Assurance, governance & de-risking partner for programme delivery
From day one we read where time and value are being lost, and drive the productivity and efficiency that keep the programme on schedule and budget. And if your programme has already drifted, that is exactly the work we do: we bring it back.
Driving the plan, together.
Who we are
"You've had reporting. What's been missing is interpretation, and someone who owns the improvement."
Devout is a team of practitioners with one focus: improving the productivity and efficiency of capital project delivery. We go into programmes, analyse where time and value are being lost, forecast where delivery is heading, and agree the improvements with you and your contractors. Then we work them, week by week, until the programme is back on schedule and budget.
Our digital platform comes with us. Site teams give us the evidence in seconds, and your managers get live visibility of the same platform and are welcome to use it themselves, with extensive productivity information and weekly and monthly reports. What you engage is the consultants, the platform and the improvement.
The problem we solve
Most programmes have a fair idea of where their time goes. Site teams know the shifts lost to weather, planning, access and materials, and the reports record them faithfully. What rarely happens next is the part that matters: sizing which of those issues will keep costing time on the work still to build, agreeing a plan to improve them, and then working that plan until the gains land. That is what we do. We use the data and the platform to identify the issues worth fixing, look at each one through a lean lens, and improve it going forward.
How many hours did we lose last week, and to exactly what?
Which of those causes will take the same time again on the work still to build?
Which single asset is holding our completion date?
What would it cost to buy a month back, and is it worth paying?
These are forward looking questions, and standard reporting isn't built to answer them. We put the answers in front of you within a couple of weeks, then build the plan to act on them.
How our consultants work
Capture is the easy part, and every tool does it. We actually start earlier than that: your programme and your contract are loaded into the platform first, so the analysis holds historical productivity from the start of the job and the rates the contract requires. Our edge is in the two steps in the middle: how we read the reason codes, and how we forecast where the programme is heading.
We load your programme and contract before a single shift is logged, so the analysis starts with history from day one. From there, site teams record output and the reason work didn't complete on a phone, in 60 to 90 seconds, with no new burden on the workforce.
Every lost hour is tied to a cause and separated into preventable loss and what you can't control, like weather. Which codes recur, on which asset, and why: that reading is the work.
Our IPWe price the recurring causes against the work still to build, rank each asset by the value at stake, and forecast where the programme finishes if nothing changes. Because the contract sits alongside the data, you also get early sight of compensation events building and of productivity non-conformance, so you see them coming rather than finding out afterwards.
Our IPOur consultants take the improvement targets agreed with you and your contractors to your delivery partners, and work them in lean improvement sessions, shift by shift, until the productivity lands and the programme moves back onto plan.
The digital toolkit we bring
You don't buy or run any software. The digital toolkit arrives with us: a phone capture on site that takes 60 to 90 seconds a shift, a data layer, and dashboards with AI narrated reporting. Site teams give us the evidence, and your managers get live visibility of the same platform and can use it themselves, with extensive productivity information and weekly and monthly reports that stand up to regulatory scrutiny. Every time you refresh, the AI reads all the numbers again and rewrites the management narrative, so the story around your data keeps sharpening the more you look. It's the instrument our analysis runs on, from the site engineer's phone to the boardroom.
The same platform your teams feed on site: live delivery position, the programme S-curve, and productivity measured against benchmark and target. These are illustrative demonstration pages.
A capital programme is a production system, and the platform is built to run it like one: intervene early, monitor continuously, adjust quickly. Work is captured on site, flows into the data lake, comes out as dashboards and analysis, and becomes agreed improvement with your partners, before small losses grow into months.
We agree the percentage improvement and the value with you and your contractors up front, then run lean improvement sessions until it lands.
Why Devout
Productivity improvement delivered on major programmes across water, highways and nuclear, with measurable gains on standard activities such as earthworks, drainage and asphalt, independently reported in the construction trade press. It's a founder track record, not theory.
Our IP is in how we read non-completion codes and forecast the programme's future, pricing the fix and ranking where value is won back. Software describes what happened. We act on what's still ahead.
No software to buy, nothing for IT to run. We bring the people and the digital platform, and your managers get live visibility of it. The improvement is agreed with you and your contractors, and you can verify it in your own data. It is governance your board and your regulator can stand behind.
Where we work
Anywhere multiple assets and supply-chain partners run concurrently and nobody can compare them like for like.
AMP8 and the wider utilities investment cycle are moving now, across reservoirs, networks and treatment, with delivery efficiency under regulatory scrutiny.
An established track record on the national road network, where the reported productivity gains were delivered, just as the RIS3 road period begins.
Long-duration programmes where productivity gains compound over the life of the works, and small rate improvements move the finish date.
Prior delivery experience on a major nuclear new build civils programme. These are long duration works where measured productivity is decisive.
Large earthworks, materials handling and civils on mine builds and expansions, where plant utilisation and cycle times set the cost of delivery.
A productivity partnership that evidences delivery and protects margin, working alongside the supply chain rather than marking your homework.
Energy, transmission and government major projects, wherever schedule and cost risk sit on the critical path.
How we engage
There are two ways to work with us. Join us at the start, when the data spine costs least to build and we can de-risk the programme from day one, or bring us in mid-delivery to get it back on track. Either way the aim is the same: narrowing the focus to the work that secures your completion date, and building the business case with you where it is worth bringing that date forward. We sit down with your numbers. In a working session we analyse where your programme is losing time, show you the value still ahead, and walk through how we'd bring it back. The platform is part of that conversation, not the point of it.
A short diagnostic over four weeks: interviews across your team and delivery partners, your digital maturity rated against a clear curve, the uplift potential quantified, and a practical roadmap, with the platform demonstrated live on your own programme. It sets the scope for everything that follows.
Configure your programme, assets, reason codes and targets, then take a first read of where the value sits.
Daily shift capture on site, AI-narrated weekly and monthly reporting, and supply-chain productivity forums.
Value ranked focus, uplift targets and the business case, worked with your supply chain until it lands against the improvement targets you've agreed with your contractors.
What clients get
On standard construction activities such as earthworks, drainage and asphalt.
To schedule and budget through measured efficiency, not supervision.
Your partners finish the programme more productive than they arrived.
Your managers get live access to the platform, with extensive productivity information and weekly and monthly reports.
Who you'll be working with
Founder & Managing Director
I have spent more than twenty years in strategy, operations and productivity across capital project and programme delivery, working in the UK, Europe, Asia and Africa. After a professional sporting career I built on my graduate studies with an MBA, and later a sustainability qualification from Cambridge, then went on to work on major programmes with organisations including Heathrow, National Highways, BP, the Sizewell C nuclear build, BHP Billiton, Anglo American and De Beers, along with the majority of the UK's tier one contractors and many tier two specialist contractors.
Across those programmes I kept seeing the same thing: schedule and cost running over, often by tens of millions of pounds. Everyone could point at the problems. What I could never find was a way of pricing them against the work still to build, and a team that stayed on to drive the value out.
That is why I started Devout Consulting four years ago, to go deeper into construction productivity and efficiency, the field I had already spent years working in. I wanted a consultancy armed with both: a platform that identifies the issues on a programme, looks forward and prices the best route through them, and builds the business case for bringing the finish date closer, and the consultants to take that value and drive it out.
That is what we built. The platform finds and prices the opportunity, and our people go in and work with you and your supply chain to turn it into a real outcome, delivering the productivity and efficiency, and saving you money.
One more thing I have learned along the way. Governance on capital project delivery is tightening, and oversight bodies expect reporting that stands up at every level, from the site to the board. It is why clients increasingly bring us in from the start, as an assurance, governance and de-risking partner across the life of the programme. Seen early, the risks never become losses, and the saving can run to millions of pounds.
"Sport taught me that teamwork is the best way to win. I believe the same in business. Teamwork, collaboration and alignment are how you achieve your goals. It is why our strapline is driving the plan, together."
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Book a working session. We'll analyse where your programme is losing time, show you the value still ahead, and walk through how we'd bring it back, with the platform as part of the conversation.
