Lessons learnt workshop for Highways England research projects

Cardiff Business School recently hosted a successful lessons learnt review workshop as part of its research programme with Highways England (HE).

Organised by Dr Yingli Wang and held at the School’s Postgraduate Teaching Centre on 10 May 2017, this was an opportunity for researchers from 10 projects funded by Highways England Lean team, to present their findings and evaluations.

These projects form part of the overarching Highways England Lean Collaborative Research Programme and the event marked the end of those projects under this work package, which had Costain as an industrial partner.

The School’s successful relationship with Highways England (HE) has involved collaboration across a number of lean related topics and has involved the School’s faculty from the Logistics and Operations Management section.  One of the first collaborations was a project concerned with principles for appropriate contracting led by Dr Jon Gosling, and the most recent one investigates how to accelerate the adoption of Building Information Modelling in the supply chain led by Dr Yingli Wang.

The lessons learnt workshop was well-attended and provided an environment for effective knowledge transfer and the opportunity to embed learning. Researchers had to prepare concise presentations alongside A3 poster sessions in addition to a full report of the project. In order to capture and promote the work done by the Universities, the A3’s and reports will be uploaded as Knowledge Transfer Packs in the HE Lean tracker which is a public facing web link and accessible to the Lean practitioner community within Highway England’s supply chain. The potential savings resulting from direct application of the recommendations made within the projects will in turn support HE in the delivery of the Road Investment Savings (RIS) as required under the UK Road Investment Programme 2015 -2020.

Ms Lucia Fullalove, a Lean Practitioner with Highways England and Project Manager for the Lean Collaborative Research, said: “It was a challenge to get all the projects and reports finalised in time for the event. But the researchers’ extraordinary efforts meant that we were able to deliver. I’m grateful to them and to Andrew Fielding, from Costain, for his support and hard work.

She added: “Gathering together all of the appropriate people, fitting in 10 presentations and getting feedback from those in attendance within the time constraint was a challenge. However, working together with Yingli we achieved it and the result was a highly informative and thought-provoking session that allowed us to consider best practice and learning to enhance our research programme. It was also an excellent opportunity to continue to develop personal and professional relationships with Cardiff Business School which I have no doubt will lead to future collaborations across a range of topics.”

Dr Yingli Wang said: “Cardiff Business School prides itself on the strength and impact of its research collaborations with industry. Our relationship with Highways England is an important partnership that delivers impactful research that fully aligns with our public value mission to promote social and economic improvement. I look forward to future projects that deliver benefits to academia, business practice and communities.”