On March 1st 2014, the Irish government introduced the Building Control (Amendment) regulation typically referred to as BcaR. The introduction of this regulation was to implement the lessons which have been learnt by the construction industry following a poorly regulated housing boom by increasing the levels of accountability for professionals signing off on new buildings.
This has since provided assurance to existing property owners and to future parties interested in purchasing properties that all work and restorations are in full compliance with regulations.
Since the introduction of BcaR for the built environment sector in Ireland many countries have begun to follow suit.
The Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety was announced by the UK government in July 2017 following the Grenfell Tower tragedy and was led by Dame Judith Hackitt. She called for changes to the building management control process and new information management requirements, recommending a “Golden Thread of information” for buildings.
The Hackitt Report led to a Building Safety Bill, which also includes central principles for the maintenance of a golden thread of information. This bill serves as an alternative if the golden thread of information is not provided to the Building Safety Regulator at the three key gateways (planning application, construction, occupation).
Like many construction companies across Ireland and with the upcoming legislation in the UK, people are beginning to follow suit and are transforming the way they work.
There has been a rise in the number of companies employing digital systems since building regulations have begun to come into law. These digital systems allow the recording of photographic evidence something that isn’t easy to do manually. Neither is going back in time three or four years after a build. You can still find companies that are scanning through paper trails in order to find a signed document or to figure out who is responsible for a certain installation, this kind of process eats into time.
The use of digital platforms permits end to end information to be digitized from the design process right through to handover and even beyond. It makes the whole process streamlined and permits site teams, supervisors, project managers, developers and owners easy access to information at the touch of a button.
In a recent fireside chat hosted by digital construction live Raymond Fee, Quality Systems Lead for Cairn talked about their journey from paper to digital and how they used Zutec as their platform of choice in that transformation.
“ If you were to look at where we were 2 years ago compared to now. We have a system installed that all of our consultants use. We are using it across all of our projects. Our sub-contractors are now using it. We have digitized a lot of our sub-contractors checklists. They are now completing checklists for us online, on our platform, that feeds into our BcaR timeline so that we can achieve BcaR compliance because that is one of the fundamentals of this entire process…”
Digital transformation within the building sector continues to pick up the pace. Information regarding building safety needs to be promptly available.
The process of storing and managing information and staying compliant with requirements without a purpose-made system will likely be complex and time-consuming for many.
A system like Zutec’s building lifecycle information management platform is the perfect way to ensure you capture all the data you need to maximise productivity and meet every new compliance requirement.
Let us show you how you can digitize your process. Book a demo today.
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