The Australian Constructors Association (ACA) has today released a report outlining the key takeaways and future directions emerging from the landmark Foundations and Frontiers (FF24) forum.
FF24 marks a significant milestone in the construction industry’s history, said ACA CEO Jon Davies.
“The discussions held at the leaders’ roundtables are set to shape the development of Australia’s first National Construction Strategy (NCS),” said Mr Davies.
“Initially focusing on Transport Infrastructure, the NCS aims to improve productivity across the sector.”
The NCS will focus on four critical areas, drawing from insights gained from the FF24 roundtables:
- Procurement – harmonising procurement practices to improve productivity and deliver better value outcomes.
- Workforce – identifying new skills to increase productivity and strategies to attract and retain the future workforce.
- Data – determining the data needed to measure productivity improvements, and developing methods for its collection, anonymisation and sharing.
- Innovation and Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) – identifying current best practices, exploring ways to increase their adoption, and addressing barriers to innovations and MMC.
“ACA is excited to spearhead the innovation and MMC stream,” said Mr Davies.
“The NCS is the beginning of something transformative. Driven by industry efforts and supported by government collaboration, this strategy has the potential to extend beyond transport infrastructure and fundamentally reshape the sector.”
As well as informing the creation of an NCS, the FF24 roundtable discussions will also contribute to other reform initiatives, such as the Construction Industry Leadership Forum and the Construction Industry Culture Taskforce.
“FF24 was not supposed to solve all industry’s problems in one go. It was designed to start a movement for change where everyone could contribute and get involved,” said Mr Davies.
The FF24 website has been updated to enable support for the event communiqué, now available to all interested parties in addition to the 75 leaders who endorsed it. Although submissions for the FF24 discussion papers have closed, the dialogue continues, and reform ideas can still be submitted via the website.