Leveraging Innovation For Sustinanable Construction

This International Conference is about sustainability in its wider sense. It is an important area of discourse, as it pertains to how we work and how we lead our lives while considering the lives and workplaces of future generations. The conference particularly sets out to explore some of the developments and challenges taking place in academia and industry in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The conference is entitled "Going north for sustainability". The North signifies progress in technology, education and other areas of human endeavour to many people. Progress requires that people learn across continents and cultures.

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.

Innovation is widely recognized as a major source of modern productivity growth. Indeed, it is seen as constituting a central process of economic advancement in industrialized countries. Despite this, a considerable gap still exists in knowledge and technological capability between industrialized countries and the more dynamic developing countries such as China. Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are a major contributor to China's economy and SME's contribution to China's GDP is close to 60%.This book studies the strategy and mechanism of leveraging innovation capability in China's SMEs by applying the theory of Total Innovation Management (TIM), which is the new paradigm of managing innovation in enterprises developed by the Research Center for "Innovation and Development" (shortly RCID) of Zhejiang University, China. According to Eric von Hippel, MIT, RCID is the Top 10 Innovation Management research institutes in the world.Leverage Innovation Capability probes the strategy and mechanism of leverage the innovation capability in the firm, especially in China's SMEs. It analyzes how the SMEs utilize all the innovation elements in the firm, including Strategy innovation, Tech innovation, marketing innovation, organization innovation, culture innovation, innovation networking, learning and knowledge management, high involvement innovation, cooperation innovation, etc. to leverage innovation capability.

This book explores the relationship between the circular economy and the building technologies within the quintuple helix innovation model. The main question the book answers is whether and how the conversion of sustainable construction processes can be a powerful engine of innovation for the industry. The post-disaster settlements and temporary shelters are assumed as examples of what can be defined as circular buildings in regards to the technical arrangements and features, material and process reversibility, as the social and participative dimensions. Several cases of these interventions are documented and classified by three thematic axes: design, building and living. This highlighted new trajectories for innovation in building technology, consistent with the social, economic and productive dynamics that no longer allows for growing performance by increasing the resource demand. A theoretic framework is traced supporting this vision, which shows how the low technologies can respond to the transition of the economic model from linear to circular. Within this trajectory, the low-tech design for remanufacturing represents a reference framework and a promising tool applicable to the building processes. The enabling technologies and new paradigms for the transition to circular economy emerging from the European research scenario are also mapped, outlining z`the possible future developments in line with open technical and societal challenges.

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.

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a global phenomenon which is gaining significant momentum across the world. Currently there is little information on how to realise and monitor benefits from implementing BIM across the life-cycle of a built environment asset. This book provides a practical and strategic framework to realise value from implementing BIM by adapting Benefit Realisation Management theory. It presents an approach for practitioners aiming to implement BIM across the life-cycle of built environment assets, including both buildings and infrastructure. Additionally, the book features: wide-ranging information about BIM, the challenges of monitoring progress towards benefit goals and the greater context of implementation; a set of dictionaries that illustrate: how benefits can be achieved, what the benefit flows are and the enabling tools and processes that contribute to achieving and maximising them; a suite of measures that can serve to monitor progress with examples of how they have been used to measure benefits from BIM; real-world examples from across the world and life-cycle phases that show how these benefits can be achieved; and information on international maturity and competency measures to complement the value realisation framework. Including a blend of academic and industry input, this book has been developed in close collaborative consultation with industry, government and international research organisations and could be used for industry courses on BIM benefits and implementation for asset management or by universities that teach BIM-related courses.