Civils 2006, Olympia, London, 29 November 2006 – Civil engineers need tools to help them work with more flexibility and efficiency, if they are to maximise the opportunities presented by a buoyant market.  This was the main message from the floor on the first day of the Civils 2006 show, delivered via a survey designed to identify the major challenges faced by today’s civil engineering community.

In general, the mood was upbeat with 88 per cent of respondents agreeing that the foreseeable future will bring an abundance of opportunities for the industry.

However, 58 per cent of respondents ranked “flexible working” and “efficiency gains” as either “very important” or “important” in order to take advantage of this climate.

Key to this flexibility, said respondents, will be the ability to provide clients with a variety of design options (increasingly known as “value engineering” or “optioneering”).  This will provide competitive advantage both in winning new contracts and in servicing existing contracts. 

The majority also agreed that the ability to access, share and use correct and up-to-date information at all times will increase accuracy, reduce errors and drive efficiency. 

However, the industry recognises that historically it has been slow to change.  The survey results suggest that previously civil engineering has suffered from the reluctance of senior managers/decision makers to embrace innovation and/or new technologies.

“But fortunately, we have evidence that this attitude is changing,” says Fiona Coughlan, sales director, Northern Europe Autodesk Infrastructure Solutions.  “Increasingly, civil engineers are taking advantage of new technologies which can both help win new business and complete projects within deadlines and budgets.

“For example, Autodesk Civil 3D dynamically links surfaces, cross sections, profiles and annotation.  As a result, changes made in any part of the design are automatically co-ordinated throughout, making it quicker and easier to evaluate multiple design alternatives.”

In more detail, the survey results found:

• 85 per cent agreed that this ability to show alternative design options will offer competitive advantage in winning new contracts and 79 per cent that it was important in servicing existing clients.

• A total of 85 per cent of those asked agreed the trend for consolidation will continue - and 56 per cent of them worked for companies which had either been acquired, had acquired or had plans for either during the past 12 months.

• 86 per cent see a lack of skilled resource as a major threat to the UK civil engineering industry. 

• 67 per cent think that their organisation is likely to outsource design work over the next two years, in order to focus time and resources on project management and or build, operate transfer (BOT) work.

• However, they don’t think that the trend to send design work abroad presents a major threat. Rather, 67 per cent see it as an opportunity, indicating that global working is now a way of life for most operations.