Recent Commerce Commission findings have included a strong recommendation for the establishment of a centralised digital national key products registry to increase trust and confidence in residential building supplies.
Research conducted by GS1 New Zealand in 2020, funded by the Building Levy via the Building Research Association of NZ (BRANZ), made this recommendation and the linkage to increased productivity across the building sector supply chains.
GS1 NZ is a leading player in the digital space in New Zealand, and a recognised authority on standardisation and services to identify, capture and share across the supply chain.
Earlier BRANZ research found that a lack of trusted digital product assurance data was a factor contributing to the use of non-conforming products in construction projects, with costs of approximately $232 million per year arising from product failures.
The research estimated that only a 6% reduction in the use of non-compliant products through making better product assurance information widely available would cover the investment required.
What the Commerce Commission is recommending is commonplace in other sectors, including food and grocery, and healthcare.
Products in these sectors are globally and uniquely identified, and structured data about these products is shared between trading partners and to regulators.
In fact, there are more than 100,000 products in GS1 NZ’s National Product Catalogue supporting the DIY/ hardware/ construction sector already.
Soon-to-be-published research indicates that 94% of building sector participants do not have the product data in a format that meets their purposes, and the majority support any registry to be a joint public-private partnership.
“The industry strongly supports the Commerce Commission’s and the earlier BRANZ research findings to establish a centralised national product catalogue to facilitate innovation, improve trust, reliability and productivity across the wider building sector,” Building Industry Federation chief executive Julian Leys says.
Commerce Commission relevant findings (Section 9.73 – 9.77)
“We recommend…[to] increase confidence and trust in products, particularly as new or innovative products are developed and used in New Zealand and internationally: Establish a national key building products register as a centralised repository for sharing information about building products.
Our preliminary view is that there would be benefit in introducing some form of centrally-operated national products register that:
• encourages, enables and incentivises the sharing of information about new or innovative building products and methods;
• includes links to Acceptable Solutions and Verification Methods; and
• enables sharing of information about new or innovative key building supplies, where Building Consent Authorities (BCAs) have approved them for use in Alternative Solutions and any difficulties which have been encountered in the use of these building supplies in consented projects.
A national products register would act as the primary reference source for information about building products, including the information that will be required to be disclosed as a result of the building law reforms.
This could make it easier for designers, builders and BCAs to find information about available building products, potentially reducing the barriers to the use of different building products.
Despite the Government previously discarding the concept of a national products register, some aggregation or co-ordination of available building product databases should be considered, especially as the new legislative requirement is likely to stimulate the development of more information.
We consider that it may be appropriate for the MBIE, as the responsible policy agency, to specify the way it operates, to ensure unbiased and reliable information.
However, there may be scope to contract out the construction and administration functions”.
• View the Commerce Commission’s full report here: https://comcom.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0028/289360/Draft-report-Residential-building-supplies-market-study-4-August-2022.pdf
