Editorial

Citation

(2003), "Editorial", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 10 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ecam.2003.28610baa.001

Editorial

This issue sees such wide ranging topics as a critique on the Japanese education system, the use of low-waste building technologies, contractor classification, professional ethics, document exchange and labour allocation. The 12 authors producing these six papers are from Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK. There is one single authored paper and one paper authored by two different institutions.

Tan examines the Japanese education system with respect to the construction industry. The contrast is drawn between the university system which channels talent towards the elite universities producing the engineers and architects with the limited education for construction workers and technicians. The workforce are educated as generalists learning specific training to the employers.

Poon, Yu and Ng compare low-waste building technologies in public and private housing projects in Hong Kong. Hong Kong's limited space means pressure on reclamation sites and disposal sites for construction and demolition waste. The authors conducted a survey by questionnaire and interviews to determine the use of low-waste technologies. Public housing projects perform better using large panel form work and pre-fabricated components. The barriers for the adoption of low-waste technologies in the private sector are identified.

Wong, Nicholas and Holt return us to a recurring issue, the classification of contractors, and they offer multivariate techniques for developing classification models. They attempt to link clients' selection aspirations and contractor performance. The authors investigated 48 UK construction projects to build their models and tested them on 20 independent cases. The predominant project specific criteria were; suitability of equipment; past performance on time and cost; relationship with local authority; and reputation or image. They explain this potential for developing contractor classification models.

Vee and Skitmore examine professional ethics in the construction industry by way of a questionnaire survey of project managers, architects and building contractors. Most operated to a professional code of ethics, many had an ethical code in their employing organisation. There was no evidence of organised unethical conduct or of any employee being asked to behave unethically. However all respondents had witnessed some unethical conduct such as unfair conduct, negligence, conflict of interest, collusive tendency, fraud, breach of confidentiality, bribing and violation of environmental ethics. I am not sure where this leaves us – it would appear the framework is in place, no one is causing unethical behaviour to take place yet it is occurring. More research would appear to be required.

Underwood and Watson use an XML metadata approach to seamless project information exchange between heterogeneous platforms. The authors report on a project funded by the European Commission as part’of the ESPIRIT programme. This project’defined, after investigating, a minimum metadata set based on the investigated standards for the implementation of two demonstrators for XML-based automated document exchange. The project simulated document exchange between a corporate document management system and a collaborative construction project Web site. As collaborative working and virtual organisation grow, particularly in large projects, document exchange as the type described becomes more and more essential.

Tong and Tam explain that multi-skilled labour allocation in a specified time frame can only be solved by repeated trials and errors. However the authors claim that these can produce a near-optimal solution using fuzzy genetic algorithms and in this paper they present their evidence for this claim.