Consulting Industry and Innovation strengthening : National-Level Barriers / Opportunities, Action Proposals and possible impacts. Michel Ray Egis Director for Technical Affairs & Innovation Deputy Chairman of Innovation Committee Syntec France Member of European Construction Technology Platform HLG EFCA May 27, 2011
Introduction A special Committee in SYNTEC Ingénierie since 2004 in FRANCE : «Innovation, R&D, and the Consulting Industry» A White Paper on «Innovation and the Consulting Industry» published 2008 Representatives from various sectors, and various sizes of consulting companies, analyzed: The good practices and interesting "levers" The current barriers and threats against innovation Action proposals EFCA White Paper 2009 This presentation draws some lessons from 2004 2011 period and from corresponding action implementation in France. 2
Why a White Paper on Innovation and Engineering? March 2000 EU Lisbon Agenda conclusions on the strategic importance of a "knowledge-based economy" and innovation, are specially true in the framework of global competition for our industry, and emerging challenges such as: climate change, energy prices perspectives, sustainable development, etc. Our industry : a unique lever to implement in practice new public policies, and specially sustainable development related ones Our industry : a unique feed back for policy impact assessments, improvements / innovative ideas for the future Our industry has the ability to : Work in direct contact with many stakeholders from upstream to downstream of projects Be the "trusted adviser and project manager", with transversal skills Provide advice independently from specific proprietary solutions. 3
Current Situation and various kinds of Innovation in Consulting and Engineering We first need to widen the way we look at innovation There are three different kinds of innovations in our industry: Innovation inside operational projects by assembling existing products or methods, in an innovative way Innovations at the request of clients For specific immediate needs With appropriate anticipation of future needs/markets Innovations in project management and transversal methods 4
Current Situation and various kinds of Innovation in Consulting and Engineering Innovations are currently needed also for the various phases of projects: the very upstream definition of needs and feasibility study the traditional design phase, and the work supervision phase operation phase (long term), and on project management in general Consulting/Engineering industry has a comparative advantage if our innovation vision /strategy encompasses the whole project cycle. 5
Good Practices, examples of interesting Levers Key levers usually are inside our companies: Managers Innovators Public co financing for R&D 6
Current Barriers and Threats, future opportunities Examples : Insufficient protection of intellectual property rights for engineering innovations Private Public Partnership approach should facilitate innovative solutions based on life cycle costing ; insufficient results are currently observed Public procurement, in average, does not facilitate innovations Insurance approach to innovative projects Complex public co financing Future opportunities : Complementarities with universities and public laboratories Collaborative/precompetitive R&D initiatives between consulting firms 7
Action proposals, Actions completed, Impacts A total of 61 detailed action proposals have been developed by the Committee. The White Paper action proposals were presented by (4) category of stakeholders to facilitate future dialogue. Current Status in the case of France : Many of these action proposals have been discussed with keystakeholders during a dedicated seminar in June 2007 Targeted dialogues take place since 2008 and are translated into common actions And these actions now lead to impact assessment possibilities. 8
Action proposals, Actions completed, Impacts 1. Actions to be developed inside Engineering companies ("low hanging fruits") : Integrate, manage, and value innovations Develop pertinent Knowledge Management Better take advantage of co financing Invest in development of methodologies This now usual king of company level actions is well known. Syntec Innovation Committee decided to strengthen innovation by launching selected commonactions. Examples of implemented actions and impacts : One R&D precompetitive project per year, with several consulting companies and academics has been developed and won National Research Agency strong competition for the development of new generation methodologies. 9
Action proposals, Actions completed, Impacts Possible shared actions inside the consulting industry at national level : Help companies to be more effective in developing common R&D projects and in finding the right co financing scheme for a given innovation A special «Institute for Engineering R&D»has been created by Syntec (27 founding companies), it has a key catalyst role to develop R&D projects and to represent engineering in very large R&D consortia. Develop contacts with most relevant clusters to facilitate their interaction with consulting SMEs Syntec Innovation Committee facilitated the participation of its members in clusters, for example in Advancity cluster (sustainable cities and urban ecotechnologies) 10
Action proposals, Actions completed, Impacts Start a common work on sustainable development : A special agreement has been signed between the Minister in charge of Sustainable Development and Syntec President to accelerate and strengthen actions by Syntec members, in coordination with the Ministry, for implementing widely sustainable development specific actions, with corresponding performance indicators. Start a common work on risk management development : Two common on going projects work on : Risk management in large civil engineering projects (GERMA) The resilience of cities against extreme events (RESILIS) 11
Action proposals, Actions completed, Impacts 2. Actions proposed to the State level, as regulator and supervisor of the Engineering industry: Develop a more reactive cross fertilisation between public and private sectors Now, Syntec is more systematically invited to task force initiatives launched at National level on innovative subjects. 12
Action proposals, Actions completed, Impacts Facilitate team work with consulting industry for veryupstream studies dedicated to large or innovative projects A special common seminar between Syntec Board of Directors Innovation Committee and the General Management of «Commissariat aux Investissements d Avenir», brainstormed possible innovative project initiatives taking into account Consulting Industry specificities. 13
Action proposals, Actions completed, Impacts 3. Actions proposed to clients (public ones, and PPP private leaders) : Better use the know how and service quality of consulting industry Regular meetings with organisations of contractors and their individual Technical Directors assess the lessons of common operational projects experience, extract progress directions, and identify possible R&D common projects ; several such projects are now under implementation 14
Action proposals, Actions completed, Impacts Improve the effectiveness of the whole value chain: client, engineer, contractor, operator to favour innovation At engineering firm initiative, R&D projects now build such whole chain consortia and, for example, develop innovative ecocomparator tools to measure and encourage the stealthyness of job site construction 15
Action proposals, Actions completed, Impacts 4. Actions proposed to Research Laboratories and Universities: Share knowledge on innovation and research Upstream consultation of Engineering Industry representatives is now more systematic before launching public R&D programs. Intensify links between public laboratories and the consulting industry A very large 10 years duration R&D project bid has been prepared recently associating 9 engineering firms, several large contractors, and laboratories/universities and other stakeholders on sustainable cities. 16
Conclusions 1. To prepare and maintain our competitiveness of tomorrow on global markets, and to take the important challenges of today, a dynamic and pertinent innovation strategy, is not an option, it is a must. Otherwise others will do it. The consulting industry has to play its valuable role, together with the other stakeholders. 2. A large proportion of barriers to strengthen innovation, and corresponding threats are in common. Developing specific priority common actions makes sense. Very concrete actions need to be taken at local or national level. Some well targeted actions need to be developed at European level. It may take time but it seems to be the responsibility of our industry. 3. EFCA and FIDIC took the initiative for creating a Task Group on Innovation to identify and share best practices. 17
Thank you for attention michel.ray@egis.fr 18