Services

BIM implementation & training

Implementing BIM and BIM Level 2 on projects and in relation to assets has been shown to deliver substantial benefits to clients and supply chains alike. The UK Government is now requiring BIM Level 2 to be applied to all centrally-procured projects. Hitherwood Consulting can help you specify, procure and deliver a Project Information Model or an Asset Information Model in line with this requirement.

Hitherwood was involved in writing two of the key standards for BIM Level 2. These are PAS 1192-2:2013 and PAS 1192-3:2014, which set out the information management requirements for delivery of projects and management of assets respectively.

One of the most important things to realise in relation to BIM Level 2, is that the information model goes way beyond just a 3-d model, to include non-graphical data about the asset and the objects contained within it, and documentary information such as specifications, reports, correspondence and calculations.

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Strategic review

Have you got clearly defined business goals for the next 3 to 5 years that all your staff understand and have bought in to? Have you got clear customer targets for the future development of your business? How will your organisation respond to the changing world you operate within? Hitherwood Consulting can help you understand and deal with the challenges of succeeding in today's business and organisational environment. Our business support can help you:

• understand the impact of the changing world around your organisation by reviewing large scales trends that will affect the whole UK economy, or your region or industry
• work out where your organisation fits amongst your competitors, and what new forms of competition may be just around the corner
• understand what specific resources and capabilities set your organisation apart from the competition
• help you see how the growth of your organisation can present its own challenges, and work out how these may be overcome.

We do this by working in partnership with your organisation's senior managers, and also with groups of staff, to challenge accepted views, to dream up innovative solutions and then to work out the practicalities of making a change.

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Technical authoring

Technical guidance has to convey concepts that are often complicated and to do so in a way that is clear and concise. Succinct text, with helpful graphics and diagrams, and appropriate references to further information is difficult to achieve. David Churcher at Hitherwood Consulting has been involved in the design and writing of technical guidance for over 20 years.

Whether you need some technical guidance written for your organisation, or for a group of like-minded specialists, or for an industry-wide topic, Hitherwood Consulting can help you. David Churcher has a great deal of experience of working with Steering Groups of experts and stakeholders, and can draft guidance around which such groups can focus and agree.

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Supply chain design

The pattern of today's business is that more and more operations are delivered by skilled specialist organisations that you manage and co-ordinate as your supply chain.

Competition today is not so much between individual firms, but between their whole supply chains!

For this reason, it is vital that you have the best supply chain that you can.

We can help you identify which of your existing supply relationships are most important to your business, and help you and those key suppliers work in partnership to deliver a better service to your clients, which in turn gives more certainty of future work to you and your suppliers.

We do this by guiding you through a series of workshops, to define how you and your supply chain can work together for your own and each others' benefit. Often you will want to develop some form of Charter and Guidelines, and we can help you write these in a constructive way that keeps everyone engaged.

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Life_cycle costing

Life-cycle costing is an increasingly important skill for all those involved in managing projects and operational assets. This includes being able to calculate the life-cycle cost for a scheme and also being able to understand and interpret the life-cycle costs generated by other people.

If you are involved in public sector projects, then life-cycle costing is a key part of achieving financial sign-off, to prove that best economic value is being delivered.

Hitherwood Consulting delivers training courses in life-cycle costing, covering both the theory of the approach and the practicalities of carrying out and understanding the calculations.

These courses are delivered via BSRIA and are offered as either open courses where mixed groups from different organisations learn together, or as in-house courses delivered just for your organisation. If you have 10 or more people who need to learn about life-cycle costing, then the in-house option is usually more cost effective. There is also the opportunity to tailor the course to your precise needs.

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Staff retention and recruitment

"People are our most important asset" - many organisations use these words but do YOU really mean them? Would your staff agree with you?

Recruiting and retaining staff is often quoted as the most challenging problem for a growing business today. We can't create new recruits out of thin air, but we can help your organisation be more attractive to existing and potential staff. Examples of strategies we can help you put in place are:

• Greater transparency between business goals and individual targets
• Review systems that measure personal behaviours as well as technical skills
• Reward systems that are seen as fair by all staff.

Problems with recruitment and retention often boil down to issues of communication, management style or leadership, where the ball is firmly in the court of senior managers. When they adapt their behaviour, the problems are either solved or are much easier to solve.

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Facilitation

How many times have you been involved in discussions that have gone round and round in circles, or off at tangents, or decended into chaos? At best, time is wasted. At worst, participants fall out with each other and progress comes to a shuddering halt.

Facilitation is about helping a group of people work their way through a problem. It may be about understanding each other's points of view, or reaching an agreed solution, or understanding the scale and complexity of a much larger issue. In all these cases, the facilitator is there to look after the process, to make sure the group makes effective use of time, to record the conclusions, so that the participants can concentrate on the subject matter.

The vital aspect of our facilitation is that we encourage groups to develop their own solutions. In this way, the results will be more easily accepted and put into practice. The discussion has a real outcome, rather than just being a pleasant conversation.

Facilitation works with staff from a single organisation, with people from different departments, and with people from a range of organisations.

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Performance measurement

No business can afford to stand still. But how do you, as a senior manager, decide where to concentrate your organisation's resources when it comes to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of your business?

The key is to understand what makes your stakeholders satisfied with the way your organisation performs and how these outcomes are linked to the strategies and procedures the organisation adopts. Focus on the right inputs and you will get improved outputs. Focus on the wrong inputs and you will be wasting time and money, or may even make things worse. Of course, the stakeholders in your organisation are not just your customers, but also include staff, suppliers, shareholders, regulators. Their relative importance will depend on the nature of your business!

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To talk to us about your specific needs and to arrange a no-obligation meeting, call David Churcher on 020 8670 5950 or 07900 254090, or email david.churcher@hitherwood.co.uk.