The ENCORD Virtual Construction Platform (VCP) met in Helsinki, hosted by SKANSKA for their 25th meeting on 15 and 16 April 2013. Well over 20 participants from 15 member companies joined the meeting.

The main topics of the meeting were:
- Skanska welcome
- Best Practices / What’s new presentations
- Update on ENCORD Platforms Sustainability and Lean Construction
- Workshop on meeting theme (collaboration with other ENCORD Platforms)
- Update on Standards: IFD NL (CB-NL), openINFRA
- Update other networks: 5D-Initiative, 5Di Software Vendor Workshop Athens
- Presentation on EU R&D projects: Hesmos, eBSN
- Presentation by new participants: Uponor, OHL

During the two day ENCORD VCP meeting Best Practice / What’s new presentations were presented
by all 16 present ENCORD member companies. The presentations were alternated with different other
presentations by ENCORD members and external guests and a workshop on collaboration with other
ENCORD platforms / working groups.

For this meeting we invited 1 external guest:
- Arcadis presented about the Dutch Concept Dictionairy naming convention initiative (IFD);
- Arcadis presented about the EU R&D project eBSN

The ENCORD VCP members presented about their internal Best Practices and in addition to that the
following presentations and discussions:
- Bouygues (Pierre Benning) presented on the openINFRA initiative;
- CCC (Issam El Absi) presented about the latest work of the 5D initiative and the software vendor
workshop that was held in Athens in the last week of February 2013;

Finally the ENCORD VCP group and available guests participated in a workshop where in 4 smaller
groups the following questions were answered regarding the collaboration with other ENCORD
Platforms:
- What do you associate with these topics (Lean Construction / Sustainability)?
- How are topics related?
- Implementation similarities
- Examples how can developments be linked, work more complementary
- Focus area per group: 1. Methods / market trends, 2. standards, 3. tools, 4. change management
- What would be your question to the ENCORD Sustainability and Lean Construction platform?

Thank you
ENCORD VCP would like to thank the host Skanska for making this excellent meeting possible.

Next meeting
The next ENCORD VCP meeting is planned to take place on:
Monday 14 – Thursday 17 October 2013
Hilti / Liechtenstein (Combined with Hilti BIM meeting)
The topics for the meeting will be decided later.

On the 19^th and 20^th of March 2013 lean Construction Experts from ENCORD companies and Vinci Paris met at the head office and the Louis Vuitton construction site in Paris.

Topics of the meeting included:

- An introduction to the head office of Vinci Paris.
- A short review of the four web meetings since last workshop in Ludwigshafen.
- An interactive workshop to discuss and to complete the indicators to define the value of lean
- Best practice presentations of Bam Nuttall, Zueblin, Strabag and CCC.
- A visit of a construction site of Vinci Paris.

The meeting also included:

Current situation after the four web meetings. By Ger Maas.
Workshop for indicators to define the value of lean. By Ger Maas and Wim van den Bouwhuijsen.
Presentation: BAM Nuttall, Our lean journey so far, by David Anderson.
Presentation: Schedule Control and Daily Construction records. By Jonas Trosse.
Presentation: Replacement of manhole covers in Rennsteig tunnel, an example for using LEAN. By Michael Ott.
Presentation: The use of improved equipment. By Naim Y. Abulaila.
Site visit of the Louis Vuitton project. By Guillaume Duche, Christophe Gobin and Serge Goepp.

Thank you
Encord would like to thank the host Vinci Paris, specially Christophe Gobin and Serge Goepp who made this meeting that excellent.

Next meeting
The group will meet again in Germany in October, on behalf of HOCHTIEF Solutions AG.
The topics of the meeting you will hear in time.

Experts from ENCORD member companies met on 12nd February  2013, hosted by BAM in London, UK: 

ENCORD Waste Measurement Protocol:
    – Discussion on the various comments of the ENCORD Waste Measurement Protocol.
    – Waste CO2e conversion factors
Presentation – SuPerBuildings FP7 EU Project:    
    - Presentation and discussion on the SuPerBuildings FP7 EU Project.
Presentation – FCC Waste Measurement:
    – Scope of measurement.
    - Data collection technique.
    - Importance of reporting.
 Presentation – Skanska
    - 2015 target of less than 2% of waste to landfill.
    - All data collected by the project and collated at the business unit.
    - SkanskaHouse: 99% waste diverted form landfill, 35% less energy.
Presentation- BAM BIM:
    - Sustainability advantages of BIM:
             Reducing waste, materials efficiency, and carbon savings.

The agenda for the next meeting Tuesday 21st May 2013, to be held at Skanska offices, Sweden will include: Read the rest of this entry »

The ENCORD Virtual Construction Platform met for their twenty-fourth meeting on 15 and 16 October 2012 in Madrid, Spain. The workshop was organized by Acciona.

The main topics of the meeting were:
- Best Practices / What’s new presentations
- Workshop on topic collecting and using Metrics \ Get LinkedIn group working
- Update on Standards: COBie 2.0, IFD – Pilot Projects NL, openINFRA, COBIM 2012
- Update other networks: 5Di – workshop with vendors, BIM Summit Qatar, BIM Forum event
- Technologies: Cloud Computing, Solibri developments, Gehry Technologies

During the two day ENCORD VCP meeting Best Practice / What’s new presentations were Read the rest of this entry »

Experts from ENCORD member companies met on 9th October 2012, hosted by Acciona at their R&D Technological Centre in Madrid to discuss:
- the work on the ENCORD Waste Measurement Protocol,
- the CO2e emissions factors proposal being discussed with WRAP in the UK as a possible addition to the ENCORD CO2e Protocol,
- Experience of Measuring Waste and Carbon with best practice presentation by Acciona and Uponor,
- Communication Strategy for ENCORD CO2e Protocol Communication
- Memorandum of Understanding with European GBC
- BIM and Waste Reduction and embodied CO2e

The agenda for the next meeting will include Read the rest of this entry »

On 25 and 26 September 2012 Lean Construction Experts from ENCORD companies met at the factory of Joseph Vögele AG in Ludwigshafen Germany in an ENCORD Lean construction workshop.

Topics of the meeting included:
- An introduction to the factory of Joseph Vögle.
- A short review of the workshop in London.
- A presentation to come to a protocol to develop the value of lean construction.
- A presentation of the history of STRABAG BPM and their Lean implementation
- A presentation of the lean process of Hilti
- A presentation by Taylor Woodrow of Victoria station now in September 2012 seen more from the contractor’s site of view.
- Best practice presentation by Hochtief, CCC, Balfour Beatty and BAM Germany
- A presentation to explain the flow of the production in the manufacturing process of Vögle.
- A site in the factories of Joseph Vögle.
- A best practice presentation by YIT

Next meeting: The group will meet again in Paris in March 2013 and hosted by Vinci Construction France. Topics of the meeting will include:
- Customer needs and –satisfaction.
- Lean in the design phase/process.
- A short review of this meeting and summary of the results
- More about the protocol the value of lean construction

The ENCORD Health and Safety working group met 25-26 September 2012 in Doha, Qatar, hosted by Consolidated Contractors Group S.A.L (CCC).

The meeting included:
-  Welcome by the General Manager of CCC in Doha
-  Introduction to the CCC tools “VBC Dashboard” and “Falcon” that were developed inhouse to manage knowledge and to control and optimize operation. Both tools also contribute to improve the H&S performance.
-  a presentation on “Relationship Between Construction and HSE that provided an overview of the development of HS&E in the construction sector over the last decades, starting from HS&E being an almost non existing topic to it playing an essential role on any major construction site in the Middle East. The presentation ended with an extensive and comprehensive set of recommendations to make HSE effective
-  a presentation on “Managing HSE on mega size projects”, like the projects our host CCC is working on in the Middle East. The presentation was given by a CCC Project HSE Manager and thus also the knowledge of many years of site experience.
-  presentations of participant’s H&S data according to the ENCORD KPI guide
-  best practice presentations by Hochtief, Royal Bam, Balfour Beatty and Bilfinger.

The second part of the meeting was devoted to an OHS-Workshop that Read the rest of this entry »

The ENCORD Virtual Construction Platform (VCP) met for their twenty-third meeting on 16 and 17 April 2012 in Bunnik, The Netherlands. The workshop was hosted by Royal BAM Group.

The main theme of the meeting was the definition of five new knowledge exchange topics for the ENCORD VCP meetings in the next three years (2012 – 2015). The new topics were based on: progress review, updates on several R&D projects and Best Practices. The discussion about future topics also included a look back into the ENCORD VCP past: Since starting in 2000, the group covered many aspects related to BIM: Roadmapping, Infrastructure, Model Based Estimation, Progress Monitoring, Client Interaction, PLM Systems, Standardization, Energy Simulations, Virtual Reality techniques, Field BIM, BIM for Operation & Maintenance, Internal Organization & Procedures, etc.

Other topics of the meeting included Read the rest of this entry »

The ENCORD Health and Safety group met for their fifth meeting in March 2012 in Stockholm, Sweden. The workshop was organized by NCC AB.

Topics of the workshop included:
- an overview of Read the rest of this entry »

On 21 and 22 March 2012 20 Lean Construction experts from ENCORD companies and London Underground met at the project site of the London Underground Victoria Station Upgrade project in an ENCORD LEAN Construction workshop.

Topics of the meeting included:
- an introduction to the project and the Taylor Woodrow BAM Nutall JV, as well as an insight to some key Lean Construction initiatives taken by the project and London Underground.
- a presentation by London Underground to explain their Lean journey, the benefits and challenges.
- a site visit to the Victoria Station Upgrade project with a focus to Read the rest of this entry »

On 2 and 3 November over 20 Lean Construction experts met on Bafour Beatty’s A46 Construction site east of Nottingham in an ENCORD LEAN Construction workshop.

The meeting included
- a presentation by the Highways Agency, focusing on the client’s view of lean construction,
- best practice presentations given by the participants with intense discussions,
- an introduction and site visit of the A46 highway construction project and
- a presentation on how to measure the effects and value of LEAN approaches in the construction sector.

Read the rest of this entry »

The ENCORD Health and Safety group met for their fourth meeting 12-13 September 2011 in London, UK at the Tottenham Court Road Station Upgrade construction site. The workshop was organized by VINCI PLC. 17 Health and Safety Directors and experts from 12 major European Contractors participated in the meeting.

Read the rest of this entry »

The ENCORD Health and Safety group met for their third meeting on 8 March 2011 in Frankfurt, Germany. The workshop was organized by the HOCHTIEF OSHEP Center (Occupational Safety and Health and Environmental Protection Center). 19 Health and Safety Directors and experts from 13 major European Contractors participated in the meeting.

Topics of the workshop included:
- An insight to the health and safety initiatives taken by the host company HOCHTIEF, including an introduction to their Occupational Safety and Health and Environmental Protection Center and the web-based HOCHTIEF incident management system.
- An overview and discussion of the ENCORD Health and Safety platform, that is being designed by HOCHTIEF
- A discussion on Health and Safety definitions that led to a first version of common definitions for Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Read the rest of this entry »

ENCORD Ageing Society Workshop | 26-27 October 2010 | Munich/Holzkirchen, Germany

Europe is faced with a number of major societal challenges, including the ageing population.

With a view to achieve the EU 2020 objective of a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, the European Commission has launched the “Innovation Union”. It sets out a strategic approach to Innovation, driven by the highest political level and introduces the new concept of “European Innovation Partnership” (EIP) with a pilot case on “Active and Healthy Ageing”.

The joint workshop IMPROVING ECONOMY IN AN AGING SOCIETY BY ARCHITECTURE AND CONSTRUCTION under the umbrella of ECTP (European Construction Technology Platform), ENCORD (European Network for Construction Research and Development) and ISG (International Society for Gerontechnology) brought together experts from the fields of building/construction, sociology, psychology and economy to discuss the link between the Ageing Society, the Economy and Construction in a Read the rest of this entry »

The ENCORD Health and Safety group met for their second meeting in Den Haag, on 5 October 2010, organized by Ballast Nedam and Royal BAM.

Topics of the workshop included:
-      An overview and discussion of companies Health and Safety data including the various used definitions. A draft for common definitions for KPIs was discussed and agreed upon.
-      Best practice presentations
-      A site visit with the focus on Health and Safety on the “De Kroon project”: a 145 meter high-rise apartment building with offices and shops.
-      An insight to the health and safety initiatives taken by the host companies and
-      a discussion on the group’s focus and next steps

The purpose of the meeting was sharing things of common interest, understanding differences, to learning from other people’s “bright ideas”, understanding / seeing where other companies are, safety performance in different companies, discussing how can we make H&S processes and procedures more efficient, so the gap between a high standard and operational ease can go together, discussing how can we simplify procedures, learning about potential technological advances, heading toward benchmarking H&S performance.