A new free mentoring service has been launched to help you implement digital processes and techniques in your business.

Digital Construction Skills (DCS) is funded by CITB to help construction companies develop the skills they need to drive their digital transformation.

With a strong focus on smaller (SME) business owners, directors, and senior managers, DCS aims to demystify digital tools and help businesses choose the best products to align with their goals.

All the mentors on the programme have recent, real-world experience on the front line of the construction industry and are specialists in the technical and commercial aspects of digital construction.

This includes digitalising information flow and physical elements, such as 3D models and reality capture.

There are many benefits to adopting digital practices. It could help you to reduce admin time and costs, improve safety and quality, and keep digital records to speed up payment, protect against claims, and complete your tax returns. It can also increase productivity of engineers and other site staff.

Because time is always at a premium for companies, DCS will make the mentoring process as simple and focussed as possible.

There are no forms to fill in, you simply book a 15-, 30- or 60-minute meeting with a digital construction specialist.

DCS also offers mentoring at various stages of a business’s digital journey, from the very start when you have not yet explored how digital tools can support your business, through to guidance on accessing a range of funding and support available for digital adoption, and then to implementation.

Saffron Grant, Managing Director at Digital Constructions Skills, said: “Digital leadership skills are so important because the way we work is changing.

“Understanding the benefits of digital technologies, and how they can help you achieve your business goals can ensure your business remains competitive and profitable in a rapidly changing landscape.

“This mentoring service can help you select the digital tools that are right for your company and get the very best out of them. The programme is supported by free eLearning modules, training courses and other valuable resources.”

Feedback has also been shared by businesses that have received support from the service.

For example, Andy Dalrymple, Managing Director at Mackenzie Construction, says: “Digital Construction Skills helped us access funding to help us train our staff in a new digital platform we are rolling out across our business.”

Ed Clement, Owner of Patterson Bailey Engineers: “Thanks to free support from Digital Construction Skills I am adding several new revenue streams to my business, including carrying out drone surveys and setting out construction works.”

David Minns, Operations Director, GAC Environmental: “The support helped us get all the right people together in one room, and get to the point where we were able to make a clear decision on the priority areas for digital tools.”

To book a 15-minute, 30-minute or one-hour call, click here.

Members of the Natural Stone Industry Training Group (NSITG) visited Bath College’s Stone Masonry Department on 30 March. The group, including representatives from Welsh Government’s Cadw, Stone Federation Great Britain, Brunel University and the Building Crafts College, met Bath College tutors and heard about new courses being developed to enhance the Stone Masonry Trailblazer apprenticeship courses.

Facilities at Bath for stonemasonry are now housed at the Somer Valley Campus, at Radstock, that were purpose built for the masonry and carpentry departments.

Training suites include workshop banker environments and outdoor areas to simulate site experiences.

Students working on the bankers during the visit were local young women drawn to the masonry course because of its diverse routes of career options. They said they were particularly interested in the detail of the banker work and lettercutting.

Student work seen by the NSITG group included examples of drawings and initial stages of developing form and texture using clay for practice and development.

The new Stone Masonry Trailblazer Apprenticeship offers a core of mandatory units, including health & safety. Students then have to choose an optional route from: Banker, Exterior Mason, Interior Mason, Façade Preservation, Heritage Mason or Memorial Mason.

Bath are in the process of developing courses to offer more of the routes, but currently have banker, interior and external fixer only.

Heritage will be added at the start of the new term in September, with a view to adding memorial mason in due course.

All routes attract Government and CITB grant aide for employers.

Bath has recently recruited new lecturers from the stone community to work with students as it aims to maintain the standards that last year saw two of the college’s students win Gold and Silver in stonemasonry at SkillBuild, the multi-trade skills competition for construction trainees and apprentices. Gold was won by Lewis Evans and Silver by Kane Frith. They were both Level 3 stonemasonry students.

New developments at the college include short courses for both BIM (building information modelling) and CAD (computer-aided design) that are being added to the Apprenticeship offer, along with a new suite of sustainability options ahead of them becoming a mandatory part of the Trailblazer delivery.

This was the NSITG’s first face-to-face visit since the Covid restrictions began and members appreciated the opportunity to discuss best practice and share ideas over lunch.

Next NSITG plans to visit the Building Crafts College in London, which is another of the colleges delivering the new Trailblazer apprenticeships.

www.nsitg.org.uk

Robert Merry has spent a busy time keeping up with an ERUPTION!! of activities in the stone industry.

What a month that was! Stone is only the half of it. This town has been quiet for two years and now there’s been a ERUPTION!!! (Bob Hoskins – The Long Good Friday – great film, great moment). All of a sudden, stone coming out of my ears! That doesn’t sound right… but its spring and we can mix up our metaphors, can't we?

First the Stone Masons’ National Occupational Standards (NOS) review with the CITB. A sober affair but for the betterment of all.

Then, the Stone Federation did us chest out, strut down the road, “away the lads (and lasses)” proud at Surface Design with, in association with architect Squire & Partner, a beautifully conceived display of stone. The accompanying blurb and section on re-purposing a broken stone object was inspiring. Well done all involved.

Next up, The Case For Stone. A Stone Federation-led discussion, primarily about stone as a load bearing structural element as used at 15 Clerkenwell Close.

Hosted by Ulrike Knox of Knox architects (cathedral architect and Natural Stone Awards Judge) with Amin Taha of Group Works, Steve Webb of Webb Yates and Zac Tudor of Arup. Taha and Web had collaborated on 15 Clerkenwell Close, with its exoskeleton of French limestone. Their opinions have ruffled some British quarry feathers, although that may be a good thing in the long term. I think the tradition of using stone as a load bearing element has receded in the UK, so perhaps we can all work together to change this. Chicken and egg, I guess – to continue the poultry metaphor.

Then Stone Digital, organised by the company behind the Natural Stone Show & Hard Surfaces exhibitions and this very magazine. A two day bonanza on how the stone industry is rising to the challenge of net carbon zero and where the stone world has travelled in terms of digitalisation.

I watched excellent contributions from Albion Stone and PAYE, as well as Vetter, Historic England, Green Thinking, Simpson Brown Architects and more. If you missed it, you can watch all or any of the sessions on catch-up until the end of April on the same platform as it was originally shown on, which you can find at bit.ly/SD-on-demand.

Interestingly, as I toiled with the introduction of carbon saving machinery and methods of work, looked at digital management packages and fast tracked design solutions, increased productivity through off-site manufacture and the introduction of site robots, the stone sat there, relatively inert, looking beautiful, as always, waiting for us all to finish. Its glory undiminished by what we are trying to do with it. As ever.

Moving swiftly on, there followed a meeting of the Stone Federation Technical Committee, of which I’m a member. A goodly debate about education and skills in the sector, an aging workforce and diminishing opportunity for apprenticeships.

Of course, we discussed standards and technical stuff, too. But the education debate interested me. The Stone Masons’ NOS review, which started at the beginning of February and continued into March, reviewed 12 standards for stone people.

They cover internal/external fixing, memorials, heritage, cladding and cutting. They provide a framework that can be used in several ways: for awarding bodies to create qualifications to train individuals (for instance, in an apprenticeship framework); for employers to create job descriptions and train staff; and for individuals looking to match their skills to a trade. They underpin college courses and should be used by the industry to employ staff and train new skills. I think the framework is there, we just need to learn to use the resource we have.

The icing on my particular stone cake was the Stone Federation Interiors focus group meeting. Chaired by the recently anointed ‘el Presidente’ of the Stone Federation, Chris Kelsey – an excellent appointment, if I may say so.

There are lots of exciting developments for the Interiors group, including the soon to be published wet rooms guide, development of BS 8298 for internal use of stone cladding, and a drive to promote the use of stone in interiors.

‘When does this bloke ever find time to get any work done,’ I hear you ask. I know! As I said, it’s been a busy month.

Just going to relax in March with a trip to Future Build at Excel. I don’t think I’ll have the energy to visit KBB in Birmingham.

How about you? How’s the icing on your stone cake this spring?

www.stoneconsultants.co.uk