Editorial

Citation

McCaffer, R. (2005), "Editorial", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 12 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ecam.2005.28612daa.001

Editorial

Volume 12 Number 4 brings together 22 authors for six papers. One paper has two authors, two papers have three authors, two have four and one, amazingly, has six! Only one paper has authors from academia and industry and in this issue there are no multiple institutional papers. Of the authors, 13 are UK based, four are from Kuwait, two from Hong Kong and three from Singapore.

The topics of the papers are wide ranging from the philosophical wishing to change thinking to three papers offering solutions via web-based technology or modelling techniques, one effectively presenting a case study of a large long term project and one attempting to improve safety.

The papers in this issue are:

1. 1.

   John, Clements-Croome, Fairey and Loy attack the thinking of the industry arguing that the application of all the tools and technology needed for an improved industry needs to fit into the thinking of the producers of the industry. They argue for the use of integrated logic support within a through life business model, defining and describing these. But for this approach to work they need contextual prerequisites which the authors describe using case studies and a comparison between the defence and construction industries.

2. 2.

   Obonyo, Anumba and Thorpe wish to make the specification and procurement of construction products more efficient. The impediment they see is the lack of structure in product information and their solution is an “agent-based” approach. They describe a prototype system and its evaluation. Admitting to obstacles that would inhibit development of such technology they argue that the potential is significant and the pursuit of the use of such technology worthwhile.

3. 3.

   Al-Reshaid, Kartam, Tewari and Al-Bader examine project control in pre-construction phases. The authors argue that there is an over-emphasis on solving construction problems during the construction phase and that the causes of slippages in schedules and cost over-runs can be mitigated during pre-construction. They present the lessons learned from the construction of Kuwait University, project managed by international and local specialists.

4. 4.

   Zhang and Tam argue that there is an absence in most construction modelling and planning systems for dealing with a “break” which happens cyclically or has variable break-duration and break-frequency. Their solution to this is an algorithm that they developed and they benchmark their simulation with computational analyses.

5. 5.

   Shang, Anumba, Bouchlaghem, Miles, Cen and Taylor return us to the issue of risk assessment. This time the risk they identify is in collaborative working with distributed teams. Their solution is a web-based risk assessment system that enables remote teams to assess risks. They use a risk assessment scenario to demonstrate its use.

6. 6.

   Teo, Ling and Ong wish to foster safe working behaviour. The vehicle they propose to foster safe working practices is a “framework” that identifies unsafe behaviour. This framework was evaluated by means of a postal survey. They argue that the most effective approach is strict supervision, training and fines.

Ronald McCaffer