Towards A Sustainable Construction Industry The Role Of Innovation And Digitalisation

This book gathers papers from the 12th Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) Postgraduate Research Conference, which was held at the International Convention Centre, East London, Eastern Cape, South Africa, from July 10 to 12, 2022. The conference directly addresses the objectives of SDG9: “Building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization and fostering innovation”. Moreover, the conference is designed to promote capacity development and transformation within the built-environment space by providing an all-inclusive platform to established and emerging researchers to discuss the recent advancements needed to move the industry forward.

This book gathers papers from the 12th Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) Postgraduate Research Conference, which was held at the International Convention Centre, East London, Eastern Cape, South Africa, from July 10 to 12, 2022. The conference directly addresses the objectives of SDG9: "Building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization and fostering innovation". Moreover, the conference is designed to promote capacity development and transformation within the built-environment space by providing an all-inclusive platform to established and emerging researchers to discuss the recent advancements needed to move the industry forward.

This is the first book to link construction management with various digital tools with a view to enhancing sustainability of construction projects. Can be adopted as a research guide, framework, and reference on sustainable construction, the concept of sustainable projects, digitalisation in the construction industry, and the fourth industrial revolution.

A paradigm shift is happening at this moment. Firms and consumers are aware of the fact that they cause environmental pollution, depletion of resources and are responsible for the dangers involved. At the same time awareness is growing that they need to and will develop the appropriate solutions in the time to come. The idea that sustainable, cyclic businesses are more logical than consumption-oriented and waste-dumping ones seems fascinating to a growing number of people. For this change to happen new thinking and behavior is needed. Firms and consumers play a central role in a sustainable business. Companies deliver what consumers buy and vice versa. In a sustainable paradigm, companies are able to develop and produce sustainably. Therefore, companies need new management concepts for sustainable investment, manufacturing, logistics and marketing and for sustainable management. In Managing Environmentally Sustainable Innovation, Bossink evaluates the innovation chain in a process of five consecutive stages, articulates five levels at which people collectively manage the chain, and analyzes the interplay between the two. Acquainting the reader with the complexities of innovation, as well as which complexities are active in the management of environmental sustainability, this book offers guiding principles and a toolbox for the management of environmentally sustainable innovation in construction.

Innovation in construction is essential for growth. The industry strives to remain competitive using a variety of approaches and needs to engage structured initiatives linked to proven innovation concepts, techniques and applications. Even in mature markets like the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector, where business behaviour is generally considered as being risk averse, it is increasingly important to embed innovation into mainstream business practices. In Construction Innovation and Process Improvement a number of wide ranging issues from construction practice in different countries with different contexts are presented to provide a rich collection of literature embracing theory and practice. Chapters are divided into three broad themes of construction innovation relating to: Theory and Practice; Process Drivers; and Future Technologies. Several questions are posed, including for example: What is particularly unique about construction innovation in theory and practice? What are the major drivers of construction innovation? What factors are needed to support and deliver future construction technologies? In attempting to respond to such questions, the book sheds new light on these challenges, and provides readers with a number of ways forward, especially cognisant of the increased role of globalisation, the enhanced impact of knowledge, and importance of innovation. All these can have a significant impact on strategic decision-making, competitive advantage, and sustainable policies and practices. Part One deals with change management, technology, sustainable construction, and supply chain management; Part Two addresses innovation and process improvement drivers, including strategic management, concurrent engineering, risk management, innovative procurement, knowledge management; Part Three explores future technologies in construction – and particularly, how these can be harnessed and leveraged to help procure innovation and process improvement.

This book tackles the complex topic of implementing innovation and the successful application of advanced technology in the construction industry. It provides a practical guide for the transformation of the industry by detailing appropriate and effective implementation methods, required skill sets and structural changes necessary to facilitate the practical and innovative application of technology. The construction industry is behind other industries in its level of innovation and adoption of technology, and is of critical importance to many of today’s global challenges, such as climate change, global warming and resource scarcity. There is therefore a need for smarter and more efficient ways of managing available resources. This book elaborates on how the innovative application of technology could offer hope for the construction industry in it’s imperative to rise to current and future global challenges. It includes the real-world case studies of innovative projects that go beyond the current state-of-the-art academic research, and have improved productivity, quality and performance in the construction sector. This book provides readers from both industrial and academic backgrounds with a comprehensive guide on transforming the construction industry with the efficient and effective implementation of technologies and modern methods of construction.

The construction industry is currently experiencing accelerating developments concerning societal demands along with project complexity, internationalization and digitalization. In an attempt to grasp the consequences of these demands on productivity and innovation, this edited book addresses how innovation is likely to take place with a more long-term perspective on the construction sector. While existing literature focuses on organizational discontinuity and fragmentation as the main reasons for the apparent lack of innovation in the industry, this book highlights the connectivity of construction actors, resources and activities as fundamental for understanding how innovation takes place.Through 15 empirically grounded chapters, the book shows how innovation is part of construction processes on various levels, including project, firm and industry, and that these innovation processes are characterized by organizational and technological connectivity over time. Written by European business management scholars, the chapters cover empirical cases and examples from both a multi-organizational and a multi-international perspective in terms of covering the viewpoints of different industry actors and the contexts of several different European countries including: Sweden, Norway, the UK, Italy, France, Hungary and Poland. By illustrating how connectivity is part of innovation processes in the creation of single-product innovations, of various innovations within and across projects, as well as a fundamental aspect of the processes in which innovations cross nations, the book provides a new angle on how to understand construction innovation and where the industry might (or needs to) be heading next. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in construction management, project management, engineering management, innovation studies, business and management studies.

The construction industry is amidst a digital transformation that is focused on addressing well-documented issues and calls for significant improvements and changes through increased productivity, whole-life value, client focus, reduction of waste, and being more sustainable. The key aspect to driving change and transformation is the education and upskilling of the required workforce towards developing the required capacities. Various approaches can be taken to embed digital construction within education and through collaborative efforts in order to drive change and facilitate improvements. The Handbook of Research on Driving Transformational Change in the Digital Built Environment focuses on current developments in practice and education towards facilitating transformation in the built environment. This book provides insight, from a practice perspective, in relation to the client’s understanding, digitally enabled collaboration, interoperability and open standards, and maturity/capability. Covering topics that include digital transformation and construction, digitally enabled infrastructure, building information modelling, collaborative digital education, and the digital built environment, this book is an ideal reference source for engineers, professionals, and researchers in the field of digital transformation as well as doctoral scholars, doctoral researchers, professionals, and academicians.