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The model and existing practice of the construction supply chain (CSC) in the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia was presented in this chapter. The policies and reports that support the practice of the CSC were examined in both countries. It was discovered from the review of literature that the UK has a more detailed report targeted at improving the CSC than Australia. However, both countries have a common factor affecting their CSC which originates from fragmentation experienced within their supply chain. Construction stakeholders in the UK and Australia believe that collaboration and integration are vital components for improving performance. The majority of the contractors in both countries embrace collaborative working for the sole purpose of risk sharing, access to innovation and response to market efficiency. However, most of the models developed for managing the CSC in the UK are built around building information modelling (BIM). Also, the reviewed studies show that supply chain management practice will be effective following the following principle: shared objectives, trust, reduction in a blame culture, joint working, enhanced communication and information-sharing. Finally, the UK has a more established framework and more CSC models compared to Australia.

Housing completions in the UK have fallen to 125,000 annually, while government targets have risen to 300,000. This dramatic shortfall raises concerns as to whether current traditional construction approaches remain appropriate. This study aims to compare the traditional approach with modular construction, with a view to assessing whether a shift in construction systems offers the potential to alleviate the UK's domestic housing crisis.

A comprehensive interpretivist review of the available relevant literature is undertaken on construction methods within the UK; advantages and disadvantages. A bibliometric analysis is conducted to extract trends and findings relevant to the comparison at hand. The database is Web of Science; the analysis software is the VOS viewer.

The research illustrates that the UK housing market is in a state of crisis. A toxic combination of a rising UK population combined falling rates of housing delivery has resulted in an ever-widening housing supply gap. The construction industry’s capacity to meet this observed dearth in supply is further exacerbated by a number of chronic factors such as: falling participation in the construction sector workforce; lowering skill levels; reducing profitability; time to delivery pressures; and cost blow-outs.

While much information on the various construction methods are available, including comparative material, this study is the first to assemble the various comparative parameters regarding traditional and modular UK residential construction in one place. Thus, this study provides a definitive assessment of the relative advantages and disadvantages of these forms of construction.

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.

International comparisons of contractor performance allow contractors in different countries to distinguish their own strengths and weaknesses and improve their competitiveness accordingly. Based on a survey of contractors in Japan, the UK and the US, contractor time performance is evaluated and compared. It is found that Japanese contractors achieve shorter construction times and higher levels of time certainty than their UK and US counterparts. Furthermore, anticipated delays are far shorter in Japan and levels of client satisfaction are significantly higher than in the US and UK. The superior performance of Japanese contractors may be attributed to their working practices which were characterized by the use of a larger workforce on site, detailed planning, close working relationships with their subcontractors, and an overriding focus on time certainty.

The purpose of this paper is to report on findings from the first stage of an ongoing research with regard to the UK construction industry's perception of offsite production (OSP) adoption/uptake, in an attempt to inform the second stage of the research (not reported in this paper) to infer the skills/knowledge areas needed for the wider uptake of OSP.

The objective of this paper was to capture the UK construction industry's perception vis‐à‐vis OSP characteristics using a quantitative approach. Postal surveys were employed to collect industry perception which was then analysed statistically for inference and conclusion.

Findings from 36 large construction organisations suggest that irrespective of respondents' organisations prime activity or professions, the majority of respondents perceive OSP to be the future of the UK construction industry; with a considerable belief that the industry is ready to embrace OSP. Nevertheless, the industry do not seem to fully appreciate OSP, which is implied by the uncertainty recorded in most of the responses.

Whilst the data validity and sample set coherence can be considered robust and defendable, it should be acknowledged that care needs to be taken when interpreting results, especially as the data collected depended heavily on the survey approach. Furthermore, these findings are limited to the UK context only, as such, the level of generalisability/repeatability outside this context may not be representative of the findings presented here.

OSP falls under the overarching umbrella of modern methods of construction, which is high on the UK Government Agenda. OSP has attracted numerous research over the last decades; however, there is limited literature to quantify industry perception in this regard, especially to enable the inference and prioritisation of skills and knowledge areas needed to support the wider uptake of OSP (not reported in this paper).

The purpose of this paper is to identify how the newly emerging UK practice of “collaborative planning” (CP) for construction project delivery aligns with the advocated principles of the global last planner system (LPS) of production planning and control.

A mixed, qualitative, exploratory approach was adopted for the study. This entailed qualitative data through three techniques, namely: semi-structured interviews, documents analysis, and structured observation. In total, 30 in-depth interviews were conducted over a 12 month period with lean construction consultants, clients, main contractors, and subcontractors drawn from the building, highways and infrastructure and rail sector. In all, 15 projects were visited where practices were observed.

The study reveals that the current practice of CP in the UK partially aligns with the LPS principles. Where practitioners have heard of the LPS they believe it to be the same practice as CP.

This study is limited to 30 interviews, observation of 15 projects and document analysis. The aim of the study is not to generalise the findings, however, since the study examined top construction companies and practitioners in the UK and the findings were consistent across the sample, some conclusions could be made. The study is also limited to examining the construction phase only, future studies should incorporate the design phase.

A clear identification of the elements of current practice compared to the components of the LPS provides a contribution to the future practice of project production planning and management in the construction industry.

The study highlights a continuing resistance to collaboration within the industry. This resistance is subtly embedded within implemented practices even though they are based on collaborative working for their success.

This is among the first studies in the UK that comprehensively examines and reports the application of LPS/CP practice in construction across the major construction sectors. Future studies could build on the findings from this work to develop an approach/methodology to improve the current practice.

Extensive research on the importance of collaborative working (CW) and aligning stakeholders’ interests in construction has been widely conducted. But often the practice of commercial actors during CW has often been overlooked, particularly within the UK setting, where scholars have lamented on the lack of industry-wide collaboration. This study aims to explore the factors affecting commercial actors in CW, specific to the UK construction industry.

The research used a context-based approach to seek stakeholders’ perspectives on the key factors affecting commercial actors in CW within the UK. Semi-structured interviews with individuals (contractors, cost consultants, designers among others) from construction and infrastructure organisations were conducted, using multiple case study investigations. The collected data was analysed using a case study approach, and principles of inductive thematic analysis to identify the key factors.

Findings from the analysis identified “institutional” factors such as transactional cost economic influence, the prevailing construction model influence and professional related drivers. Key drivers within these factors include commercial background and training, custom and practice, misaligned interests in projects, clients’ perception of consultants, cost-driven environment, conventional procurement protocols and bureaucratic functions.

In conclusion, these factors continue to affect CW with undue influence on commercial actors in the UK, thus preventing performance improvement demanded by successive UK Government reports. The context-based approach applied in this study is expected to provide some insight in construction management research, especially from a commercial perspective in the UK, to gain an understanding of how these factors are manifesting.

International research concerning the comparative performance and practices of construction contractors from three European countries (UK, France and Germany) has been previously reported. The research has recently been extended to include Australian construction companies, thereby providing the potential for further exploring international contractor performance, the results of which are herein presented. The research methodology involves a questionnaire survey of contractors whereby a hypothetical high rise in situ concrete building is presented to respondents. Participants of the survey are asked to provide various performance data and preferred construction practices for this building. Results suggest that French contractors acquire the fastest construction speeds closely followed by those from Australia. Construction practices are similar in the UK and Australia, which contrast with French and German practice whose preferences were also found to be different. Findings suggest Australian contractors achieve higher levels of performance than those from the UK whilst implementing similar practices. Further research is needed to investigate the cause of the performance disparity found to exist in these two countries.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of regulations, perceptions, and promotions on the emergence of an innovation system for wood‐framed multi‐storey buildings in Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom (UK).

This descriptive paper made a qualitative analysis of information collected mainly from secondary sources such as reports, newspapers, journal publications, conference proceedings and general internet search.

Results showed that the conditions for market growth of multi‐storey construction seemed to be the most favourable in Sweden followed by the UK and Germany. The regulations are stringent in Germany, followed by the UK and Sweden. In all countries, the construction professionals seemed to have negative perceptions regarding engineering properties of wood. Similar negative perceptions exist among the general public in Germany and the UK, but not in Sweden. The wood construction promotional activities in Germany and the UK are directed to all types of houses, while in Sweden multi‐storey buildings are targeted.

An important implication of this paper was that it highlighted the usefulness of cross‐country surveys at the European level, in order to better understand observed differences in the adoption of innovative systems. However, there might be shortcomings in the comparability of the information across the countries analysed because it was difficult to make an objective assessment of the claims made in some of the information sources. Also, there was varying and limited information about the survey methodologies used in some of the reviewed studies.

The study showed that market intervention is needed to promote radical or really new innovations such as wood construction. The variations in the promotional measures undertaken partly explained the variations in growth of wood construction system in the three countries.

The paper applied a theoretical framework on technology transition to analyse emergence of wood construction system in Germany, Sweden and the UK. The framework can be applied to analyse the development of wood construction system in other countries also.

During the last decade, the practice of sustainability has been gradually adopted in the UK construction industry, with the increasing interest in the discourse of sustainable development. This paper therefore aims to investigate the role and ability of sustainable development-based requirements – top management commitment, government regulations and construction stakeholder pressures – as potential determinants of adoption of proactive environmentally sustainable practices, with a view of promoting sustainable innovation in the UK construction industry.

The research approach selected for this research comprised of a questionnaire survey of the UK construction industry practitioners – architects and designers, structural engineers, construction managers and quantity surveyors – with the aid of an Adobe Livecycle Designer. Purposive sampling techniques using maximum variation strategy were adopted for selecting the target survey respondents. The Predictive Analysis Software (PASW) Statistics 17.0 (formerly SPSS statistics) was employed to analyse information from the survey.

Empirical results indicate a positive effect of government regulations, top management commitment and construction stakeholder pressures on sustainable construction practices. Government regulation was found to be the most important determinants of sustainable practices. In addition, top management commitment appears to be linked with government regulation as the defining factor increasing managers sustainability awareness, helping sustainable practices to be effectively implemented and appealing to firms.

The research results provide useful information in understanding the determinant factors of sustainable construction innovation and are particularly essential in aiding better decision-making in implementing sustainable practices, thereby facilitating the sustainability of the construction sector.