Strategic roadmaps for construction innovation: assessing the state of research (original) (raw)
Related papers
Toward Aligning Academic and Industry Understanding of Innovation in the Construction Industry
International Journal of Construction Education and Research, 2012
The research purpose is to conduct a preliminary investigation to determine whether the information gleaned from academic literature aligns with the impressions and attitudes of actual construction industry stakeholders to better understand the semantic and circumstantial disconnect between industry and academia. For this purpose, the researchers developed and administered a small-scale survey of key project stakeholders to determine the validity of the proposed definitions and construction literature findings. Additionally, the research team conducted interviews to develop a more in-depth case study perspective on barriers to innovative project delivery for key players in the construction industry supply chain. Thirty-five members of the BuildingSmart Alliance replied to the survey and six contractors took part in interviews, allowing the researchers to conduct a preliminary analysis of the strength of the proposed definitions and drivers of and barriers to innovation for project delivery in the construction industry. The researchers determined that there is some agreement on definitions for project delivery and innovation, but that academia and industry need to develop a better mutual understanding of innovative project delivery and barriers to and opportunities for innovation in the construction industry.
An Analysis of Construction Innovation Literature
2005
The importance of innovation in construction has been widely advanced. This paper analyses the most recent research in the field of construction innovation and offers an overview of what and how aspects of innovation have been studied in different construction contexts. Peer-reviewed journal articles from the last decade are coded and analysed to reveal the construction focus, innovation fundamentals and prominent research features of the literature. A research agenda based on the findings of the analysis and the future research suggestions of the journal articles reviewed is presented to extend and enhance construction innovation research.
Projecting Change through Construction Innovation
Summary In projecting change for the critical Australian construction industry, the CRC for Construction Innovation envisions a culture of self improvement through applied research and technology transfer. Construction Innovation is driving research outcomes into business practice in areas such as innovativeness, sustainability, procurement, project diagnostics and site safety. The group has also led the formation of an international alliance to ensure its activities are hitting the mark nationally and internationally. Through initiatives like these, the CRC for Construction Innovation is already providing a potent vehicle for change. This paper will briefly track the development of the CRC for Construction Innovation and highlight the collaborative processes in developing, managing and disseminating applied research; profile a number of its key outcomes to date; and discuss the future of applied research in Australia in the context of its Construction 2020 national initiative, its ...
Construction innovation: a literature review on current research
2006
ABSTRACT: Innovation in construction is a subject being discussed during a considerable period of time. However current research and statistical data shows that construction is lagging behind other sectors in the aspects of productivity and efficiency for which lack of innovation is blamed. This paper is an effort to illustrate present status of construction innovation research and perceptions of researchers and practitioners based on a review of current literature.
Innovation in Construction: A Critical Review and Future Research
The construction industry has been recognized for its conservatism and lack of innovation. In order to improve the success rate of construction innovation, the implementation of innovations within the context of construction has been discussed and developed. Literature in this area focuses extensively on construction innovation, and yet does not contain a systematic review. This paper looks to fill this gap by providing a systematic review of construction innovation. The review synthesizes the conclusions and shows the implementation of construction innovation. Collaboration, culture, innovation process, and drivers are identified as critical factors to improve the performance of construction innovation. Finally, the limitations of prior studies in construction innovation are discussed and recommendations made for areas of future study.
Innovation Processes in Construction: Two Case Studies
2020
The importance of innovation in construction is increasing. However, until now construction research has mainly focused on the implementation of new ideas and disregarded the interdependencies to previous phases of the innovation process. This paper presents the results of two case studies concerning the whole process of generating, developing and implementing new technologies in construction. The cases revealed institutional leadership and managing part-whole relationships as main problems that prevent a faster introduction of innovative technologies into construction. The paper concludes that fostering innovation in construction requires the early integration of application knowledge into the technology development process and the timely creation of a supportive institutional context.
Assessing construction innovation: theoretical and practical perspectives
Innovation is key for productivity improvement and advancements in different sectors of the economy, including the construction sector. The criticism of the slow pace of innovation in construction industry may be unwarranted, considering the structure of the industry and nature of the construction business. The loosely coupled nature of firms, mostly Small and Medium Enterprises (SME's), delivering 'projects' through partial engagement, together with the distinction between the project innovation and firm innovation makes it difficult to extract innovations in a meaningful way. The problem also lies in conceptualising, defining, articulating and assessing innovation in construction. The literature is replete with research into construction innovation, however, there is limited research into understanding how innovation is perceived and narrated in practice. The paper aims to explore how innovation is assessed and narrated in construction, specifically analysing theory and practice perspectives. A theoretical model was constructed from a structured literature review illustrating existing discourse and narratives of construction innovation assessment. A qualitative analysis of 'Professional Excellence in Building' submission documents to the Australian Institute of Building was performed to identify the practice perspective of innovation. The findings suggest that internal organizational and process innovation account for the majority of improvements identified. Importantly a taxonomy of narrative is developed that articulates how the construction industry in Australia views industry innovation.
MSc Thesis - University of Alberta, 2016
Research and development (R&D) partnerships among universities, industries, and government agencies involve investigative activities that may result in new discoveries and innovations. While R&D partnerships are critical for the technological advancement of the construction industry, they require substantial financial support. Although demonstrating the value of these partnerships is essential for encouraging investment, the construction research domain lacks a formal evaluation framework. To address this problem, this study introduces a logic model approach that uses an input-output-outcome-based methodology for evaluating construction R&D partnerships, where inputs represent resources, outputs represent activities, and outcomes represent intended results. The developed framework was tested using a pilot study that focused on the evaluation of the university’s role within a collaborative construction research program under the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Industrial Research Chair (IRC) program, namely the NSERC IRC in Strategic Construction Modeling and Delivery (SCMD). Using canonical and Spearman’s correlation analysis, this study showed the investments and activities for the university research team that lead to desired outcomes of the R&D partnership. The contributions of this study include: (1) introducing the concept of the logic model, which has been used for program evaluation in a range of contexts, to the construction research domain; (2) presenting a framework with detailed evaluation criteria and measurement metrics that will assist research teams and funding agencies in evaluating and improving current R&D partnerships; (3) presenting a statistical approach that will help in identifying relationships between the components of R&D partnership, so that inputs and outputs can be improved to achieve the desired outcomes of each collaborating party; and (4) presenting a validated logic model to evaluate the university’s role within the NSERC IRC in SCMD.
Innovation is a key to competitive advantage in the construction industry, enabling firms to contend with major changes occurring in the market and to achieve the objectives in a specific project or over a range of projects. Accordingly, innovation studies have become an established part of construction management discipline with respect to the academic research undertaken and to the wide application in practice. However, knowledge base in the discipline is still developing and there is a genuine need to identify the research trends and neglected areas in the literature. This paper attempts to overview and organise the many innovation drivers and barriers that have been identified in construction innovation literature and analyse the source articles within a meta-classification framework proposed. Peer reviewed articles tackling the subject are analysed and classified in terms of research stream, level of analyses, stage of life-cycle, sources of information, contribution of the articles and backgrounds of authors. Based on the findings, the paper presents future research suggestions for the discipline.
Innovation Deployment Strategies in Construction
2012
In the computer industry, as well as, in the automotive industry, the pace of innovation is already so rapid that within a few years a complete system or technology change can occur. Both industries steadily advance the performance of their products, meanwhile prices remain stable or even decrease. In relation to those industries, especially in construction industry we observe a low speed of innovation, increasing cost and the lack of analysis in construction specific innovation mechanisms. Despite a multitude of strategies and tools for technology, change and innovation management have been developed by innovation science in general, construction specific systemic tools and innovation deployment strategies had not yet been in the focus of research. The authors, therefore, started to build up a new research field that they called "Innovation Deployment Strategies" and systematically analyzed tools and innovation methods, (not construction specific), and innovation mechanis...