Collaborative Working in Construction

Dino Bouchlaghem

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136892110
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Construction & Architectural Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Complications arising from poor collaboration are the source of a variety of the construction industry's biggest problems. It is now widely recognized that an effective collaboration strategy based on the implementation of information systems and careful consideration of the wider organizational issues is key to delivering construction projects successfully.

Against a backdrop of rapidly developing communication techologies, and continuing efforts to improve working practices, this book provides clear explanations of how to successfully devise and implement a collaboration strategy.

The concepts introduced include:

• collaborative working as a holistic concept in construction
• a new framework on how to plan and implement effective collaboration
• change management approaches for introducing collaborative working systems, and implementing new technologies in construction projects.

Examinations of emerging technologies like mobile and wireless are combined with overviews of relevant management theories, and industry case studies, to provide a comprehensive guide suitable for both practitioners and students. Underpinned by research carried out by leading academics in co-operation with practitioners using the latest technologies, this is the most up-to-date and relevant guide to this crucial subject available. This is essential reading for all practioners and serious students of management in the built environment.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Dino Bouchlaghem and Mark Shelbourn

Background and context

There is a widespread recognition that the construction industry must embrace new ways of working if it is to remain competitive in a global market and meet the needs of its ever demanding clients. Inherent within this drive is a requirement for better collaborative working which is becoming a core part of management paradigms such as concurrent engineering and lean production. Effective collaborative working is essential if design and construction teams are to cover the entire lifecycle of the construction product and take into account not only the primary functions of a built asset but also the production, maintenance and decommissioning processes.

Collaboration in the construction industry has special characteristics in that the formation of the teams and the end product is unique from project to project. Many construction organisations are adopting electronic systems to facilitate collaboration between distributed teams as a means of achieving higher productivity and improving competitiveness through the enhanced quality of their work products (COCONET, 2003). One such approach involves the use of systems that support working in virtual teams that collaborate across geographical, temporal, cultural and organisational boundaries to meet the demands and requirements of the global economy. In this way, project stakeholder interactions can be structured around a virtual work environment with a shared workspace populated with project information. It is, however, sometimes still important to create a feeling of co-presence between non-collocated collaborators if computer-mediated communications are to be successful and broadly adopted. Information-based applications that provide support for the management of individual and shared workspaces are currently widely available.

Despite the big upsurge of interest in partnering and alliances in recent years, there is little knowledge of the nature, feasibility, benefits and limitations of current practices of project stakeholder collaboration (Bresnen and Marshall, 2000). These practices essentially require effective access to information and interactions between project participants and are considered crucial to the competitiveness of large companies (DeRoure et al., 1998). Communication is an important part of collaboration in construction; an efficient and systematic exchange of information between designers, contractors, consultants, and sub-contractors is considered essential if construction projects are to be completed on time and within budget (Cohen, 2000; Atkin et al., 2003; Emmitt and Gorse, 2003). Design teams, in particular, increasingly need to make significant efforts to establish and maintain efficient communication and good coordination of information to accommodate the complex multidisciplinary collaborative design environment. Software tools and hardware solutions that support such distributed design teams have therefore become a necessity rather than just a trend (Peña-Mora et al., 2000). The effective management of design information and design changes is now regarded as an essential element for the success of construction projects. Collaborative design is discussed in detail in Chapter 6, which also introduces a computer-based method that supports the multidisciplinary collaborative design development.

The construction process, on the other hand, often suffers from the lack of collaboration and inefficient communication between design offices and construction sites. The most common cause of construction site problems is acknowledged to be the poor coordination of design information. Furthermore, the main causes for project delays from the contractors’ point of view are usually reported to be delays in receiving design information, long approval timescales, design mistakes, conflicts between design documents, and change orders (Kumaraswamy and Chan, 1998). Communication and collaboration between designers and construction teams still mostly rely on face-to-face meetings, and basic media such as telephone, email and fax transmissions. Site-based engineers usually use a number of drawings to perform a single activity. Therefore, fast access to design information through digital media on construction sites can significantly improve the efficiency of information exchange between the job site and the design office and hence facilitate site operations. Moreover, design details are not always simple and easy to interpret, and engineers can spend considerable time trying to understanding complex details; this can sometimes result in the actual construction being different from the design specifications. These issues are discussed in Chapter 5 of this book together with the results of an investigation into the potential that mobile technologies can offer to improve collaboration between designers and construction teams on site.

Collaboration and information technology

Much of the recent development on collaborative working has focused on the delivery of technological solutions, concentrating on the web (extranets), computer-aided design (visualisation) and information/knowledge management technologies (Kvan, 2000; Woo et al., 2001; Bouchlaghem et al., 2005; Tan et al., 2010). The collaboration merits of information and communication technology (ICT) tools are usually associated with their capabilities in supporting a high level of interaction, many-to-many communication and information sharing, in a group of known users, across the hierarchical, divisional, time and geographical boundaries (Karsten, n.d.). However, it is now recognised that good collaboration does not result only from the implementation of information systems, as such focused approaches are proving to be less than successful (Vakola and Wilson, 2002; Ferneley et al., 2003). On the other hand, approaches that exclusively focus on organisational and cultural issues would not reap the benefits gained from the use of ICT, especially in the context of distributed teams that are the norm in construction.

The business and cultural environments within which collaboration takes place are important factors when introducing collaboration technologies. However, as with other efforts that involve the implementation of ICT in projects and businesses, there has been a traditional focus on the technological aspects (Kvan, 2000; Faniran et al., 2001; Woo et al., 2001) with limited consideration of the effects that these implementations have on the users and the organisations they work for (Alvarez, 2001; Vakola and Wilson, 2002; Ferneley et al., 2003). Managing collaborative working in organisations cannot be achieved without the use of ICT; equally, technology implementations that concentrate solely on the social and economic aspects in organisations will also encounter difficulties (Koschmann et al., 1996; Loosemore, 1998; Winograd, 1998; Eseryel et al., 2002).

Introducing ICT into engineering organisations affects many cultural and behavioural aspects of the work environment (Credé, 1997; Proctor and Brown, 1997; Cheng et al., 2001). There are cultural differences around virtually every corner in any typical organisation (Haque and Pawar, 2003). Taking these differences into consideration is important when managing the change required for a smooth transition into any new working practices resulting from the implementation of new systems. Individuals can be apprehensive when confronted with technological change (Manthou et al., 2004). The need for change combined with the fear of the unknown when faced with new technologies can be unsettling for many professionals. Experience shows that technology does not always lead to improved practices at first, may not work as intended, and can be seen to have negative impacts on some individuals within organisations (Bartoli and Hermel, 2004). These negative results are particularly common when introducing new and advanced technologies that necessitate significant changes to accommodate their operational needs.

Disconnections can exist between business departments, managers and, most critically, ICT users and ICT developers. In order to introduce information systems change into an organisation effectively, it is necessary, as in any action that requires business change, to carefully consider the end users’ views (Finne, 2003). These users, especially operational managers, function and think using situational orientation as they react to the changing stimuli and contingencies around them. Technicians, on the other hand, are linear and rely on technical capabilities to solve problems. Understanding the differences between the two modes of thought and orientation is the first step towards bridging the gap that naturally exists between managers (system users) and technicians (developers) (Zolin et al., 2004).

New technologies can trigger different reactions from individuals as a result of the diverse and subjective interpretations and perceptions of the level of change required; this does not always result in resistance or rejection. Managing change when introducing computer technologies should therefore involve balancing technological, organisational and human factors (Korac-Kakabadse and Kouzmin, 1999; Chesterman, 2001; Smith, 2003). In addition to individuals’ and groups’ reactions, managers also have to take into consideration the relationships between information technology, information management and organisational change (Patel and Irani, 1999; Claver et al., 2001). These aspects of information and change management are particularly important in the construction sector and will be covered in detail in Chapters 2 and 7 of this book. In addition, a framework for the management of change in organisations and a structured approach for the design, selection, implementation and maintenance of a holistic information strategy are presented in Chapters 4 and 8 respectively.

An integrated approach to collaborative working

There has been a rapid growth in the development of collaboration tools and systems in recent years, especially in the areas of communication, visualisation, and information and knowledge management; however, the uptake and implementation of these tools has been rather slow and with mixed levels of success. In the absence of well-defined strategies that take into account the organisational, project and users’ requirements, choosing and implementing collaborative systems within the construction industry is sometimes done in an ad hoc manner. It is believed that a well-defined and mapped methodology for collaborative working will maximise the use of and benefits from ICT-based collaboration systems.

Evidence shows that the current collaboration tools landscape is improving but at the same time still fragmented and lacking integrated solutions (COCONET, 2003). This may be because the scale and scope of cooperative tasks is increasing, and as a consequence the use of collaborative systems is becoming more pervasive (Dustdar and Gall, 2003).

This book imparts an integrated view on collaborative working in construction, and addresses the technological, business and process factors associated with effective collaboration, together with the change management required to facilitate the introduction of collaboration systems. An integrated framework, which forms the core of this book, is introduced in which organisational priorities for collaborative working are considered together with project needs, users’ requirements and technologies in a decision-making framework that aims to support organisations in the strategic planning and implementation of effective collaborative working policies and practices. When carefully planned and if based on informed decisions, it is believed that these policies and practices will help organisations improve their collaborative working, achieve full benefits from it and maximise the use of tools and techniques available. Particular attention is given to the challenging requirements of distributed, heterogeneous and transient construction project teams together with the need to support the planning for all aspects of collaboration between team members and across all stages in the project delivery process. The Planning and Implementation of Effective Collaboration in Construction (PIECC) framework is presented in Chapter 3.

Acknowledgements

The research on which this book is based was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Special acknowledgements go to those who contributed and gave support to various aspects of the work and in particular the group of professionals from the construction industry who formed part of the core team that developed the PIECC framework and handbook. These include: Alan Blunden, Rennie Chadwick, Clive Cooke, Richard McWilliams, Gary Rowland and Paul Waskett.

Chapter 2

Collaboration

Key concepts

Mark Shelbourn, Abdullahi Sheriff, Dino Bouchlaghem, Ashraf El-Hamalawi and Steven Yeomans

Introduction

Collaboration is the collective work of individuals and groups undertaken with a sense of common purpose and direction within a shared environment that combines physical, digital and virtual resources. In collaborative work relationships, awareness of and familiarity with the environment develop through interaction with other stakeholders and access to information and knowledge. The collaboration process is characterised by the way it affects individuals and groups who manage their work so that it meets the collective needs through the coordination of their efforts to create positive changes and achieve common goals that become primary forces for generating commitment. The following standard definition of collaboration will be used in this book:

Collaboration is an activity in which a shared task is achievable only when the collective resources of a team are assembled. Contributions to the work are coordinated through communications and the sharing of information and knowledge.

This chapter discusses the key concepts and types of collaborative working with a focus on what forms effective collaboration and the barriers in the way of achieving it. The characteristics of collaboration in construction are reviewed together with the tools, techniques, resources and processes that support its planning and implementation within project environments.

Collaboration in construction

It is widely accepted that improving productivity and performance in the construction industry requires an integrated collaborative approach to project delivery, and managing information effectively is crucial to achieving this. The multidisciplinary nature of the construction industry with its often bespoke and transient projects makes the nature of and need for collaborative working different from other fields. Construction projects rely on collaborative working between a wide range of disparate professionals working together for a relatively short period to design and deliver a project; much of this process is based on a traditional sequential approach in which many of the participants often work independently, make decisions that inevitably affect others and then come together in face-to-face meetings. Furthermore, various individual stakeholders collaborating on a project also have differing organisational objectives; rarely have a common project aim; and have also received diverse educational upbringings that use different terminologies (unlike a group of medics collaborating to aid a patient). Although this ad hoc approach has entrenched the practice of collaborative working, it has also reinforced traditional disciplines to the extent that, on many projects, an adversarial environment prevails and the fundamental ethos of collaboration is not fully evident (Anumba et al., 2000). The situation is also further exacerbated by the use of collaborative practices alongside traditional approaches and adversarial contractual arrangements. Professional practices that recognise the need for collaboration generally adopt one of the following two methods to facilitate it (Kalay, 1999):

1. hierarchically partitioned – based on a contractual form, in which one team member (often the architect) takes leadership of the group ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Collaboration: key concepts
• 3. Planning and Implementation of Effective Collaborative Working in Construction
• 4. Information management and collaboration
• 5. Mobile communications and wireless technologies
• 6. Multidisciplinary Collaborative Design Optimisation
• 7. Change management
• 8. Change management framework
• 9. Collaboration implementation in construction: case studies
• 10. Industry perspective and conclusions
• References
• Index