Our sustainable development expert, Patrick, along with a nurse, circus artist, Olympic ath- lete, French teacher and others met at La Factry s offices for a first design-thinking ses- sion in January. A dozen people from diverse backgrounds and with no apparent ties to the construction industry shared their points of view and discussed ways to put the waste produced on our worksites to new use.
T hese discussions are far from over. Our new R&D lab was set up at La Factry to cultivate this collaboration and creativity, and to generate ideas that will move us forward.
La Factry is Canada s first creative skills training centre and stands out for its transdisciplinary approach.
Sectors that we never thought we would have partnered with are improving our ideas. For exa- mple, they re helping us adapt our approaches and supporting workers when we introduce new technologies on a worksite.
Since we joined La Factry, other businesses have followed suit and, together, we can trans- form the construction industry. Our collabo- ration with Canadian universities is another contributing factor.
Innovation as a driving force
Innovation is clearly the road forward if the indus- try is to meet the challenges it s facing. On the one hand, it must exponentially increase its pro- ductivity and, on the other, governments are relying on it to optimize the massive investments they will have to make to respond to urgent infrastructure needs over the next few decades.
Over the years, we ve built a culture that is rooted in innovation. Every employee is on the lookout for ways to improve our methods, processes and tools.
We re redoubling our efforts to support this commitment so that we can be at the forefront of innovation and digital transformation. We ve doubled the size of our Innovation group in three years, invested the necessary financial resources and adopted an 11-step process from the moment a need is expressed right through to post-deployment follow-up of a new technology or method.
Innovation born of creativity
and collaboration
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