Search results

The dream of better relationships among different supply chain partners; trust and transparency during different construction activities; integrated supply chain; completion of projects on time, within the agreed cost, with promised quality products and services, and so on, have now been achieved within the UK construction industry due to innovation within the project procurement processes and activities. There has also been a growing realisation that the promotion of innovative thinking, in procurement processes for supply chain integration, offers all the involved parties some key benefits in terms of more flexibility and adaptability, commercial growth, and improved quality of products, and delivered service. This paper highlights the benefits of, and the motivation towards innovative procurement through two case studies done as part of a supply chain integration project at the SCRI research centre. The case studies demonstrate how organizations involved have promoted innovative thinking across the supply chain through innovative procurement. The case studies also highlight some of the critical factors that motivated people within those firms to move from traditional way of procurement, and search, innovate, and implement the new procurement thoughts and models. The paper concludes that these studies offer transferable learning opportunities and motivation for the staff of other construction firms seeking to promote integration within their supply chains through innovative procurement routes.

In the UK healthcare sector, funding and provision of public care facilities has been primarily the responsibility of government through the National Health Service (NHS). After decades of under-investment and consequent effects on the quality of care, new procurement routes are currently being used to improve the standards of facilities to meet the requirements of modern care services. This paper critically reviews these new procurement routes in terms of concepts and suitable areas of application, and examines how the principal procurement methods have evolved into the forms used for UK healthcare facilities. The paper outlines recommendations for further research in assessing the suitability or otherwise of these new procurement methods, both for construction projects generally and specifically for healthcare facilities.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the concept of supply chain capital, which is formed through managing knowledge in supply chains on a long‐term basis.

The development of a conceptual model describing supply chain capital is achieved through extensive literature review, past research carried out by the authors, and past experiences of the authors within the construction industry.

The paper develops a conceptual model that provides a link between construction organisations and their learning activities as part of a project supply chain, resulting in creation of a learning organisation and a learning supply chain. The model shows that the learning supply chains consist of learning organisations which would create supply chain capital in order to promote innovation and creativity by managing knowledge in supply chains on a long‐term basis.

In addition to the establishment of the model, the paper suggests that the learning organisations would also establish a virtual knowledge transfer among themselves and the supply chains in which they are involved. The paper also suggests that, as unit of competition changes from organisation verses organisation to chain verses chain under supply chain management, supply chain capital will become increasingly important for sustaining competition within the construction industry. Therefore, supply chain capitals are to be created through managing knowledge in supply chains on a long‐term basis, using the proposed conceptual model. The model also facilitates innovation and creativity, essentially required to thrive in the downturned business environment of today in many countries in different parts of the world.

The paper's authors are the first to come up with the term “supply chain capital” in the research domain and to have developed the conceptual model for the construction industry.

Ongoing research and development into the implementation of concurrent engineering(CE) within the construction industry have made researchers think how to make CE implementation better, more effective, and more efficient. This has led researchers to investigate CE implementation efforts within other industry sectors, which suggest to carryout a CE readiness assessment of a construction organisation before the adoption of some CE aspects within the industry that has facilitated the CE adoption in other industries. Now the problem is that there is no model or tool available, which will help in assessing the readiness of the organisation. Therefore, this paper discusses the development of a CE readiness assessment model for the construction industry. It also includes a comparative review of existing readiness assessment tools and models that have been specifically developed and successfully used in the manufacturing andIT sectors. It argues that readiness assessment of a construction organisation is a necessity for the implementation of CE in construction and assesses the applicability of existing tools and models to the construction industry. And finally the development of a new readiness assessment model for the construction industry called “BEACON” is presented.

The aim of this paper is to investigate how a client's cooperative procurement procedures influence subcontractor involvement, value creation, and innovation in the construction of complex facilities.

Empirical data were collected through interviews, surveys and participation in workshops during a longitudinal action research case study. The case project was located in Sweden and concerned the construction of plant facilities for manufacturing of pharmaceutical products.

The case study findings reveal that the client's procurement procedures affect the level of subcontractor involvement and integration, but that this does not necessarily result in increased subcontractor value creation and innovation in the construction process.

Since the empirical results are based on data collected from only one case project, the possibilities for generalisations are limited.

Clients' procurement procedures heavily affect subcontractor involvement, but in order to increase subcontractor contributions to innovation and value creation the actors should adopt a long‐term perspective and actively work to establish an innovation‐friendly climate.

This paper focuses on the often‐neglected importance of subcontractors and their contributions to innovation and value creation.

The use of partnering has grown within the public sector of the UK construction industry. Central to partnering is the use of the partnering charter. The charter establishes the mutual objectives of the project team. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the types of objectives that are identified and the potential reasons for them.

A number of partnering workshops have been undertaken through one of the University of Salford's Enterprise Units, the Centre for Construction Innovation. Each of these generated a workshop report, which captured the discussions during the day. These have been analysed in order to establish the different mutual objectives that have been identified for different projects.

The results show that while the key issues of time, cost, quality and safety are still central to what teams identify as successful project delivery, issues surrounding management of relationships including external stakeholders, such as the public, are also prevalent. In addition, there is an increase in identified objectives surrounding sustainable development issues, covering social and environmental goals.

The findings provide strong indications that construction is moving towards a more complex regime of objectives in the context of value procurement and partnering arrangements. The objectives identified by the different project teams show that construction projects are now considering both soft management issues and sustainable development as central to the successful delivery of projects.

The construction industry is plagued by fragmentation of the functions carried out by the various disciplines involved in a project, particularly between the design and construction teams. Concurrent engineering (CE) is seen as a possible means of overcoming this problem. However, for the use of CE to produce the desired benefits, various issues have to be addressed, one of which is the use of appropriate organisational structures. To this effect, this paper explores organisational structures for the implementation of CE in the construction industry. It does so by first reviewing the main principles of, and issues concerning, CE and organisational structures, and by examining the structures which have been proposed for CE by researchers and those which have been used by manufacturing companies in their implementation of CE. By taking into account the peculiarities of the construction industry, this information is used, in conjunction with the results of case studies of companies within the industry, to suggest suitable types of corporate and project level organisational structures to support CE.

The purpose of this paper is to examine different categories of building project procurement routes based on organisational, contractual, financial and technical issues.

The paper is based on review of literature and conditions of contracts. The UK construction industry serves as a general frame of reference. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors survey of Contracts in Use from 1985 to 2004 is used to probe the share and value of contracts along different procurement routes and across different conditions of contracts in the UK. The logic is that the value and the share of contracts will indicate the behaviour of different procurement routes in the UK construction market while the in‐depth analysis of conditions of contracts will show the gaps and relationships between the general definition/categorisation and contractual context (conditions of contracts) of each of the procurement routes.

The preliminary result of the analysis shows that traditional routes remain the main type of procurement route for the construction project industry sector, within which different management and incentivisation systems are applied for greater efficiency. The conditions of contracts in the UK support this assertion by aligning different procurement routes to different conditions of contracts and additionally specifying different forms of agreements, special provisions and incentivisation in order to increase performance, reduce risks and improve compensation methods.

The study can serve as a learning opportunity for construction project stakeholders internationally, and clients in particular, to differentiate between procurement routes, management‐oriented systems, relational contracting and incentivisation.

The research provides an original assessment of construction procurement which can be used as intervening tool in different levels of private and public procurement strategies.

The objective of this paper is to present different perspectives on building “trust” among supply chain participants working on construction projects.

A case study methodology was adopted; with five construction projects selected as five case studies for the trust in construction project on the basis a selection criteria devised for the research project. Over 40 interviews were conducted with participants operating at different levels in their respective organisations and at different point in the supply chain.

The information provided by the multiple informants was, to a large extent, consistent with much of the academic literature relating to the importance of and barriers to trust. Specifically, the case studies highlighted: what people within the construction industry understand by trust, reliance, and honest professional relationship; the key factors that contribute towards building trust and factors that result into breakdown of trust; and organisational and project related factors that influence trust and relationships among people within the industry.

The findings from this study are limited due to: a small number of case studies undertaken, focused within the North West Region of England, and limited time and resources available. However, the ideas proposed for ways to develop trust in construction projects as seen from project findings have important implications for not only the clients but also for the main contractors and sub‐contractors who need to pay greater attention to build trusting and long‐term relationship as part of an integrated supply chain in order to deliver the continuous demand for services especially from public sector clients.

If more businesses operating in the construction sector gave more thought to the importance of trust in construction projects then this could have a significant impact on contract design and over all procurement strategy. Specifically the repetitive work carried out by the local authorities in the UK, such as school building and maintenance, social housing stock improvement, etc., can be subcontracted to the contractors on a longer term basis resulting into long term supply chain relationship among organisations and cost savings.

The research is among the first attempts in response to Latham report published in 1994, in order to explore the role of trust in construction projects, from the perspective of multiple stakeholders. The paper provides insights into the practical issues that prevent the widespread development of trust within the construction industry, which is a challenge that clearly warrants further attention from academics and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the characteristics of green building guidelines in developed countries and to analyze their influence on the evolution and adoption of similar guidelines in India.

This research reviews the green building guidelines in the developed as well as the developing countries such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design guidelines for new construction (LEED^® NC‐USA), Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM)‐UK, Comprehensive Assessment System for Building Environmental Efficiency (CASBEE)‐Japan, and LEED^®‐India and further performs a comparative analysis of these guidelines.

Based on the comparative analysis of LEED^® NC‐USA, BREEAM‐UK, and CASBEE‐Japan, the characteristics that might have affected their current acceptance were identified. The catalysts and hindrances associated with the acceptance of LEED‐India in India were identified based on the comparative analysis of LEED^® NC‐USA and LEED^®‐India.

With an exponential growth of construction industry in the rapidly developing countries, there is a definite need to promote the adoption of green building guidelines. The methodology adopted in this research can be applied to understand the evolution as well as future adoption of green building guidelines in other countries that are facing similar circumstances.