News

The tech stacks improving productivity at Mace, Sir Robert McAlpine and Skanska

Justin Stanton

Editor, DC+

17 September 2025

The likes of Buildots, Disperse and QFlow are among the 16 technologies that are delivering productivity improvements at Mace, Sir Robert McAlpine and Skanska, according to the latest report from the Construction Productivity Taskforce (CPT).

Landsec’s £275m Timber Square office development delivered by Mace — Landsec’s £275m Timber Square office development, delivered by Mace, is one of the projects featured in the Construction Productivity Taskforce's research

The CPT’s latest report draws on findings from three major projects:

British Land’s £300m 1 Broadgate commercial and retail scheme in central London, delivered by Sir Robert McAlpine;

Landsec’s £275m Timber Square office development, also in London, delivered by Mace; and

the Defence Infrastructure Organisation’s £259m Vehicle Storage Support Programme (VSSP) in Tewkesbury, delivered by Skanska.

The report cites 16 examples of digital technologies deployed across the three projects, including:

1Guava for crane and hoist monitoring;

Alimak Group for hoist data;

Autodesk Construction Cloud for the cloud, BIM and snagging;

Buildots and Disperse for progress monitoring, photo records, comparison to model and progress rates;

Cemex Go app for precise delivery timing;

Datascope for turnstile monitoring, materials deliveries and hot works permits;

Flow workflow delivery software from Adept Management;

Lobster site cameras;

Qflow and Optimise for materials deliveries;

Track and trace of cladding from Sipral; and

Site Eye for time-lapse recording.

The report has links to detailed case studies from the three projects, but it offers brief highlights of the technologies’ benefits. For example, on the Timber Square project, the level of crane utilisation was between 60% and 80% with a few occasions at 90% or more. Lower usage/allocation was associated with lower productivity. The project team monitored the utilisation levels closely throughout the installation period using 1Guava.

The data prompted the team to push the installation contractor for additional resources to fill extended working hours periods and increase resources at critical times to complete secondary tasks to maximise the use of the crane.

Areas for improvement

The CPT noted that there has been “rapid adoption and expansion of digital data capture technology over the last three years. Notable examples include crane and hoist telematics, site cameras, 3D photographic mapping, AI progress tracking and programme mapping.”

Furthermore, significant progress is being made in acquiring and analysing productivity data from site, the CPT said, “but at the moment the process is still predominantly retrospective, providing lessons learned for the future rather than actionable insights”.

The CPT cited areas for improvement:

the principal contractor or construction manager and most supply chain contractors collect progress data in some form, but the methodologies used are inconsistent, both within and between organisations and the data is often not shared;

one version of the truth with agreed measurement frameworks should be adopted to avoid duplicated effort; and

although tracking materials and equipment is becoming more common, more work is needed to gain the trust of the workforce to allow anonymous people tracking technology to determine time spent in productive and non‑productive areas.

James Rowbotham, Landsec head of workplace development and chair of the CPT, said: “It is imperative that we all work together as an industry to improve productivity. This requires more data collection, analysis and industrywide collaboration. That is what these three case studies do so effectively, by showcasing innovative construction, an open mind and a willingness to work collaboratively to find improvement. I hope they help and inspire further efforts across the industry to do likewise.”

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Topics:

Construction Productivity Taskforce Mace Sir Robert McAlpine Skanska

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