Editorial

Citation

McCaffer, R. (2008), "Editorial", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 15 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ecam.2008.28615aaa.001

Editorial

ECAM Issue 15.1 sees the start of a New Year, so it is appropriate to wish all our readers our best wishes from the editorial team and perhaps to ponder what the New Year will bring.

It is also an appropriate time to thank all the referees who without reward give of their time to support ECAM.

As I have written before, I believe the performance metrics on academic output is changing. The change is from just undertaking academic work and publishing a paper. The new era we live in is demanding that the academic community see their work through to application and demonstrate its worth.

Industry has developed through many stages that ranges from researching site operations in the 1960s and 1970s, to project management in the 1980s, to company and business management and quality management in the 1990s, particularly as clients became more demanding up to the present represented by knowledge management. Recent issues that have evolved have also given attention to social issues.

The industry has learned to cope with all these, or, in some cases are learning to cope. Today with a huge capital value being placed on knowledge the industry needs to generate new knowledge by being innovative. The cusp we now stand at is, how do we encourage and manage innovation. We have not quite learned that yet.

Academics, under pressure to demonstrate that their work is of value, have a role to play by participating in the innovation process. But we need to show that our innovative ideas actually work. The envelope of academic responsibility has been widened to include application. The academic community needs to respond.

Issue 1 of this present volume contains six papers on the topics of: mobile communication on site; excellence models; skill shortages; target cost contracts; culture change and the management of collaborative project information. It took 16 authors from four countries to produce these papers. One paper has one author, two papers have two authors, one paper has three authors, and two papers have four authors.

My enthusiasm for collaborative work across institutional boundaries is rewarded in that one paper is from two institutions, Heriot-Watt and Glasgow Caledonian. One other paper is from three institutions: Pennsylvania State, Stanford and Florida.

The papers in this issue are as outlined below:

Chen and Kamara address the issue of mobile computing in the management of on-site construction information and communication. They have produced a model identifying the key factors of mobile computing, wireless networks, personnel and information. The model attempts to describe the relationships and interactions between these factors. The model was based on a survey and a pilot study.

This is a dynamic area which will be continually overtaken, but what we need from the academic community is more work in pilot applications and evidence that the developing technology can be made effective.

Bassioni, Hassan and Price examine a construction excellence model aimed at aiding the construction companies improve their business performance. The researchers drew their methodology from evaluations of total quality management frameworks, and their model was developed from survey data and regression techniques used to determine weights for the criteria. As a model it now needs some application to demonstrate its worth. Potentially it could raise the level of thinking in business performance in the industry.

Lobo and Wilkinson address solutions to skill shortages in New Zealand. Based on a series of interviews the researchers evaluated the effectiveness of the existing techniques used for relieving skills shortages. These include, increasing wages; overseas recruitment; and re-formatting training requirements. Different sectors in the economy, such as government, education, and the industry itself, are involved.

This paper should feed into the policy making for skills development. It is also relevant to countries other than New Zealand.

Badenfelt addresses an important aspect of target cost contracts, namely the selection of sharing ratios. The researcher interviewed eight clients and eight contractors in Sweden and conducted a large case study for a target cost construction project. The factors influencing the selection of sharing ratios are largely based on perceptions of fairness, knowledge, target cost contracts, long term relationships, performance risk and relational risk.

The key to success would seem to be long-term relationships. This is a well-researched paper and should be of value to those active in target priced contracts.

Kaka, Wong, Fortune, and Langford examine culture change and the vehicle for culture change they examine is appropriate pricing systems. The researchers argue that culture change is not fully embraced and one reason is that existing pricing systems lead to adversarial relationships. The researchers argue that alternative pricing should be aimed at aligning constructor’s behaviour with clients. Their solution is to use analytical hierarchic process to guide the industry towards appropriate pricing systems.

This is a return to a recurrent issue. AHP is a well-established technique for guiding choices and is suggested as a solution in many areas. This proposed use of AHP is in great need of a demonstration of its application.

Anumba, Pan, Issa and Mutis address issues relating to the management of collaborative project information. They place this collaboration in the context of a semantic web environment. The paper reviews the development of collaborative design and the enabling technologies. They argue for advancement through a semantic approach to support effective mechanisms for design and construction information management. This is a paper arguing a case at the leading edge of development.

To the authors’ credit they demonstrate their commitment to collaboration as the authors are based in Loughborough, Stanford and Florida. This is more evidence of the global research community actually working together.

Ronald McCaffer