Article published in Construnews

The industrialization of construction is emerging as the only viable way to increase productivity, reduce execution times and guarantee more efficient and sustainable construction.

The Dada

Europe has produced 4.1 new homes per thousand inhabitants and in the most difficult times the rate has not dropped below 3.2. Spain managed to deliver 2.0 during 2024.

Spain is facing a critical moment in the construction sector, marked by a residential emergency that, if not resolved in the coming years, could lead to social tensions that favor populist and anti-system political options. The lack of affordable housing is a structural problem that we have been dragging on for more than a decade, with a deficit estimated at 50,000 homes per year.

After the collapse of the sector in 2008, Spain has built housing well below the European average. Europe has produced 4.1 new homes per thousand inhabitants and in the most difficult times it has not dropped the pace below 3.2. Spain managed to deliver 2.0 in 2024. This historical deficit in the construction of new homes is aggravated by sustained demographic growth, driven mainly by immigration and by a transformation in the structure of households. There are increasingly more single-parent families, fewer children per family and a significant increase in single-family homes, which increases the demand for new homes.

Beyond housing, transport infrastructure also requires a profound renovation. Although from the early years of democracy until the first decade of the 21st century, major investments were made that positioned Spain at the level of the most advanced countries in Europe, the financial crisis at the end of the last decade stopped this development in its tracks. Currently, it is essential to promote an improvement and modernization plan, especially focused on suburban rail transport and water and energy management infrastructures. The necessary adaptation to the challenges of climate change requires investments that guarantee resilience and sustainability in the long term.

One of the main obstacles to the revival of the sector is the shortage of skilled labor. Construction-related professions do not generate interest among young people, which complicates the execution of projects with the required quality. Furthermore, construction has historically been the sector with the least progress in productivity in the last century, surpassed even by agriculture.

Faced with this situation, the construction sector must embrace a paradigm shift based on digitalization, sustainability and innovation. The industrialization of construction is emerging as the only viable way to increase productivity, reduce execution times and guarantee more efficient and sustainable construction. Industrialization must be understood not only as the construction in factories of components that are assembled on site, but also as the improvement of all processes that affect the life cycle of buildings. In this regard, the digitalization of the sector is an imperative necessity without which the ambitious objectives set cannot be achieved.

Public administrations have the opportunity to lead the transformation. The sector needs a reconversion plan that corrects the current drift towards precariousness and the increase in the cost of housing. The vast majority of small companies that make up the business fabric should not be left out of this future that requires greater doses of technology and industrialization. The risk of not acting is no longer only the productive stagnation of the sector, but that it is transmitted to the rest of the economy and society.

The ITeC Foundation has been committed to improving the sector since its birth in 1978. It was born with the firm desire to be a pillar in improving the quality of our constructions.

Then came our first steps in the field of digitalization, at the end of the 1980s (when the use of computers was incipient in Spain), with our first project and works management software developed for the works of the Barcelona 92 ​​Olympic Games.

It was in 2004, when we published the first environmental data (CO₂ emissions) of the construction items in our BEDEC database. That’s more than 20 years ago. Always ahead of the sector, trying to drive improvement in the sector and paving the way.

Today we continue to focus on digitalization and sustainability and are committed to innovation in construction processes and systems. For years we have been promoting the Lean philosophy applied to construction as a method of improving process efficiency.

Since 2024 we have been promoting the Barcelona ConTech Hu, a meeting space for Start-ups in the construction sector (we already have more than 30 members) and consolidated companies in the sector that have the will to innovate. Only through the collaborative work of each other will we make progress in the construction sector. And we do not do all this work alone. We have a Board of Trustees that is very representative of the sector and an advisory council in which more than 50 institutions (half public, half private) contribute their knowledge and experience to better focus our actions and proposals. For example, through the actions of the Let’s Build the Future Commission, where we have been debating for years about what this paradigm shift should be like. Topics such as BIM (the initial topic of work of the commission), public procurement (good practices and collaborative procurement) or industrialization, are the subject of work of this