Editorial

Citation

McCaffer, R. (2010), "Editorial", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 17 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ecam.2010.28617baa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Volume 17, Issue 2

ECAM Vol. 17 No. 2 has six papers from 14 authors from Turkey, USA, India, Australia, UK and Hong Kong. Two papers comes from two countries – Turkey and USA and India and Australia. One paper has authors from industry and one has a combination of authors from industry and academics. I enjoy seeing the multi-country papers made possible by the internet. The industry and academic papers are also pleasing as evidence of joint work. I dream of an issue where every paper is joint with industry.

The papers again offer a rich variety of topics including strategic performance, rural roads programmes, the use of ICT in project management, the motivation of architects and engineers, managing the virtual project and 4D planning.

If any theme dominates it must be IT which features in three papers in communication and managing the virtual project as well as in 4D planning.

The research methods favoured in this issue are modelling and questionnaire surveys.

Isik, Arditi, Dikmen and Birgonul examine exogenous factors affecting the strategic performance of construction companies. Their model explores strategic performance as influenced by market conditions and strategic alliances. The source of data for the modelling exercise is 73 construction companies who responded to a questionnaire. The influences on strategic performance are economic, political, legal, social, competition and demand. The paper leaves an impression that these exogenous factors are so powerful that company management is secondary. This may not have been the authors’ intention and the counters available to management described are relationships with Government Agencies, Clients and Labour Unions together with innovative construction methods.

Dalal, Mohapatra and Mitra offer an approach to prioritising the rural road programming using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) modelling. AHP is frequently used by researchers in situations of decision making seeking to make choices and it is indeed designed for that purpose. Whether it is always the most appropriate approach is something never explored. This paper presents yet another example of using AHP and can be added to the collection. I am sure some researcher somewhere will collect together the many examples of using AHP and give us the definitive guide as to where it works and where it does not. I think the answer to this lies in the quality of the data supporting the choices.

The interesting point of this paper was the description of the issues in the rural roads programme which relates to 178 rural roads in Orissa. It would be good to have a follow-up paper describing what actually happened to this programme and if this AHP analysis had any influence.

Ahuja, Yang and Shankar return us to the issue of improving communications in project management through IT. These authors offer their contribution by addressing the issues of protocols. The issues of communications are well documented, the need for communications in real time, the separate development of IT by the various participants, the implications of the small companies involved etc. The authors researched these issues in the Indian context and examined and proposed protocols that would go someway to meet these difficulties. A case study of these protocols in use in a real project would be required as convincing evidence.

Oyedele is interested in sustaining the motivation of architects and engineers in design firms. I have never previously considered this an issue, the fees the company earns I saw as the company motivation and the salaries to the architects and engineers, together with the excitement of working on a new project, I saw as the motivation for the staff. Perhaps this is a view of life that is too prosaic for modern times. The author surveyed design practices in design firms in Northern Ireland basing the questions on motivational theories. The outcome is that the four factors influencing motivation are “favourable project working conditions”, “organisational support”, “design process efficacy” and “effort recognition”. The author suggests that these can be used to help develop a quality workforce.

I think the researcher needs to go further and combine these data into a guide for workforce management and development that can be tested against the harsh realities of the marketplace. This is a subject worth developing but I would still start with the salary scales!

Barima and Rowlinson take us on to an area that is visited from time to time and that is the management of the virtual construction project. The virtual construction project is the use of all the ICT tools to allow the various contributors and companies in a project to operate independently. I am not sure I would call this a virtual project, I would still call it a virtual enterprise which was the expression we used some ten or more years ago when these issues were emerging and less developed. The expression “enterprises”, to me, implies the organisation delivering the project. The project being constructed seems more real than virtual whereas the organisation of the project management team may well be virtual.

The authors’ study is intended to identify the critical variables and they go on to disentangle these critical variables so that the delivery of the construction project is enhanced. The authors conclude that further studies may be required to develop the concepts presented here.

Dawood addresses the development of 4D-based performance indicators in construction.

Arguing that the uptake of 4D planning is slow and there is a need to demonstrate its value the author sets out to do that. The data sources are from practitioners using questionnaires, interviews and site records. The analysis identifies and quantifies the 4D-based key performance indicators and claims greater efficiency and benefits from the use of 4D planning. The technology enhances the visualisation of the project and therefore aids the thinking that is part of the planning process.

The author is clearly on a mission to promote 4D planning. What is to be done next? Using the evidence from this research the author needs to find a demonstrator project that will use 4D planning.

Ronald McCaffer