Range Rover - when will we copy this model of continuous improvement?

I walked past a new Range Rover this week. It is certainly an impressive beast and got me thinking.

I have read about its ground breaking all-aluminium construction and recently heard Jaguar Land Rover boss Ralf Speth talk passionately about the engineering innovation poured into the project to ensure it really was a “new” rather than just a revamped product.

But it also grabbed my attention because it was just over ten years ago that I took part in a 4x4 Construction Challenge with drainage specialist ACO Technologies in which we used the at-the-time hot off the drawing board, third generation version of the iconic on/off-roader to pit engineers’ wits against the elements. 

Yet today, viewed against the new, fourth generation product, these once state-of-the-art models now look positively old tech.

What I find interesting is the way that firms like JLR are driven by the desire to constantly improve their products. When I visited its design headquarters in Gaydon a couple of years ago I saw the obsession by engineering teams to continuously analyse both what they and their competitors were doing and to invest in design and engineering to ensure that their products stayed at the cutting edge.

Put simply, for all the improvement that we have seen at clients such as Network Rail, Highways Agency, National Grid or the water companies or house builders, I don’t really see too much evidence of the JLR culture of obsession for continuous improvement and absolute refusal to stick with the status quo. 

It makes quite a contrast to infrastructure. 

For some time we have been trying to emulate the successes of the motor industry. Former Rover boss Sir John Egan is of course credited with introducing such things as sigmoid curve improvement processes and concepts such as lean and just-in-time when he joined airport operator BAA . 

And it is fair to say that the industry has embraced the continuous improvement agenda in the days since Egan’s government-backed Rethinking Construction review.

Yet the fact remains that for all the investment and discussion, it is hard to see the kind of step change in quality witnessed in the automotive industry over the last 25 years being achieved any time soon in construction.

Put simply, for all the improvement that we have seen at clients such as Network Rail, Highways Agency, National Grid or the water companies or house builders, I don’t really see too much evidence of the JLR culture of obsession for continuous improvement and absolute refusal to stick with the status quo. 

Perhaps I do the infrastructure sector a disservice. But whether through structure or culture, clients have not been able to engage and empower their supply chains to bring forward innovation in the way that the automotive industry has.

Interesting, therefore, that we see London Underground trialling new relationships direct with tier 2 and 3 firms in a bid to break out of the current procurement mould. Interesting also that Network Rail is bringing in senior staff with manufacturing and supply chain management experience.

Perhaps this is the long awaited start of the journey.

The new Range Rover is clearly the result of engineering passion. But over the longer term, its development has also been the result of radical structural and cultural industry transformation - and much pain along the way. 

I would suggest that if the infrastructure sector is to ever emulate this success it needs to get on that path of radical transformation sooner rather than later. 

Antony Oliver is the editor of Infrastructure Intelligence.