Editorial

Citation

McCaffer, R. (2009), "Editorial", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 16 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ecam.2009.28616baa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Volume 16, Issue 2

Issue 16.2 has a wide range of interesting international papers including “decision making to enable the acceleration of roadway construction in the USA”, “communications issues in large scale projects in China”, “the use of virtual prototypes in building design based in Hong Kong”, “the use of the construction management framework for highway maintenance in the UK”, “reviewing risks in guaranteed maximum price contracts in the USA” and “the use of knowledge management techniques to improve change management in projects”.

What was particularly pleasing is the range of research methodologies. The authors of three papers based their work on “case studies”, another paper describes their work as “action research” and two papers were based on surveys. The target for one of the surveys was the top 400 contractors in the USA which gives some comfort in quality of responses. Two of the papers were based on work with industry colleagues and the authorship of these papers is joint between industry and academia. Case studies and action research are indicative of the work being closely aligned with industry and, of course, the two papers that were jointly authored equally represent academic and industry seeking solutions together.

The paper that may lead to the largest change to design processes is the one on “virtual prototyping” as the authors bring manufacturing techniques to bear on construction design. The paper on accelerating roadway construction should make a contribution resolving the challenge and the paper on communications issues in Chinese projects seems to identify a problem that can be solved readily now the issues are identified. The remaining three papers on “highway maintenance”, “risk reviews” and “change management” all have excellent prospects of having an impact on the issues addressed. So, all in all, issue 16.2 seems to have made a good set of contributions to the development of our industry.

It has taken 22 authors to produce these six papers, The international distribution of authors is China – two, Sri Lanka – one, USA – five, Hong Kong – six and UK – eight. Three papers have authors from two different counties. The distribution of authors per paper are: three papers have two authors, two papers have three authors, one paper has five authors and one an amazing seven authors. I believe, relying on memory, that the seven authors sets a new ECAM record. What is interesting is that the two papers with the largest number of authors are the two papers with both industry and academic authors.

The papers in this issue are as follows.

Goodrum, Wang and Fenouil offer us a decision-making system for accelerated roadway construction. The scenario the authors present is that in the USA the State Transport Agencies are under pressure to expand the road infrastructure. The authors offer a decision-making system, to be used during preliminary design to evaluate rapid construction methods. The research based on case studies of previous road projects identifies rapid construction methods, summarises valuable lessons and incorporates conceptual road user costs. The system was evaluated on two road construction projects using rapid methods.

The authors list the non-quantification of potential costs and benefits as a weakness but see the value in the system as creating the time to develop the design and contract agreements necessary. We wish the authors well in their quest to have their system used by State Transport Agencies and look forward to receiving a further paper as its use develops.

Tai, Wang and Anumba have surveyed the communications in large-scale construction projects in China. By communication they mean “team communications”. The authors also highlight the importance of large-scale projects in China’s development. The survey method was postal questionnaire and telephone. They claim to expose the problems in communications within large-scale projects. These include poor communication mechanisms, weak organisational structures, lack of uniform standards for construction information and a lack of support for advanced communications technologies.

All of these weaknesses seem rooted in weak management and a strong project manager or project management company could put the infrastructure in place to correct this. It does not seem as if there are fundamental weaknesses so the ability to correct these weaknesses already exists.

Baldwin, Li, Huang, Kong, Guo, Chan and Wong take us into the field of virtual prototyping. The authors observe that virtual prototyping linked the building information models are well established in the aerospace and automotive industries. The authors’ intention is to demonstrate how these technologies can be used in construction. The research methodology is described as “action research” whereby the researchers and the developers created virtual prototypes for the contractors. This generated a consistency in access to the decisions of the planning staff. The action research is recorded as case studies. The case studies, identifying the role of virtual prototyping, are the output of the research.

What I liked about the paper, in particular, was the research methodology with the researchers and the practitioners working together. We should see more of this approach.

Ansell, Evans, Holmes, Price and Pasquire review the application of the Construction Management Framework (CMF) in major highways maintenance. The aims were to explore how CMF had adapted to changing needs, how it captured and used innovation and how the number of companies involved impacted on the effectiveness of the framework. The main research methodology was to develop a case study.

The research established that CMF had, in effect, formed its own “community” and that savings from innovation could be identified resulting from lessons learned. The authors however offer cautionary advice regarding the selection of specialisms in the framework. The authors recommend that the CMF should be used in other Highways Agency areas.

This paper is another good example of industry practitioners and academics working together. This time within the framework of the Engineering Doctorate scheme.

Kaplanoglu and Arditi address issues related to pre-project peer reviews in guaranteed maximum price lump sum contracts. The purpose of the pre-project peer review is to attempt to reduce risk in a guaranteed maximum price lump sum contracts. Such reviews are conducted by either internal or external senior managers of the contracting company.

The authors conducted a survey of the top 400 construction companies listed by Engineering News-Record and obtained 72 responses, which is a good outcome for such a survey.

The paper presents the results of the survey. The important one seems to be that most reviews are undertaken informally. I think the authors are or should be arguing for more discipline and rigour in such reviews to obtain really good results. This paper provides them with the platform to argue for this.

Senaratne and Sexton link knowledge management with changes in construction projects. Arguing that the management of change effectively minimises disruption and cost the authors advance knowledge management as the way forward. Using case studies from the UK construction industry, the authors attempt to identify the different forms of knowledge shared by project team members. The argument is that “change” promotes the use of more “socially constructed knowledge” and “tacit knowledge” and “experience” than more structured forms of knowledge. The paper offers an interesting insight as to how change management might develop.

Ronald McCaffer