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Reports on research based on the results of a survey of design management in the UK mechanical engineering industry. Considers the issue of which aspects of production were considered in the design of products and when. Demonstrates that at the prototype stage production aspects became the most important. This shows that the manufacturability of the product is not considered until after it has been designed. Concludes that the effective and efficient manufacture of the product is not given sufficient attention by mechanical engineering firms. Also investigates the involvement of production personnel in the design process. Finds that production engineering was more extensively involved in the design process the closer it moved towards manufacture. Points to further research which hopes to address this lack by providing practical tools for the application of concurrent engineering.

The objective of this paper is to draw up management guidelines on environmental sustainability for architectural and engineering design firms.

The paper is derived from a research experience between 2010 and 2018. That experience comes from three source sets: Management Development Program for Design Firms from the Research Line of Management Design, Department of Civil Construction Engineering, University of São Paulo in Brazil; papers including a doctoral thesis; and literature review. Revisiting and investigating processes were conducted by research questions, resulting in lessons learned, management difficulties and guidelines.

The guidelines were drawn up from a strategic sphere, understanding internal and external factors to the firm, diagnosis of the firm's management and sustainability, a building sustainability plan, implications of the plan for management processes, plan monitoring and control and plan evaluation.

The studies were mostly conducted in Brazil, and one of them in the USA. Other studies could be carried out in other countries comparing findings or implementing the guidelines.

The findings will provide feedback to Management Development Program for Design Firms (PDGEP) in the action research method. Moreover, the knowledge about firm's capabilities can advance understanding of architectural and engineering (AE) design firm management as support for sustainability, performance and building information modeling (BIM).

Architectural and engineering design firms are hardly discussed; design is treated in the building project context, giving prominence to technical solutions, not to management ones.

Architectural and engineering firms (design firms) have eschewed implementing quality assurance (QA) and other subsequent aspects of quality such as continuous improvement. Their reluctance to embrace QA has been found to be a contributing factor in the production of poor quality contract documentation. Missing, conflicting and erroneous information contained within contract documentation are major sources of rework and customer dissatisfaction in construction projects. If design firms are to significantly improve the quality of the service they provide, they should implement ISO 9000 quality management and assurance standards. By implementing such standards, it is suggested that design firms will be able to contribute more effectively to the value adding process in the construction supply chain. It is argued that the service offered by design firms should be viewed as a key component of value that drives its success. Therefore, because rework is a major source of dissatisfaction in projects, a case study was used to determine how its occurrence inhibited value creation and thus the quality of service provided. From the case study findings, the need for design firms to implement ISO 9000 quality management and assurance standards so as to improve their service quality is discussed.

Knowledge contribution loafing as one of the major obstacles to knowledge sharing among designers in engineering design firms impedes better achievement of engineering design. The purpose of this paper is to examine different types of ethical climate impacts on knowledge contribution loafing among designers through the mediating effect of knowledge leadership.

By adopting a quantitative research design, data were collected using a survey questionnaire from 352 designers in engineering design firms. The data were analyzed using the partial-least squares structural equation modeling approach to test hypotheses.

Ethical climate is an important factor to affect knowledge contribution loafing among designers, and three types of ethical climate (self-interest, social responsibility and law/professional codes) have different degrees of influence on knowledge contribution loafing. In addition, knowledge leadership can alleviate knowledge contribution loafing, and it is a mediator between ethical climate and knowledge contribution loafing.

Engineering design firms should cultivate and strengthen the role of social responsibility, law/professional codes and knowledge leadership and reduce the influence of self-interest to mitigate the negative of knowledge contribution loafing among designers.

By identifying ethical climate as a novel influence factor for knowledge contribution loafing, this research further highlights the role of different types of ethical climate in an engineering design context. Moreover, it delves deeply into the issue around different types of ethical climate affect knowledge contribution loafing among designers through the role of knowledge leadership. This broadens the understanding of how ethical climate affects knowledge contribution loafing among designers in the engineering design organizations and enriches knowledge management literatures in engineering design industry.

The purpose of this article is to provide scenarios for the incorporation of sustainable waste minimisation strategies that were determined during a research project that investigated sustainable engineering and construction processes.

The research included a thorough review of sustainable engineering and construction practices throughout the world and the collection of additional information from high‐level executives from some of the top ranked global engineering and construction firms. The research was limited to collecting data from high‐level engineering and construction executives since they were the most knowledgeable about the use of sustainable strategies within their firm.

The results determined the main types of construction waste and sustainable strategies that could be used to minimise the amount of waste generated by the construction industry.

he research was limited to collecting data from high‐level engineering and construction executives since they were the most knowledgeable about the use of sustainable strategies within their firms. The research could affect members of the engineering and construction industry, since it provides methods for implementing sustainable strategies that help to reduce the amount of waste generated by the construction industry.

The research is unique because it addressed waste minimisation strategies for the building construction industry and for the industrial and heavy/highway construction industries.

Marketing‐manufacturing interface is becoming an increasingly important research area, as the firms unable to reduce inter‐departmental conflict find their global competitiveness compromised. Due to inevitable interaction of marketing and manufacturing with design engineering in conflict and resolution, there is a need to increase the scope of the research area of manufacturing‐marketing interface to include design (engineering) and establish appropriate interfaces between each pair of these domains. Some firms are practising concurrent engineering to minimise the conflict between design and manufacturing departments. Several interface variables can be used to resolve inter‐departmental conflict. A firm’s decision to pursue a particular interface requires commitment, investment and change in culture. What type of interface should a firm choose? This paper introduces a conceptual framework to resolve this dilemma. Specifically, the contribution of this paper is at least threefold. First, it characterises the possible conflicts that can arise due to interaction between the three functional areas – marketing, manufacturing, and design. Design is recognised as a separate function in its own right. Second, it identifies and describes possible variables that can be utilised as interfaces to resolve conflicts. Third, it establishes a methodology to develop a framework to assess inter‐departmental conflict and identify an optimal mix of interface variables to resolve all possible conflicts. The paper concludes with an actual case study involving a global marketing‐manufacturing company and provides an application of this framework and methodology.

This research aims to examine the practice of design for safety (DfS) in the construction industry of Saudi Arabia.

The study has adopted a mixed-method approach through the use of questionnaire surveys administered to professionals in architecture and engineering firms, as well as follow-up interviews with selected participants. The participants consisted of architects, structural engineers and electromechanical engineers. The study investigated dimensions related to knowledge and awareness, attitude toward DfS implementation and critical success factors for DfS implementation. These various dimensions have been assessed accordingly through the mean ratings in the relevant section of this paper. The thematic responses obtained from the follow-up interviews have been summarized and presented.

The findings from this study reveal a high level of awareness of DfS in Saudi Arabia. It also revealed that the most influential critical success factors are legislation and awareness of stakeholders, whereas the major barrier is the fear of cost overruns by the clients and their representatives.

The design stage of construction projects is crucial to enhancing the safety performance of projects through effective control of hazardous situations. The concept of DfS is, however, immature in many countries, such as Saudi Arabia, due to lack of awareness, enabling policies and other barriers. The value of this study is that it shows the current level of knowledge and practice of DfS in architecture and engineering firms in Saudi Arabia and consequently triggers the interest of stakeholders in its adoption and implementation.

This study aims to investigate how the processes of memory acquisition, retention, retrieval and application occur in project-based organizations (PBOs). In this kind of organization, the nature of corporate memory is influenced by the transience, uniqueness and independence of the project portfolio. Such understanding may help practitioners to mitigate the effects of project transience and promote knowledge sharing among project teams.

An empirical and qualitative study was carried out through a multiple case study approach conducted in three Brazilian Engineering Design Firms, which are organized by projects. Document analysis, direct observation and semi-structured interviews with engineers, project managers and executives were conducted.

The memory acquisition process takes place in five forms which have different sources and destinations when comparing PBOs with traditional organizational settings. Memory retention in PBOs crosses organizational boundaries and establishes a knowledge network of former employees and third parties. The PBOs project memory can be divided into volatile and perennial memory, where the former can be lost throughout project execution and the latter is internalized, becoming an inseparable part of the corporate memory. Memory retrieval in PBOs is also distinct since it has particular mechanisms depending on whether the knowledge is technical or administrative.

The research investigates the corporate memory processes within the volatile context of PBOs in a Latin-American developing country whose culture favors tacit knowledge exchange. The paper proposes a framework that unveils different patterns of knowledge acquisition, temporary and perennial retention structures, intensive usage of external knowledge in memory retrieval and particular memory applications in PBOs. The framework may guide scholars, project managers, engineers and practitioners in navigating through the uniqueness of organizational learning flows and structures in PBOs.

This paper presents a developed spatial-temporal analysis framework for the case of investigating the business performance of construction consultancy services (CCS) in China.

The spatial-temporal analysis is based on the data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique. The spatial analysis follows the DEA results under a contemporaneous benchmark technology and a virtual decision-making unit, consisting of ranking analysis, cluster analysis and variation analysis. The temporal analysis is reliant on the DEA results under a global benchmark technology and the time value of money, including trend analysis and driving force analysis containing pure technical and scale efficiency factors.

Three CCS types in China are investigated, including engineering survey and design, construction supervision and procurement agency. The performance rank order and cluster classifications are mainly related to economic development levels. Engineering survey and design demonstrates the best performance and higher imbalances; however, construction supervision and procurement agency illustrate lower performance and imbalances. Scale efficiency significantly promotes business performance, whereas pure technical efficiency plays an inconspicuous role.

The CCS promote technical efficiency by developing their service and innovation levels. The service of engineering survey and design registered in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong is recommended for entering the service market in China.

The spatial-temporal analysis framework was developed, which is generic and provides a pathway to measure, compare and assess performance comprehensively. The CCS business performance is firstly measured.

This paper aims at studying the level of implementation of ISO 9001 in Jordanian consulting engineering firms and to what extent does the implementation effectiveness affect the success of the construction projects. Moreover, the paper seeks to identify the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) that directly influence the ISO 9001 effectiveness in Jordanian consulting engineering firms.

A questionnaire was constructed and distributed to a sample of 125 employees from six ISO 9001-consulting firms. After collecting the data, exploratory factor analysis was utilized to validate the latent constructs (CSFs, ISO 9001 Effectiveness, and Firm Performance).

The findings suggest that firms experience a high level of ISO 9001 effectiveness. Moreover, among the five identified CSFs; employee attributes, external environmental pressure and quality system attribute had a significant impact on the ISO 9001 effectiveness, while internal motivation and firm attributes were insignificant.

The significance of this study lies in exploring such topic in the developing countries, since most of current studies were focused on developed contexts such as the USA and UK. Therefore, this research acts as a response to calls in the current literature regarding considering different industries and contexts.