EHAB Weather Ledger – Impact Assessment Report

The Weather Ledger project explores the potential for site-specific IoT devices, Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), data insights and smart contracts to reduce costly and time-consuming negative impacts of weather in the construction industry. The proposed solution is a suite of hardware and software that aims to reduce foreseen and unforeseen weather risk, namely: automating key stages of weather-related Compensation Event claims processes; helping site teams manage day-to-day weather risk; and applying historic weather-data analysis to site schedules at pre-planning stages, identifying unidentified risk.

This report explores the potential benefits of onsite IoT and DLT technology to streamline some of these processes, equip site teams with better insights into weather risk, and support day-to-day management of sites. During the project, five compensation claims were triggered across four study sites, with the largest claim accounting for 21 weeks of calendar duration to resolve the claim. This claim is still ongoing at time of writing at the end of February 2021. During claims negotiations periods, close to £700,000 across the four study sites being claimed and is at risk, with varying degrees of uncertainty on how much will be borne by client and how much by contractor, or when payment will be agreed.

This report has been published as part of an Innovate UK funded project, with consortium partners inputting to problem definition, solution design, smart contract design, standards design and development of the solution from prototype to Minimum Viable Product to Enterprise Level Software. This research has been contributing to and learning from industry and user insights led by our project partners Digital Catapult and EHAB, in collaboration with BAM Nuttall, Ferrovial Corporation UK and Clyde & Co.