About CE South West

• Committed leadership: this is about management believing in and being totally committed to driving forward an agenda for improvement and communicating the required cultural and operational changes throughout the whole of the organisation.
• A focus on the customer: in the best companies, the customer drives everything. These companies provide precisely what the end customer needs, when the customer needs it and at a price that reflects the products value to the customer. Activities which do not add value from the customer’s viewpoint are classified as waste and eliminated.
• Integrate the process and the team around the product: the most successful enterprises do not fragment their operations – they work back from the customer’s needs and focus on the product and the value it delivers to the customer. The process and the production team are then integrated to deliver value to the customer efficiently and eliminate waste in all its forms.
• A quality driven agenda: quality means not only zero defects but right first time, delivery on time and to budget, innovating for the benefit of the client and stripping out waste, whether it be in design, materials or construction on site. It also means after-sales care and reduced cost in use. Quality means the total package – exceeding customer expectations and providing real service. Quality and compliance is embedded as a cross cutting principle in all that we do. ​
• Commitment to people: this means not only decent site conditions, fair wages and care for the health and safety of the workforce. It means a commitment to training and development of committed and highly capable managers and supervisors. It also means respect for all participants in the process, involving everyone in sustained improvement and learning, and a no-blame culture based on mutual interdependence and trust. Wellbeing is a central key theme of CESW.

Our pedigree

In the mid-nineties a wide spread recognition arose of the need for the construction industry to improve the service it provided to its clients while also ensuring future viability for the wide range of organisations that operated in the industry.

In response to Sir Michael Latham’s 1994 report Constructing the Team and Sir John Egan’s 1998 report Rethinking Construction a number of cross industry bodies were formed to drive change. These included:

• Reading Construction Forum
• Design Build Foundation
• Construction Best Practice Programme
• Movement for Innovation
• Local Government Task Force
• Rethinking Construction
• Constructing Excellence
• Construction Clients’ Group

Significant progress has been made in driving these initiatives into the practicing industry with many examples of projects that have been run in accordance with the fundamental principles.

In order to streamline the effort involved, all the above cross industry bodies were united as Constructing Excellence in 2003 to form a powerful, influential voice for improvement in the built environment sector. Constructing Excellence South West is the organisation charged with delivering that improvement within the South West of England.