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Blockchain Timber Chain of Custody Brain Dump
Blockchain Timber Chain of Custody Brain Dump
About:
Blockchain
- What does GBE know about Blockchain?
- Nothing, is it related to making cyber money BitCoins?
- If it is GBE are not interested
- Why are you asking?
- Because yesterday I was asked to consider it in construction materials Certification processes.
- Okay what is it all about?
Blockchain’s role in preventing illegal deforestation:
- Paper on Timber Chain Of Custody using Blockchain
- Blockchain Timber Chain of Custody Paper15
Cost Planning Green V Violet:
- Ideally a building is right for the occupant,
- Low cost and low impact to occupy,
- Financially and mains services autonomous,
- Well insulated, ventilated with heat recovery and topped up with competent renewable energy
- Passive or low active services
- Cost plan focused on Operational Expenditure (OPEX)
- Creating a Greener Building
- Cost planning is often wrong
- I.e. cheap to build, cheap materials; a preoccupation of QSs,
- Focused on Capital Expenditure (CAPEX)
- Creating a Violet Building
- Cost plans could be about better investment
- Balanced budget based on TOTEX = CAPEX + OPEX
If the Cost Plan is wrong
- If the Cost plan is wrong (artificially low) and the tender right (too high compared with the wrong cost plan)
- Then setting out green agendas and procedures to ensure you got what you asked for are futile
- All decisions will be based on getting the cheapest price (Business as usual BAU)
- Driven away from compliance, bypassing the Employer’s Requirements, with agreement or surreptitiously
- And towards substitution to meet the cost plan or the tender or worse to increase profit margins
- If you cannot tell the difference between FSC timber and non-FSC timber the temptation will be to deliver non-FSC timber to FSC projects
- And if need be get some wrong paperwork approved
- Or if procedures are lax let them slip through inspection
- Blockchain will not help if the activities are off radar or out side of procedure
Suicide Bidding
- When Contractors tender at cost or below with low profits or without profit margin with low or without overheads, without allowance for risk.
- The only way back from this is to strangle the subcontractors with late payments and demand lower cost and potentially substandard materials
- Substitution (Defects) G#756 N#778
- Contractors have warned of a culture of so-called ‘suicide bidding’ across the country, as they were asked to assess the state of the market 12 months on from the collapse of Carillion.
- Law firm CMS, in conjunction with business research group Explain the Market, interviewed senior decision makers representing 15 companies from across the sector to find out how they are faring.
- It found that contractors’ margins were under “immense pressure” and that 60% of those surveyed were concerned about the long-term health of the UK market.
- Meanwhile, CMS said many respondents had expressed worries about the problem of suicide bidding, with some calling on the government to take action.
- “A culture of suicide bids…is creating an insidious race to the bottom,” one told the survey.
- Another top 150 contractor commented: “We are not proud to compete on a lowest price basis but I am afraid this is simply unavoidable for many decent firms out there.”
- And another warned that firms were being forced to take on too much risk: “Government has a lot to answer for. Local and national.
- We can’t go on being expected to take all the risk on our shoulders,” they said.
- http://www.constructionmanagermagazine.com/news/contractors-warn-suicide-bid-culture/
Product Data Collection & BIM
- GBE once presented to Edinburgh University on the potential for BIM to do some of what is proposed by Blockchain.
- https://greenbuildingencyclopaedia.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GBE-CPD-BIMSpekkiesView-9H8.pdf
Legal Timber
- EUTR is already developed by an EU Life funded project, mapping legal timber sources (beyond sustainable)
- https://greenbuildingencyclopaedia.uk/projects/information/benchmarking/eu-timber-regulations-eutr-nepcon-sourcing-hub/
Accountability: for decision taking
- Post-Grenfell (accountability is going to be more important)
- Built2Spec (Horizon2020 Funded project) planned software to digitalise all decisions points to address accountability)
- http://built2spec-project.eu/
- They planned to have readymade project templates with all decision points preset,
- editable by every project to be project specific
- Based on the NBS specification, already planning to work with Uniclass classification (BIM ready).
Digital Object Identifiers (DOI)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier
- NBS, CPA and BIM4M2 ran an event to get initial response from the sector if we want to go as far as DOI.
- https://greenbuildingencyclopaedia.uk/blog/news/current/daily-updates/digital-object-identifiers/
Project Passports
- Proposed by EU for second life materials in a Circular Economy
- Originally aimed at 2nd hand materials (there may be lessons to learn)
- End of project conference in Brussels in February.
- https://www.bamb2020.eu/
Things to consider
- QA showed us how new procedures can become a burden rather then…
- “Say what you do, do what you say, and keep a record that you did”
- We regularly get “QA check next week, get your QA paperwork in order”
- Avoid extra admin processes (but okay to replace processes with digitally efficient ones)
- Okay to consolidate many processes into one place
- Avoid extra costs (or an excuse to add on costs) common with FSC certified timber
- Make the process so efficient that it reduces costs of the product
- Get some real benefits from the process
Timber sector & NGOs:
- Involve FSC, FoE, Greenpeace, RAN, etc. to be sure that we are not fooling ourselves into thinking we are doing well using blockchain.
More to follow when I have time to GBE BrainStorm.
© GBE NGS ASWS BrianMurphy
aka BrianSpecMan
15th January 2019 – 16th January 2019
Blockchain Timber Chain of Custody Brain Dump
Images:
© GBE NGS ASWS BrianMurphy
aka BrianSpecMan
15th January 2019
Blockchain Timber Chain of Custody Brain Dump
See Also:
GBE Brainstorm
GBE Defects
- Substitution (Defects) G#756 N#778
GBE Jargon Buster
- Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) G#7314
GBE Proposals
- Timber Sector Carbon Calculator (Proposal) G#15015
- Definitive Timber Specification (Proposal)
- GBE Expert System G#1222 N#1223
- Bio-Based Building Specification Encyclopaedia (Proposal) G#13083
GBE Project
- H21 Timber Weatherboarding (Project) G#549 N#569
- Built2Spec H202o Project
GBE Links
GBE Datasets
- GBE Timber Species (Dataset) G#1371 N#1351
GBE CPD
- BIM A Specifiers Perspective G#427 N#428
GBE Shop
- GBE CPD BIM A Spec Writers Perspective (Shop) G#11814
© GBE NGS ASWS BrianMurphy
aka BrianSpecMan
15th January 2019 – 16th January 2019