NHBC has announced the roll-out of Joint Virtual Meetings, the second stage in the evolution of the organisation’s technical risk management strategy.
On new sites, Joint Virtual Meetings (JVMs) will be delivered virtually via MS Teams or another appropriate platform, to enable NHBC to work collaboratively with its builder customers without the need to be in one physical location together.
The meetings are intended to improve communication between NHBC and the builder customer at key points in a project, allowing all those who attend to obtain a greater understanding of the project and its requirements.
Three types of meetings have been announced including: ‘Pre-start’ at the onset of each project; ‘Inflight’ once the project has commenced – the timing and required attendees of which will be specific to each project and ‘Consultation’ for complex sites that have planning approval but that are not yet registered with NHBC.
Pre-start and Inflight meetings will be introduced from 1st November and Consultation meetings from 1st January 2022.
Commenting on the launch, Diane Marshall, NHBC’s Operations Director said: “We are confident that these meetings which will be held with our technical experts at key stages during a project will increase collaboration to help our customers build right first time.
“In addition, these meetings give our customers the opportunity to discuss design and construction issues at an earlier stage, identify any areas where we can provide additional support; speed up project assessments and acceptance, as well as the clearance of conditions.
“We are working with our registered builders and developers to evolve our technical risk management strategy which will maintain focus on quality control (defects detection) whilst developing new services to enhance our quality assurance (defects prevention). The overall aim is to improve the construction quality of new homes.
“Following a successful pilot, Joint Virtual Meetings will enable our registered builders and developers to work more efficiently on site, reduce the significant costs of remedial works and further improve new home quality for the benefit of home buyers.”
