Good evening folks, or, since I am in Australia, maybe I should say “G’day”.  Yes, here I am “Down Under”.  I just love that term, down under.  Back in where I live Seattle we don’t feel like we are up over, but it is great to be here down under…g’day.

[SLIDE] My name is Dr Martyn Morelli and I am delighted to be here in Brisbane, or as you say Brisbun.  G’day!  I have been brought down under to talk to you about the future of the steel industry and how I, as a key player in the marketing of steel in Europe have influenced a turn-around in the construction industry.

[SLIDE]Tonight I will be speaking on how I personally influenced an increased market share for steel in the United Kingdom where steel’s [SLIDE] 71% share of the multi-storey office market is unprecedented. 

[SLIDE]  Let’s take a quick look at the history of building product market share of the last 20 years.  These figures were released early this year by Derek Mullett of Corus Steel  and Jef Robinson of Enigma Steel - and I can assure you that despite his name, Derek Mullett has a crew cut.

[SLIDE]  In 1980 steel was the poor cousin to Concrete with only 34% of the market compared to concrete’s 53% and with brick at 15% and paper at 0%.  Now you may laugh about the notion of multi-storey construction from cellulose based products, but as we move on, the figures may surprise you.

I won’t dwell on some of these intermediate figures for too long otherwise it will take us all night, however already, in 1982 you can see things are fairly stagnant.  Brick is on the rise as aggressive marketing and steep discounting make an impact.  Also, if you recall, this was a time of upheaval as the effects of being part of the wider European Community started to come into play with the dumping of cheap Italian concrete on the UK market.  1982 and 1983 also saw the start of inroad of Norwegian manufactured bricks onto the UK market in an almost successful attempt to corner the multi-storey market.

[SLIDE]  1983, 1984   [SLIDE]  and not much happened. The popularity of brick has already reached plateau.  Concrete is on a gentle decline and steel has a steady if slightly increasing market share.  It was at this point, mid 1984 that I took over as head of CONSTRADO, nowadays called the Steel Construction Institute.

Now I have to confess that my move to the UK was seen as another American invasion and they weren’t at all happy about a successful yank coming and taking over.  But as you can see from the figures in   [SLIDE]  1985 it wasn’t long before I made them eat their limey words.

You see, I performance bonus that was based on me making steel reach 50% of market share and eclipse concrete within three years.  However, in the somewhat spectacular fashion which has been the hallmark of my career, it was just on half that time, eighteen months, that saw these incredible results.  We’ll look at what I did that was successful in a moment.

Note also the figure on paper based products.  In 1985 as a result of an unforeseen Spanish campaign, paper made inroads of 4.8% into the market.  Paper? I hear you ask.  Well, not paper as such, but paper based cellulose derivatives, which when treated with a polymorphose resin has a remarkable tensile strength  and retains a rigidity that surprised even those who were working in the field.

However, as we step through year by year you will see what has happened.  The market share for Steel steadily increased along with brick, while concrete, apart from a minor marketing led lift in 1997 has sat at around 28% of the market.  Paper slid into deserving obscurity in 1987 once we started the “look what happens when it rains” rumour. [SLIDE]- to end of chart

It was in 1998 that a decision was made to try to cooperate with some of the European industry leaders.  I convinced them that what was good for one was good for us all and that if we increased the overall market share we would all gain.

So,  once they had me advising them from 1998, France and some other European saw similar trends in increased market share.  I think that my vision of strong, sustained technical and marketing development over several years, mainly directed towards multi-level building construction (two-storey to high rise), saw these incredible gains by steel in a market traditionally dominated by reinforced concrete-framed construction.  

[SLIDE]  I probably don’t have to tell you what the main construction competitors to steel are because we saw them in the graph a little earlier.    [SLIDE]  Concrete, with the advantage of many years of familiarity and a good record if done properly is always a threat, however I think the builders have now been sufficiently educated, as is reflected in the market share.  [SLIDE]  Brick will always be a force to reckon with as it has particular aesthetic qualities and a certain ease of construction that makes it unique.  However, as we all know it does have its limitation when in a string polymer environment and I think that as we move to the more exotic synthetic adhesives and cross-linking membranes, there will be certain technical problems that will be just too difficult and brick will slide in market share.

[SLIDE]  and timber will always be a sentimental favourite for specific tasks, and why not.  It is a very good material within its limits.  Also with the current push towards renewable resources and  the maturing of hardwood plantation timber, we will need to keep an eye on the timber industry and the greenies in their push for so-called sustainable development.

The question is , how are we gong to ensure that steel remains a dominant force?  There is more to a successful product than good marketing and using every trick you can to undermine your competition.  The backbone of any industry is a supply chain made of connected and committed links.  If there is not a commitment to those both above and below you in the chain, then just like in a real world chain, the chain will break and whatever you are trying to support with that chain will crash to the ground.

  [SLIDE]  Although this diagram is based on the UK steel industry I know it can apply to the industry anywhere in the world.  In fact, it is a generic chart in that many industries have a similar chain of supply.  Our supply chain is somewhat unique in that Steel is a base material from which everything from whitegoods to cars is made. 

The chain has five main links starting with raw material – obviously these are the people who get the ore out of the ground and focus on what they do best, digging holes.  I will be touching on globalisation a little later, but this is one area where I think you Aussies have to watch yourselves.  The over-regulation of your union movement is being seen globally as leaving you wide open for exploitation.  I know that you people aren’t directly involved with that side of steel production, however, I suggest you become familiar with the global trends and how they are stacking up.

  [SLIDE] Then the steel maker takes over and converts that ore into the product that still gives me goose-bumps when I think about it, steel. Think about what a great generic brand steel is folks.  Everyone uses Steel, it is studied in school in various ways, it dates back a long way in human history and has revolutionised the human experience.  Steel is something to be proud of and I for one am incredibly proud of what I do to make Steel a larger part of people’s lives.   [SLIDE]  Once the product has been manufactured, the all-important stock-holder steps in and maintains a ready supply of material.  Nowadays the trend in the UK, as is happening all over the world, is for one company to try to dominate the entire chain.  This has come about through the increased use of electronic ordering enabling Just In Time orders being placed.  For those not familiar with this concept, and it is especially endemic in the automobile industry.  Rather than a company holding a large amount of stock in house as feeder material, they have regular deliveries, sometimes several times a day, bringing them just what is needed for the production run that is scheduled.

The issue is that the stock-holder must have more stock on hand and their cash flow is therefore substantially reduced.  As this happens, it enables the bigger players to muscle their way in using their superior financial leverage.  The recent merger, or could we call it take-over, of Billiton and BHP is a classic example of one massive company doing their best to dominate the global market.

Although I don’t like the way things are shaping up in that regard, I have noticed that it has lead to an innovative link in the chain, what I call   [SLIDE]  the middleman.  Often this link exists on nothing more than paper and is a shameless effort to jack up prices and a greedy, grubby attempt to gain more profit from what is already a very healthy earner.

And who pays the middleman?   [SLIDE]  the contractor, and of course, ultimately, the client and ultimately the user and ultimately the entire economy, but since we are talking about the European economy and not the American, it doesn’t bother me too much as long as I am making a bit on the side.

If you think about it, this chain works from the top down.  There is no point in digging those holes if no one is building anything out of steel.  So we need people to use steel and that is what drives the machine.  How do we get people to use steel?  By coming up with innovative products, processes and technologies.

The question often asked of me is “what is it that drives innovation?”.   A lot of people think that innovation is driven by the research labs.  The idea being that when they come up with a new product, technique or process that it is seen to be a good thing, adopted by companies and through their marketing arms ends up out in the marketplace.

But I have done some research of my own and it is detailed in the publication I will have for sale later in the night if anyone is interested.  Now, I know there have been some well-publicised attempts to discredit the findings I am about to show you, but I have 110% confidence in my work and doubt very much that anyone will find fault in anything I do.

I kept a watching brief on several steel CRCs that is, Centres for co-operative research and what I noticed was that rather than them driving the market place, their work is driven by the marketplace.  In fact, it is when someone comes to them with a concept that they swing into action and find ways to improve that concept and in doing so they take pride in stealing the thunder from honest, hardworking marketers and true innovators like me.

Am I bitter?  Sure I am, I have a pride in my work and I don’t like seeing someone else taking credit for what I have done.  But I have a personal policy of allowing others to steal my ideas if they want.  I forgive, but I never forget.  Let’s move on before I get carried away about those Europeans and their Neanderthal attitudes to my brilliant ideas.

  [SLIDE]  Some interesting facts are illustrated when we look at the reasons behind the choice to use steel.  As you can see these figures are what came out of a survey taken in 1982, so it is fairly dated, but knowing how slowly they move in Britain compared to the U S A, I doubt things have changed much.   [SLIDE]     [SLIDE] 

Steel was chosen as the construction medium in a massive 87% of cases because of the perceived speed of construction.  Of course, this comes back to time being money and if you can get it up quickly, then you will save an enormous amount on your building costs.   [SLIDE] 

Moving down the list, faster design is a real plus with Steel, accounting for 37% of cases.  Notice, speed is the factor again showing that anything we can do to help speed up the design and construction process is going to win our industry market share.   [SLIDE] 

Well the reasons start falling off here, Flexibiliy   [SLIDE]  Simplicity   [SLIDE]  Prefabrication   [SLIDE]  and cost all coming in close together in the mid teens   [SLIDE]  with Strength way down.  This was quite a surprise and what my personal research showed was not that people do not regard steel as being strong, rather that they have faith in the design process and trust that whatever the engineers choose, will be strong enough.  Finally   [SLIDE]  steel is sometimes chosen because of other factors that affect the decision making process.

  [SLIDE]  Lets compare those figures to the might USA, USA, USA, USA…sorry, I forgot myself there, I forgot that I was “downunder” and was just behaving like we always do back home. G’day.

  [SLIDE]  As you can see, Speed of Erection is more important for 92% of Americans compared with 87% of the British.  Perhaps it says something about the limp British economy.

  [SLIDE]  But notice that “other factors that affect the decision making process” has risen from 1% to 4%, this demonstrates to me the fluid nature of the American economy and how it can adapt to a situation quickly and with vigour.  Of course, when you do a survey in the United States there are always some people who are suspicious and that accounts for the   [SLIDE]  3% who wouldn’t answer.

While here I have been down to Port Kembla and talking to management there about the impacts of globalisation on the industry.  Like many people they are extremely concerned about the way things are heading.  I would like to quote from their internal report entitled “Globalisation, is it a world-wide phenomenon?” by researcher Steve Davis and his team.

A world market might, in fact lead to a fractured and diversified industry where the globalisation forces create a set of splintered partnerships and the participatory rate is reduced to the point where a considered and weighted advantage undermines the intended benefits offered by dominant factors that supplant the most intractable collapse of strategic alignments in an investment scenario that includes fully weighted opinions generated from random government sources.  

Now if anyone has ANY idea what any of that means, I would be pleased to hear it.  But it illustrates the problem we have in communicating with people.  The issues nowadays are so complex that it is becoming more and more difficult to explain them in lay terms.

This abuse of the English language is a perfect example.  I think we all know that English is not an easy language.  I mean what other language would be so as to put an “S” in the word “lisp”?   Notice that it is once sentence made up of 68 words – gobbledegook at its finest.  Now, I regard myself as one of the world’s leading authorities in this area and I had trouble making head or tail of it, so I can’t imagine that you lot will do any better.

In fact, it came to my attention that this sentence was awarded the Australian Better English Association commendation for gobbledegook.   [SLIDE]  You should have seen the winner…then again, maybe you shouldn’t.   [SLIDE] 

Let’s look at some of the innovations.  One that came along a few years ago after a client, after a dispute with a company who had the monopoly on props needed a solution to flooring without the use of any props.   Driven by client need, the labs went back to their little steel drawing boards and came up with steel decking.   [SLIDE] Here is a floor being laid and what is amazing about this photo?  No, not that this bloke is doing a Michael Jackson impression by wearing only one glove.

The incredible thing is that there are only two people in the photo and you can see the ease with which they are laying the floor.  You can also get a sense of just how much floor the two of them would get constructed during an average shift.

Notice, there are no props, there is no formwork, reinforcing, concreters, concrete pumps, cranes and on and on with all the tools and specialists you need to pour a concrete floor.  These guys can work in any weather and as soon as they have put down a section, they can walk on it…no curing time.

What impact has this had?   [SLIDE]  Long span steel flooring has risen from nothing 17 years ago to three and a half million square metres a year now.

But have a closer look at the photo and see if you can spot a potential money and weight saving solution… Castellated beams   [SLIDE]  is the answer.  Steel decking supported by long span castellated beams as shown here has produced an unbeatable combination in the UK and European markets and is taking the world by storm.  And why wouldn’t it.  With computer operated machinery these days it needs only one worker to keep an eye on the process and move the cutter from beam to beam and the throughput is enormous.

  [SLIDE]  and if you use your imagination, you can see how this structure can also be used by plumbers, electricians and data cable layers without having to create voids through critical load bearing structures.

With cellform beams now running at over twenty thousand metric tonnes per year, it has become a common product in Europe wherever a span of 14 to 18 metres is required.  It also give the computer programmers a chance to display their sense of humour by leaving their “signature” on each building.  [SLIDE].  But the point is a valid one, as it shows how versatile the technology is and can be.

As I said, there was a particular building that was a catalyst for this technology when they had trouble in construction.  That project was  [SLIDE] “Le Colisee II at Saint Quen” on the edge of Paris.   This building was constructed with and incredible with   [SLIDE]  17 metre clear spans and became the most lettable office in the area.

The story is that in the first phase, the building was constructed using concrete and as we shall see, too quite some time to let, thus costing the owners a considerable amount in lost income and also delayed the construction of phase two.

The client was at a loss when I stepped in and suggested cellform beams.  You must appreciate that at this point   [SLIDE]  the phase two had already been designed as short span concrete frame  with internal columns.

My radical idea involved a huge amount of trust, but my reputation warranted it.    [SLIDE]  I proposed redesigning in steel removing ALL internal columns.  Believe it or not, this resulted in no increate in construction depth.

  [SLIDE]  So, phase one, constructed out of short span concrete took almost 2 years to let.  On the same site   [SLIDE]  in phase 2.  Well, you can see the results of my incredible work for yourselves.  Long form steel, extra cost?  Less than one percent.  And just how much do you think that was recouped by being totally let in less than 48 hours?

But once again, it was a combination of marketing, innovation and talent that made it happen.  I have to admit that it was my idea that at his open day the client, Marcel Voiret, present his pitch leaning against a column.

Then, to demonstrate the benefits of long span construction he actually moved the column to a different   [SLIDE]  point in the room and continued his pitch to prospective tenants from various positions on one floor leaning up against a false column on castors. 

The effect was sensational.  Tenants had a vision of what the room could have looked like with all those columns and then they saw the possibilities with a clear span. As I mentioned, the 12,000 square metres of office space let in 48 hours and I pocketed a considerable fee along with a well deserved boost in my reputation.

But it was more than just the column.  I suggested to Monsieur Voiret that he combine some sort of entertainment in his presentation.  Unbeknownst to me he knew how to juggle and proceeded to do a very funny show.  I can remember some of it and would like to share it with you.

At which point I adlibbed my way into my comedy show.  If you are reading this because you are thinking of booking me, you ought to know that it was an incredible success, with a collective gasp from the audience when I revealed myself.