My Department through Enterprise Ireland has supported the establishment of Ireland's first national Technology Centre for the construction sector "Construct Innovate", with a specific mandate to address housing related challenges and opportunities. My Department also enables the roll out of Enterprise Ireland's Built to Innovate package of productivity and innovation supports to the domestic residential construction sector, which has approved €6.8 million to date in grants to the sector.
The productivity indicators used to evaluate the impact of Built to Innovate suite of grant supports and the Construct Innovate Technology Centre, are summarised below:
Built to Innovate
Enterprise Ireland considers the following productivity metrics when evaluating significant Built to Innovate productivity funding applications:
reduced construction time and improved quality, including the reduction of snag lists,
projected growth in residential unit output from a base year (usually the last full financial year) to 3 years full financial years from that base year,
revenue growth per FTE employee on a similar timeline,
specific projected productivity improvements and additional cost savings through waste reduction (addressing the 8 wastes addressed in Lean projects).
Production time and quality are key Built To Innovate productivity measures, and they are commonly used in several industrial sectors. These measures are easily quantified, and they are indicators of production efficiency throughout the production cycle. Labour productivity is considered as a more general Built to Innovate measure. For example, factory systems on the site will drive site productivity through subcontractors, but these systems may not reduce the main contractor's site labour. Also, using increased offsite will reduce site labour, but increased offsite can be more costly, if sufficient productivity gains cannot be achieved in the factory.
Construct Innovate
Construct Innovate’s performance in relation to productivity is measured using key performance indicators. Each key performance indicator includes a target set for Year 5 of Construct Innovate’s contractual framework. These include; Associate/Patron Members, Transfer of Centre Staff to Companies, Knowledge Transfer Events, Core Funding for Current Projects, Core Funded Projects Commenced, Core Funded Projects Completed, Competitively Won Collaborative Research Funding Projects (measured both in number and in funding amount), Ancillary Centre Specific Objectives, and No. of Projects contributing to Climate Action and Sustainable Development Goals.
