2009161693
The construction industry is an important sector of any economy, especially regarding its employment potential (Ahmadon Bakri, 2006). Construction is the massive, worldwide effort to build various types of structures and facilities. The construction industry is the overall maze of large organizations and smaller companies that facilitate building (Ralph Liebing, 2001). The management of construction is an enterprise that involves many people with diverse interests, talents and backgrounds.
Construction Innovation which provides high quality technical papers on current developments within the construction industry on a world-wide basis. Special emphasis is placed on innovation (information, process, and management) by Malik (2006). These innovations are usually based on the new tools and technologies available in that period. The management of innovation is de.ned, following Van de Ven (1986), as the ’management of new ideas into good currency’, which elegantly restates the Schumpeterian distinction between invention (generating new ideas) and innovation (applying new ideas).
Construction as a complex systems Industry, the industries which create such complex product systems are characterized as complex systems industries, and share many of the complex and emergent features of their products. It has become increasingly common to analyse innovation in terms of actor system networks stated by Callon, (1992), an approach applied to construction by Shove and her colleagues by Connaughton (1995). However, to date, these applications have been to specific innovations (cladding and readymixed concrete respectively), and need to be taken further to provide a generic model. Gann (Gann, 1992; Gann, 1997) has developed a model of the construction system as a supply chain, showing the activities of the different actors in the system as the inventions deriving from research and development programmes are diffused and implemented on specific projects.
However, formal research and development while very important, is not the only source of innovation in construction or any other industry, and a broader perspective that captures all modes of innovation is required. The strength of the complex systems industries model is that of providing a clear articulation of the institutional context in which innovate, categorizing the different types of actor in the innovation network, and identifying their distinctive roles in the innovation process. This allows the development of a generic model of the structural context of the management of innovation in construction. Developing their model in the context of the right simulation industry, Miller (1995) distinguish between the innovation superstructure of air carriers (clients), regulators, and professional bodies, and the innovation infrastructure of specialized suppliers and aircraft builders. Innovation is inherently a process through time, and in order to illustrate the dynamics of innovation in a specific complex systems industry, and the interactions between the innovation superstructures and infrastructures, it will be useful to take one relatively well-researched.
The innovation literature typically identifies two basic processes diffusion and implementation. Rogers (1995) is the standard work on the former, while Winch (1994) provides an extensive review of the latter. The interface between the two processes is the decision to adopt a new idea, usually following the perception of a performance gap in relation to competitors. Indeed, measures of the rate of diffusion of a new idea are, in essence, measures of the number of adoption decisions within a de.ned population over a particular period of time. Once adopted, the innovation has to be installed and commissioned so that it achieves technical success and consolidated within the organization so that it yields performance benefits to the business (Winch, 1994).
The management of innovation in construction developing his general management perspective on innovation, Van de Ven (1986) identified four central problems the management of attention; the process problem of managing ideas into good currency; the structural problem of managing part whole relationships; and the strategic problem of institutional leadership. Business life is complex and dynamic; humans have limited cognitive capability. They tend to focus upon those things that solve their most immediate problems and the only way to encourage innovation is to give it sufficient salience. Exhortation is not enough; the incentives which motivate actors in particular directions need to favour innovation. Thus the route to the successful management of attention is through the incentive structures that inform decision-making; the corollary is that if incentive structures do not favour innovation, then innovation is unlikely to take place. As Ive (1996) argues, construction innovation depends upon the coincidence of the means, motive and opportunity to innovate.
Similarly, innovative design solutions which save construction costs on site reduce the returns to designers paid on a fee basis rather than increasing them as Bowley put it, ’the architect is in the position of a commission salesman whose interest is to get as big a value of turnover as possible’ (1966, p. 356). The lack of such incentives in British construction has led to most innovations being what Bowley (1966) called ersatz innovations that only took place because preferred solutions were no longer available due to external factors. Incentives for innovation in construction cannot be improved without the development of a gain sharing approach, where rewards are split between clients and the actors in the project coalition. The shift from competitive tendering to partnering provides one of the most important opportunities for moving towards such an approach. Those in a position to innovate need to be rewarded for taking such risks. If they are so rewarded, they will have incentives both to adopt new ideas from outside and to capture the learning from problem solving to propose better ways of doing things to the client.
Vision in IT will become a mean to educate and train people in the industry. In example, the learning slot is made of a simulation of 3D games which will able to give an insight to the users, rather than consultants sitting in a cabin and figuring out the activities to be executed. The process of learning through the utilisation of IT will be more interesting and creative. Information accessing and sharing will not be a hassle through this technique of learning.
With the advancement of information technology, communication and collaboration in project are much easier (Issa, 2003). Many innovative technologies are shaping the business process o construction companies in order to be faster, more specialized and focused. Among these technologies, mobile computing and interoperability have further enhanced the development of e business.
A hope in the nearest time is meant to be for small and medium class Construction Company where they will notice the wide range of benefits that they may get from the adoption of innovation and management of Information Technology (IT) in their company. It cost a lot at the beginning but innovation and management of Information Technology (IT) really helps them in increasing their competitive advantages value by increasing the competencies with other company, lead in achieving operation effectiveness by promoting time saving, fast Information delivery. Impact of innovation contributing to fairly small improvement to products or to the way things are done.
References
Malik M.A. Khalfan, Peter McDermott (2006), Construction Innovation : Information, Process, Management (pp. 143 - 157), Vol.6
Ahmadon Bakri, Rosli Mohd Zin, Mohd Saidin Misnan and Abdul Hakim Mohammed (2006) : Proceedings of the 6th Asia Pasific Structural Engineering and Construction Conference (APSEC 2006), 5-6 Sept 2006, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Liebing, Ralph W.(2001), The Construction Industry Processes, Players and Practices, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Van de Ven, A.H. (1986) Central problems in the management of innovation, Management Science, 570 607.
Gann, D., Matthews, M., Patel, P. and Simmonds, P. (1992) Construction R & D: Analysis Of Private And Public Sector Funding of Research and Development in the UK Construction Sector, Department of the Environment, London.
Law, J. and Callon, M. (1992) The life and death of an aircraft: a network analysis of technical change, in: W.E. Bijker and J. Law (eds) Shaping Technology=Building Society, MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 21 52.
Connaughton, J. Jarrett, N. and Shove, E. (1995) Innovation in the Cladding Industry, Department of the Environment, London.
Miller, R., Hobday, M., Leroux-Demers, T. and Olleros, X. (1995) Innovation in complex systems industries:the case of right simulation, Industrial and Corporate Change, 363 400.
Rogers, E.M. (1995) The Diffusion of Innovations (4th edition)Free Press, New York.
Winch, G.M. (1994) Managing Production: Engineering Change and Stability, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Ive, G. (1996) The client and the construction process:the Latham report in context, in S. Gruneberg, Responding to Latham: the Views of the Construction Team, Chartered Institute of Building, Ascot, pp.37 43.
Bowley, M. (1966) The British Building Industry, Cambridge University Press, London.
No comments:
Post a Comment