Construction productivity and digitalisation: An I.T. productivity paradox perspective

The construction industry has been going through digitalisation for several decades to improve the delivery of built assets. However, despite the ongoing investments in digital technology, productivity growth in construction has remained very low. This suggests that there is a need to better understand the relationship between digitalisation and construction productivity so that the desired productivity benefits through digitalisation could be achieved. A systematic literature review is conducted on the Scopus database to scan the publications that have made claims regarding the relationship between digital technology and construction productivity over the last ten years. The results are grouped into six categories based on the kind of claim they have made, and the key arguments of each group are examined. These key arguments are then discussed using the literature on the 'information technology productivity paradox' as the interpretive framework. The discussion suggests that digitalisation has not had the desired impact on productivity due to the lack of consideration for the interdependencies between various factors and levels of organisation affecting productivity. It is concluded that adopting a system-innovation perspective is crucial to enable meaningful productivity improvements through digitalisation

Design collaboration as organisational sense-making and sense-giving

Construction design has largely been pictured as a fragmented effort that is prone to ineffectiveness due to its multi-disciplinary and multi-organizational nature. As a result, design management is traditionally considered to be focused on adjusting and integrating disparate disciplinary contributions with the intention of overcoming consequences of this fragmentation. However, existing empirical work reveals that design in construction does not develop through such adjustment and integration of separately created discipline-specific parts, but rather as a whole through interdisciplinary interactions which present a continuous path of unfolding decisions and activities. This paper will argue that, for the purposes of design management, multidisciplinary construction design can be viewed as an organisational endeavour; thus, suggesting a shift away from management centred upon design outputs to management centred upon design interactions. Based on this argument, interdisciplinary interactions from the practices of a construction design project are analysed using an ‘organisational sense-making’ perspective which is originated in organisational studies. When seen from an organisational sense-making perspective, the problematic issues of disciplinary and organizational fragmentation and integration become reformulated as issues of sense-giving and sense-making among various design stakeholders that are part of the same organisational whole. Under this perspective interdisciplinary interactions are not seen as the means for design integration that imply compromises for discipline-specific design solutions. Rather they are the means for sense-giving and sense-making to continuously redefine the organisational direction, thereby continuously reconfiguring discipline-specific tasks in a consistent and coherent manner. As a result, an organisational sense-making perspective enables conceiving the fragmentation in construction design as a productive force. Ultimately, the paper provides fresh insights into design collaboration and management. It concludes that fragmentation is not something to be 'resolved' through simplistic measures of integration, such as design data integration, but it is rather something that needs to be 'cultivated' through raising an explicit awareness of the means and processes of sense-giving and sense-making

The potential of digital technology to improve construction productivity

Despite increasing adoption of digital technology in construction, productivity reports have remained disappointing. To develop insights into the reasons of this contradiction, the present paper suggests drawing on organisational competitiveness literature considering that the factors-affecting-productivity are conveniently captured within that literature. Through a questionnaire survey, the paper analyses the views of managers in the UK construction industry regarding the effect of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Big Data Analytics (BDA) on organisational competitiveness. The results are then traced back to the factors-affecting-productivity for discussion. It is concluded that digitalisation enables performance improvements that can be tied to productivity gains, but this relies on the presence of certain skills and knowledge, which require training. It is also concluded that the lack of impact of digitalisation on some of the factors-affecting-productivity may be limiting the impact of digitalisation on the overall productivity, thus leading to a stagnating productivit

Redefining design in construction

Several theoretical framings have been proposed regarding the nature and process of designing but these mainly see design as a creative activity. However, designing in construction is a collective undertaking that involves not only 'creating' discipline-specific parts of the design but also 'organising' them to ensure consistency and coherence. Nevertheless, organising design in construction is under-theorised, and there are no clear explanations of what constitutes design collaboration and how it is different from designing. These gaps imply not only a shortcoming for managing design in construction, but also a difficulty for developing technology that effectively supports it. Therefore, this paper adopts a practice-focused approach to explore the interdisciplinary design interactions in a project from an organisational point of view. This develops further insight into the natures and processes of designing and design collaboration in construction, thus informing the management of design. When seen from a practice-based perspective, multidisciplinary design development becomes an ongoing process of reestablishing 'a shared sense of purposefulness' that enables both autonomy of, and consistency between, different design disciplines. This provides an explanation of the interdependency between specialist knowledge and interdisciplinary interactions. Thus, the paper develops definitions of design and design collaboration in construction that are centred on 'organisation' rather than 'creativity'. Implications for technology development and management are outlined

Design collaboration as organisational sense-making and sense-giving

Construction design has largely been pictured as a fragmented effort that is prone to ineffectiveness due to its multi-disciplinary and multi-organizational nature. As a result, design management is traditionally considered to be focused on adjusting and integrating disparate disciplinary contributions with the intention of overcoming consequences of this fragmentation. However, existing empirical work reveals that design in construction does not develop through such adjustment and integration of separately created disciplinespecific parts, but rather as a whole through interdisciplinary interactions which present a continuous path of unfolding decisions and activities. This paper will argue that, for the purposes of design management, multidisciplinary construction design can be viewed as an organisational endeavour; thus, suggesting a shift away from management centred upon design outputs to management centred upon design interactions. Based on this argument, interdisciplinary interactions from the practices of a construction design project are analysed using an ‘organisational sense-making’ perspective which is originated in organisational studies. When seen from an organisational sense-making perspective, the problematic issues of disciplinary and organizational fragmentation and integration become reformulated as issues of sense-giving and sense-making among various design stakeholders that are part of the same organisational whole. Under this perspective interdisciplinary interactions are not seen as the means for design integration that imply compromises for discipline-specific design solutions. Rather they are the means for sense-giving and sense-making to continuously redefine the organisational direction, thereby continuously reconfiguring discipline-specific tasks in a consistent and coherent manner. As a result, an organisational sense-making perspective enables conceiving the fragmentation in construction design as a productive force. Ultimately, the paper provides fresh insights into design collaboration and management. It concludes that fragmentation is not something to be 'resolved' through simplistic measures of integration, such as design data integration, but it is rather something that needs to be 'cultivated' through raising an explicit awareness of the means and processes of sense-giving and sensemaking

Trust and collaboration problems in building information modelling (BIM): a systematic literature review

Building information modelling (BIM) has been proposed to address collaboration issues. Trust is a key factor in facilitating collaboration and improving construction industry productivity. Therefore, this study detected 22 trust issues based on a systematic literature review of trust and collaboration research in BIM. The comprehensive consideration of what issues affect trust and collaboration in BIM projects will help to analyse whether these issues are related and finally give reasonable suggestions on how to address these issues

The practice of 'managing as designing'

Recent studies of ‘design thinking’ for management have criticized the current focus on principles and tools of design thinking, for creating an over-simplified view of a complex process. As a response, this paper sets out to study the empirical details of ‘doing designing’ in order to explore what ‘managing as designing’ involves in practice. Adopting a practice-based theoretical orientation, the paper presents findings from the design meetings of three residential refurbishment projects in the UK. The findings suggest that the management of design practices was accomplished through everyday interactions during which the nature and level of uncertainty of various issues were established, and the corresponding adaptive and innovative courses of actions were developed. Based on these insights, it is concluded that ‘managing as designing’ is primarily about facilitation of everyday organizational interactions, and leadership for the reconciliation of various concerns of multiple stakeholders

The potential of digital technology to improve construction productivity

Despite increasing adoption of digital technology in construction, productivity reports have remained disappointing. To develop insights into the reasons of this contradiction, the present paper suggests drawing on organisational competitiveness literature considering that the factors-affecting-productivity are conveniently captured within that literature. Through a questionnaire survey, the paper analyses the views of managers in the UK construction industry regarding the effect of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Big Data Analytics (BDA) on organisational competitiveness. The results are then traced back to the factors affecting-productivity for discussion. It is concluded that digitalisation enables performance improvements that can be tied to productivity gains, but this relies on the presence of certain skills and knowledge, which require training. It is also concluded that the lack of impact of digitalisation on some of the factors-affecting-productivity may be limiting the impact of digitalisation on the overall productivity, thus leading to a stagnating productivity. The original paper was first published by ARCOM as part of the Conference Proceeding

Knowledge Management and BIM Practices: Towards a Conceptual BIM-Knowledge Framework

The construction industry is a knowledge-intensive and knowledge-generating industry. However, challenges exist in terms of capturing and sharing knowledge of best practices and lessons learned within projects, and from one project to another. This is mainly due to the multi-disciplinary, multiorganizational and temporary nature of construction projects, which causes valuable knowledge to remain with individuals and/or get lost with time. Therefore, it is critically important to effectively capture and share the experience-based knowledge that is generated in construction projects in order to enable improvements in decision-making based on continuous learning. Building information modelling (BIM) has emerged as a solution that could possibly help in this endeavour through effective collaboration and learning processes. However, currently, BIM practices mainly focus on digitalising traditional information exchanges among project stakeholders. Hence, there is little consideration of how experiencebased knowledge can be effectively captured in BIM-enabled projects and used for continuous improvement. This paper presents insights into this issue by drawing on the literatures on knowledge management (KM) and BIM implementation. It proposes a conceptual BIMKnowledge framework, the main contribution of the paper, which consists of a KM approach and five critical factors: individual psychosocial factors, organisational factors, economic factors, technological factors and client factors

The impact of organisation culture on effective exploitation of building information modelling, big data analytics and internet of things (BBI) for competitive advantage in construction organisations

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of organisational culture on the exploitation of three technological innovations: Building Information Modelling, Big Data Analytics and Internet of Things (BBI) considering the role of organisational culture as a determinant of organisational competitive advantage. After reviewing the literature on organisational culture and its relationship with competitiveness, this paper further analyses the critical culture constructs that impact specifically on exploitation of Building Information Modelling, Big Data Analytics and Internet of Things which leads to maximise organisational competitive advantage. Findings reveal that organisational culture can be both positively and negatively associated with aforementioned technological innovations depending on its key attributes for exploitation. Hence, culture of an organisation has the potential of fostering innovative technologies, but can also act as a barrier depending on how they are operationalised. The findings additionally show that in order to enhance innovation, neither a flexibility focus (which is rooted in collaboration and shared commonalities) nor an external focus (built upon the dynamics of competition and achieving concrete results) alone would suffice- both are equally critical in characterising organisational culture. The paper focuses on a context, where there is a lack of studies on the impact of cultural constructs that are specifically relevant to BBI, which lays the basis for the originality of this paper. Findings can guide managers’ efforts in organisational culture developments which foster exploitation of these technologies towards maximising the competitive edge