Editorial

Citation

McCaffer, R. (2008), "Editorial", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 15 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ecam.2008.28615eaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Volume 15, Issue 5

ECAM issue 15.5 has again attracted a set of international authors. The six papers have come from 12 authors. Two from Singapore, two from Egypt, four from Australia, two from South Africa, one from Zambia and one from Scotland. So it is virtually a UK free issue with only John Tookey of Glasgow Caledonian representing the UK, but since the research was completed John has moved to New Zealand, thus at the time of publication it is a UK free issue.

One paper is both multi-national and multi-institutional.

The range of topics is wide including innovation management, construction logistics, QS services, claims management and service quality perceptions in housing construction.

The paper on innovation management makes a good contribution to an emerging topic. Construction is just starting to recognise the need for innovation and is discovering how to nurture it and develop it. This is a topic that is fresh with much work to do.

The next emerging topic is the paper on construction logistics. This paper presented research that counted vehicle movements in and out of sites. However the definition of construction logistics needs to be drawn wider to include the source of materials and the final destination of waste. Our colleagues in transport studies have much to teach us about logistics and I believe we should learn. I think construction logistics, especially in cities, is another large and growing topic.

We have two papers relating to claims and their management. While there are claims they will be managed well or badly and this will be studied. But I hope we are not returning to the age of accepting claims as the norm. We had began to move away from that towards claims avoidance and better contractual relationships. Relationally integrated contract teams would seem to be a better way forward and there is active research in this area. The results cannot come quick enough.

The papers in this issue are:

Stewart addresses what is arguably the most important of the topics in this issue. That is the climate for innovation and how innovation enhances business performance.

We are well and truly in the age of knowledge management. The question is where does the new knowledge come from to top up the knowledge banks. The answer is innovation. The author produces a conceptual model incorporating three “climate for innovation” constructs including leadership, team and organisational culture and two constructs addressing innovation diffusion and business performance. Using this model the author examines design firms and the findings include that organisational culture functions as the gateway to innovation diffusion, mediating the relationships between “leadership” and “team”. Leadership is critical in providing a supportive culture that nurtures innovation. Finally the paper demonstrates the significant contribution to business performance of innovation.

The study of innovation, how it is nurtured, managed, developed and applied in construction is in its early stages. There will be more and more papers on this topic until we finally know how to do it. This is a good contribution to a growing field of study.

Shakantu, Muya, Tookey and Bowen present a case study of modelling flows of construction materials and address the logistics of waste. The authors, from South Africa, Zambia and Scotland (at the time of the research) collected data from seven sites in Cape Town. Using this data they designed a flow model of material delivery and waste removal. This is an important topic that needs to be developed further. I believe that we now have a viable subject called “construction logistics” and I expect a professor with that title will be appointed somewhere. The movement of materials on site has been the domain of the planners. But the net has to be drawn wider, particularly in city sites, to include the flow of materials from source location to site. This opens up the whole topic of logistics planning. Logistics is well established. The retailers and supermarkets are experts, but logistics has not yet been applied with full force to construction. These authors offer a start but there is a much more to come on logistics.

Ling and Chan are enthusiastic about internationalizing quantity surveying services, particularly those from Singapore. Their study identifies that the Singapore QS practices offer international services and those that do have more staff working on international projects than local ones. These practices also handle larger projects and have a wider range of services. Entry to foreign markets is usually as a foreign owned subsidiary or a joint venture.

Hassanein and El Nemr return us to the recurring topic claims management and their focus is the contractors’ perspective of the Egyptian Industrial Construction sector. The findings of their survey are that claims’ management suffers from, lack of notification procedures, poor documentation, lost change orders, oral changes orders and fear of the “consultant”.

Claims and attention to claims’ management is an admission of a failed system. What is needed is not a study of claims’ management but a study of the contractual system to determine how it can be made to work effectively. The target should not be “how to manage claims better” but how to run a contractual system with zero or minimum claims.

Uher and Brand also address claims and in particular the views of claimants’ on the performance of adjudication in New South Wales. The researchers surveyed claimants and produce some challenging findings, sub-contractors make smaller value claims than general contractors, lawyer involvement is substantial, the higher the claim the greater the effort made, a correlation exists between the value of the payment claim and its adjudicated amount and also with the adjudication fees and the adjudicated amount, and finally the filing of an adjudication certificate is the most successful means of payment recovery.

At the risk of repetition examining how claims administration works is to admit a failure in the process. This paper illustrates the overhead in time and fees in pursing claims. More effort is needed in devising a contractual system that will eradicate or minimise claims.

Forsythe directs our attention to the customers’ perceptions in housing construction. Using a model based on marketing theory the researcher examines the Australian housing market. This model presents a more structured and contextual view of how service quality is perceived rather than the traditional assumption that service quality judgements develops progressively during design and construction. The author hopes that this model will influence the direction and dynamics of housing projects.

Ronald McCaffer