ECAM 20.1

CONTENTS

Research Assessment and the Activity Hypothesis

Peter Lansley

A Contractor's Classification of Owner Payment Practices

Hanh Tran and David G. Carmichael

Meeting Sustainability Challenges of Mega-Event Flagships

Ying DENG

A portrait of building services engineers in Hong Kong

Francis W.H. Yik, Joseph H.K. Lai *, K.T. Chan, C.K. Chau, W.L. Lee

Organisational learning in construction supply chains

Stuart Tennant and Scott Fernie

Building information modeling in Denmark and Iceland

Per Anker Jensennd Elvar Ingi Jóhannesson

ECAM 20.1

EDITORIAL

ECAM 20.1 is the first issue of the New Year so it is my pleasure, notwithstanding that I am writing this on a rainy slightly chilly September afternoon, to wish our research community a happy and productive New Year. I do hope it’s productive with lots of high quality research driving the development of our industry forward. A more efficient construction industry with lower costs is an essential element to development and economic prosperity. Our research community have a great role to play and a responsibility to do so.

This issue of ECAM has six papers produced by fourteen authors from six countries. The distribution of authors across these countries is 7 from Hong Kong, 3 from the UK, 2 from Australia and 1 each from Denmark and Iceland.

The topics in this issue are as rich and varied as ever including an analysis of the UK’s research assessment exercise from 1996 to 2008 seeking to predict ratings from the more measurable research activity. In the run up to the UK’s 2013 research assessment exercise this paper will undoubtedly generate huge interest. The other topics are: an attempt to classify owners by their payment practices; the sustainability challenges of mega-event projects which usually promise regeneration; the state of building services engineering in Hong Kong; organisational learning in supply chains; and implementing Building Information Modelling. These last five papers tackle issues where improvement is needed and where these researchers are attempting to contribute and solutions to the problems addressed would benefit the industry. Its good to see our research community focussing on real problems.

The papers in this issue are:

Lansley continues his commentary on the UK research assessments exercises. Previous analyses of the 1996 and 2001 research assessments supported a simple hypothesis, that the grade awarded to a university department can be related to its level of activity in terms of, for example, number of research students, research studentships secured, research degrees awarded, research funded from external sources, and the profile of publications. The paper considers the extent to which these relationships prevailed for the most recent RAE in 2008. The new analysis is less clear, the relationships between research activity and research measures are more challenging and there is no single model applying to the five subject areas investigated. But, inevitably, the importance of research activity is clear; research students and research income are good predictors of success.

The interesting question, in my mind was not the 2008 exercise but the upcoming 2013 exercise. The big change has been to introduce a 20% ‘impact’ component into the assessment. That is impact on the wider community not journal impact factors or citations. The research quality is still being judged on the submitted outputs. Now whilst every University in the UK has a Pro-Vice Chancellor for research focussed on ensuring that every member of staff has four good research outputs none, to my knowledge, have a PVC monitoring on a detailed and regular basis the ‘impact’ of their research. The intriguing question is how well the Universities will be able to respond to this new component in the assessment exercise now named Research Excellence Framework. The value of this impact component will grow; I believe it should grow even faster than planned. In an applied subject, such, as construction if research isn’t applied and has impact how are we to judge its worth.

Tran and Carmichael present a classification system of owner (or client) payment practices. Cash flow is a big factor for construction contractors. It is what causes their financial failure. In every project there are many outgoings to many including labour, sub-contractors, plant companies and material suppliers but there is only one source of income, the client or owner. If the owner is slow, late or in any way defaults the contractor has no income to meet the outgoings. This paper presents a method for evaluating owners. The data analysed was late or incomplete payments and regression models were generated. What would be interesting would be a case study of a contractor using the models. I suspect we’ll never get to see the effect because armed with an adverse assessment the contractor would immediately enter negotiations with the owner and these would be confidential. I found this interesting, it is a perennial issue and we have experience of dealing with these issues all the way back to the seventies.

Deng and Poon address how we meet sustainability challenges of mega-event flagship projects. Such mega-events are usually used to regenerate an area. The promise of regeneration is appealing, but the authors claim there is insufficient research on the critical early stages. The approach was multiple-case studies. This paper corrects a misunderstanding of such a development being an end in itself, and contributes new insights into the definitional early stage of MEFs. The authors argue the need for a database of useful lessons and critical decisions to establish best practice targets. This seems a useful first start in a new subject area. The authors need to find the next mega-event and get involved in the early decisions making and report their experinces.

Yik, Lai, Chan, Chau and Lee describes building service engineers in Hong Kong. The authors surveyed information relating to practioners of building services and statistically analysed the data. The data shows that there is a competence gap and this leads to engineers with the appropriate degrees and professional experience handling more trades than other engineering disciplines. There is little difference in salary levels to the other engineering disciplines. What the authors have raised is a concern about the numbers of qualified and experienced building services engineers. What they have not presented is a plan to address this. That plan needs to include undergraduate and post-graduate degree programmes as well as short courses and training to convert other engineering disciplines to building services.

Tennant and Fernie examine organizational learning in construction supply chains. The authors argue that learning within supply chains is the means to develop a competitive advantage. The data sources were semi-structured interviews, recorded, transcribed and analysed. The sad findings of this study are that the management of supply chains in construction is limited and organizational learning is under-developed and described as reactionary and interventionist.

This is the latest in a commentary that supply chain management in construction is poor and that organizational learning doesn’t exist. But where do we go from here. We could wait another ten years and write this paper again. We need the supply chain researchers to generate a break-through. How? I confess I don’t know. I have had some contact with a Japanese car manufacturer and my understanding is that in the UK they manage their suppliers down to tier 3 whereas in Japan they need only do it to tier 1 as the tier 1 suppliers manage tier 2 etc. This is evidence that supply chains are a weaker concept in the UK. Our researchers need to examine the good practioners of supply chain management in other industries, develop a model for construction and persuade some companies to operate it to develop some different case study material. This is a real problem with no current solution. The research community should respond by seeking a solution.

Jensen and Johannesson report on ‘Building Information Modelling’ in Denmark and Iceland. The purpose was to use information on the use of BIM in Nordic countries, especially Denmark, to enable its use to be implemented in Iceland. The study included researching the use of ICT in Iceland in comparison to other Nordic countries and the experience of implementing BIM in Denmark. This information was used to propose a feasible way of implementing BIM in Iceland. The existing use of BIM in Iceland is limited. When this proposal is operational a case study on how quickly and effectively BIM was implemented in Iceland would be welcomed together with data on the benefits.

Ronald McCaffer

www.mccaffer.com