very top of the supply chain.