Our Results

The con­struc­tion sec­tor faces urgent chal­lenges in dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, coop­er­a­tion, and skills devel­op­ment. Our project focus­es on empow­er­ing small and medi­um-sized enter­pris­es (SMEs) by pro­vid­ing inno­v­a­tive train­ing pro­grams and best prac­tices. Explore the six key results below to dis­cov­er how dig­i­tal­iza­tion is shap­ing the future of con­struc­tion:

O1 Best Practices digital Technologies and Trainings

A

Two types of best prac­tices were ana­lyzed:

  1. Best prac­tices for using dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies and enabling coop­er­a­tion and coor­di­na­tion through dig­i­tal tools in SMEs in the con­struc­tion and fin­ish­ing sec­tor were stud­ied. After eval­u­a­tion, selec­tion, and pro­cess­ing, they were sup­ple­ment­ed with appli­ca­tion notes and shared with SME sup­port insti­tu­tions and SMEs, which received advice.
  2. Best prac­tices for SME-spe­cif­ic train­ing pro­grams teach­ing dig­i­tal skills were also ana­lyzed. After eval­u­a­tion and prepa­ra­tion, they were accom­pa­nied by appli­ca­tion notes and trans­ferred to SME fund­ing and train­ing insti­tu­tions with guid­ance.

Out­put O1 “Best Prac­tices Dig­i­tal Tech­nolo­gies and Train­ings” includes best prac­tices and trans­fer results dur­ing the project regard­ing:

  1. a) the use of dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies for SME-spe­cif­ic tasks and col­lab­o­ra­tion in con­struc­tion phas­es (design, plan­ning, exe­cu­tion, man­age­ment),
  2. b) SME-spe­cif­ic train­ing pro­grams com­bin­ing coop­er­a­tion train­ing and dig­i­tal skills edu­ca­tion.
Out­put O1

02 Train the Trainer Program & capacity building

A
A

Teach­ers and con­sul­tants of SMEs must be specif­i­cal­ly trained to teach the use of dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies. There­fore, a train-the-train­er pro­gram was devel­oped, test­ed in prac­tice, eval­u­at­ed, revised, and final­ized. Results include:

  • Con­cept, cur­ricu­lum, and teach­ing mate­ri­als
  • Report on prac­ti­cal test­ing
  • Eval­u­a­tion con­cept and report

The pro­gram, to be con­tin­u­ous­ly imple­ment­ed by 24 col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties from 13 coun­tries, will sig­nif­i­cant­ly enhance train­ing providers’ and SME spon­sors’ capac­i­ties. In Ger­many and Hun­gary, addi­tion­al sup­port mea­sures were devel­oped and imple­ment­ed, result­ing in:

  • Online SME con­sult­ing on dig­i­tal­iza­tion in con­struc­tion
  • Dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion Offi­cer for SMEs
  • Craft Lab at the Schw­erin Cham­ber of Crafts

• Improved coop­er­a­tion between archi­tects and con­struc­tion firms

Out­put O2

O3 Digital additional qualifications for the construction and finishing trade

As dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies have so far been lit­tle used in SMEs in the con­struc­tion indus­try, the teach­ing of dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies in voca­tion­al train­ing is not wide­spread enough, so that there is a clear deficit in dig­i­tal skills after com­ple­tion of voca­tion­al train­ing. A mod­ule pro­gram for teach­ing dig­i­tal skills dur­ing or direct­ly after voca­tion­al train­ing was devel­oped, test­ed in prac­tice, eval­u­at­ed and com­plet­ed on the basis of the eval­u­a­tion results. Tar­get groups are young peo­ple who are strong learn­ers who want to com­plete these addi­tion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions and receive a rec­og­nized con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion and fur­ther train­ing qual­i­fi­ca­tion. 

Out­put O3 includes:

  • Con­cept, cur­ric­u­la and teach­ing mate­ri­als for a com­pre­hen­sive modal­ized train­ing pro­gram for the pro­vi­sion of addi­tion­al dig­i­tal qual­i­fi­ca­tion in the con­struc­tion and fin­ish­ing trades
  • Offi­cial exam­i­na­tion reg­u­la­tion
  • Imple­men­ta­tion Reports
  • Eval­u­a­tion Con­cept and Report
Out­put O3

O4 Training programme on cooperation through digitalization

Exten­sive use of dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies in res­i­den­tial con­struc­tion enables cost sav­ings, high­er qual­i­ty, and adher­ence to dead­lines. These tech­nolo­gies sup­port coop­er­a­tion and holis­tic work­flows, involv­ing SMEs in all con­struc­tion phases—from design to plan­ning, build­ing, and man­age­ment. To sup­port this, a con­cept, cur­ricu­lum, and teach­ing mate­ri­als were devel­oped for fur­ther train­ing on dig­i­tal coop­er­a­tion, along with an SME-spe­cif­ic train­ing and coach­ing pro­gram. These were test­ed in real-life con­di­tions across coun­tries, eval­u­at­ed, and final­ized based on results. Tar­get groups include archi­tects, engi­neers, entre­pre­neurs, man­agers, and con­struc­tion spe­cial­ists, who can earn a rec­og­nized qual­i­fi­ca­tion.

Out­put O4 includes:

  • Con­cept, cur­ric­u­la, and teach­ing mate­ri­als on coop­er­a­tion via dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion
  • Pro­gram for train­ing and coach­ing imple­men­ta­tion
  • Offi­cial exam reg­u­la­tion
  • Imple­men­ta­tion reports
  • Eval­u­a­tion con­cept and report
Out­put O4

O5 Digital training for the construction and finishing trades

Exten­sive use of dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies in res­i­den­tial con­struc­tion leads to cost sav­ings, qual­i­ty improve­ments, and dead­line com­pli­ance. To sup­port this, a con­cept, cur­ricu­lum, and teach­ing mate­ri­als were devel­oped for dig­i­tal train­ing in the con­struc­tion and fin­ish­ing trades, along with an SME-spe­cif­ic train­ing and coach­ing pro­gram. These were test­ed under var­i­ous nation­al con­di­tions, eval­u­at­ed, and final­ized based on the results. Tar­get groups include entre­pre­neurs, man­agers, and spe­cial­ists in the con­struc­tion indus­try, who can earn a rec­og­nized con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion qual­i­fi­ca­tion through the pro­gram.

Out­put O5 includes:

  • Con­cept, cur­ric­u­la, and teach­ing mate­ri­als for train­ing SME man­agers and spe­cial­ists in dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy use across con­struc­tion tasks
  • Pro­gram for train­ing and coach­ing imple­men­ta­tion
  • Offi­cial exam­i­na­tion reg­u­la­tion
  • Imple­men­ta­tion reports
  • Eval­u­a­tion con­cept and report
Out­put O5

O6 Digital entrepreneurship education

A

The use of dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies is par­tic­u­lar­ly low in SMEs in the con­struc­tion and fin­ish­ing sec­tor. Entre­pre­neurs and man­agers often lack the infor­ma­tion, knowl­edge, and skills need­ed. There­fore, they must be com­pre­hen­sive­ly qual­i­fied and advised. The project car­ried out the fol­low­ing:

  • Devel­oped con­cept, cur­ric­u­la, and teach­ing mate­ri­als for mod­ules of a com­pre­hen­sive dig­i­tal entre­pre­neur­ship train­ing for con­struc­tion SMEs. Mod­ules can be inte­grat­ed into exist­ing train­ing (e.g., mas­ter crafts­man, tech­ni­cian, degree pro­grams) or offered as stand­alone cours­es.
  • Cre­at­ed exam­i­na­tion reg­u­la­tions to test and cer­ti­fy dig­i­tal skills.
  • Test­ed qual­i­fi­ca­tion mod­ules under var­i­ous nation­al con­di­tions.
  • Devel­oped an eval­u­a­tion con­cept, assessed tri­als, and final­ized mate­ri­als based on results.

Out­put 6.0 includes:

  • Con­cept and cur­ric­u­la for dig­i­tal entre­pre­neur­ship edu­ca­tion and future use
  • Exam­i­na­tion reg­u­la­tions
  • Imple­men­ta­tion reports

• Eval­u­a­tion con­cept and report

Out­put O6

Other Output A Quality manual and report on evaluation results

A dis­tinc­tion is made between two types of eval­u­a­tion and qual­i­ty assur­ance: Eval­u­a­tion of the edu­ca­tion­al mea­sures and eval­u­a­tion of the process­es. The con­cepts for eval­u­at­ing the edu­ca­tion­al mea­sures and the results of qual­i­ty assur­ance are pre­sent­ed togeth­er with the imple­men­ta­tion reports on out­puts O2 to O6.
Qual­i­ty assur­ance is car­ried out for project imple­men­ta­tion, over­all man­age­ment, trans­fer and imple­men­ta­tion of results. The results are con­tin­u­ous­ly fed into fur­ther work, result­ing in a con­tin­u­ous improve­ment process.
Oth­er Out­put A includes:

  • The objec­tives and meth­ods of all eval­u­a­tions of the entire project.
  • The qual­i­ty assur­ances and eval­u­a­tions of the train­ing mea­sures planned and car­ried out in the project.
  • The qual­i­ty assur­ances and eval­u­a­tions of the process­es planned and car­ried out in the project.

The results of the qual­i­ty assur­ance and eval­u­a­tions of the organ­i­sa­tion­al process­es.

Oth­er Out­put A

Other Output B Report dissemination activities and implementation consulting

All project results were trans­ferred to 70 cham­bers, SME asso­ci­a­tions, and colleges/universities from 13 coun­tries, which received imple­men­ta­tion advice and were involved as asso­ci­at­ed part­ners from the start.

At the project’s out­set, the con­sor­tium devel­oped and agreed on:

  1. a) A strate­gic plan for dis­sem­i­nat­ing the project and its results
  2. b) A form to plan and doc­u­ment all dis­sem­i­na­tion activ­i­ties, includ­ing tasks, tar­get groups, num­bers, dead­lines, etc.

Each part­ner cre­at­ed an ini­tial plan and updat­ed it year­ly, record­ing com­plet­ed activ­i­ties. Results and future plans were reviewed and agreed upon at bian­nu­al work­shops.

Out­put B “Report on Dis­sem­i­na­tion Activ­i­ties and Imple­men­ta­tion Con­sult­ing” includes:

  • Strate­gic dis­sem­i­na­tion plan
  • Mea­sures and results of dis­sem­i­na­tion and imple­men­ta­tion con­sult­ing
  • Fur­ther dis­sem­i­na­tion mea­sures by all project part­ners
Oth­er Out­put B

Fund­ed by the Euro­pean Union. Views and opin­ions expressed are how­ev­er those of the author(s) only and do not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflect those of the Euro­pean Union or the Euro­pean Edu­ca­tion and Cul­ture Exec­u­tive Agency (EACEA). Nei­ther the Euro­pean Union nor EACEA can be held respon­si­ble for them.