Jan Bröchner

Managing information flow in construction supply chains

The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of construction procurement within the supply chain management framework and develop a model for information flow. This paper adheres to the supply chain perspective and integration as theoretical point of departure, typically the role that information plays in a complex network such as construction procurement. The co‐ordination within partners and the integration across partners are critical in effective project management. Sharing information is a key component for tight integration to optimize the chain‐wide performance. It helps produce highest quality, low cost and minimum time to service. The tender offer from the procurer or invitation from a supplier triggers the requirement process. In response to the requirements there has to be an opposite flow of information, termed the fulfilment flow in the model described. The requirement information from a procurer is broken down to the project requirements for various partners in the project. Once the supply chain is identified in the postcontracting phase, information regarding specific tasks, materials, and so on, are communicated to the project partners. Information must be managed to bring in value. The quality of information received, the timeliness of the manner it is received and the costeffectiveness in obtaining the information determine the efficiency of a project partner. Another classification considered is that of the changing role of the partner with regard to information handling, i.e., the project partner as a recipient, decision‐maker and communicator of information. All these factors jointly contribute to increasing efficiency in construction procurement. This framework needs to be explored in future research to define subsequent steps in construction supply chain management, as the challenge is to adapt a totally integrated supply chain.

Impacts of information technology on the structure of construction

Changes in the structure of the construction industry can be attributed in part to information costs being reduced over time. Co-ordination, inspection and the translation of client needs are facilitated, affecting employee incentives within firms, transactions between firms and the role of intermediaries. These aspects of information technology influence the optimal configuration of construction processes within each firm in the industry. Patterns of integration are seen as dependent on the interaction of aspects of information technology with attributes of each construction process. Geographic expansion, diversification or subcontracting, integration with materials supply and into real estate are considered. An emerging industry pattern with three types of firms: specializing, co-ordinating and local is indicated, while in the long run, a development towards individuals in project networks is foreseen.

Cross-border post-acquisition knowledge transfer among construction consultants

Mergers and acquisitions among engineering consulting firms and other professional service organizations occur frequently. International acquisitions should pose challenges because of corporate and national barriers of culture. The purpose here has been to study the relative influences of technical and cultural heterogeneity on knowledge transfer in a post‐merger situation where offices in two countries are involved. In 2001, the UK‐based WSP Group – providing management and consultancy services to the property, land and construction sectors – acquired J&W, a leading engineering consultancy firm in Sweden. Two technical disciplines, rail and contaminated land, were selected for this survey. Four offices, two in each country, participated with eight consultants in each place. The survey shows occasional, two‐way knowledge exchange taking place 16 months after acquisition. Face‐to‐face meetings, e‐mail and technical business gatherings are perceived as the best transfer mechanisms. The presence of knowledgeable customers differs between disciplines and seems to explain differences between transfer patterns. Among metrics for knowledge transfer, the number of international joint projects is assigned the highest rank. Consequences for the choice of organization of knowledge transfer, as well as the measurement and communication of progress in knowledge transfer, are identified.

Where to submit? Journal choice by construction management authors

Publishers of academic journals can be seen as service providers to authors, in addition to the traditional role of providers of research results to readers. The purpose of this study was to analyse how author choices of journal in construction management are affected by quality and service perceptions. Seven journals were identified and for each 2006 article, one author e‐mail address was extracted. A web‐based questionnaire was sent to 397 authors and 35% responded. It was found that there were three journals regularly followed by at least half the respondents. Most of the other four journals have scopes broader than construction management and receive lower scores for characteristics such as impact on researchers. No open access journals were included, and authors in the field of construction management rarely post openly accessible copies of their manuscripts or publications on the web. Author ranking of journals for their next submission is found to be related to general criteria such as academic status, circulation figures and ISI indexation.

Building users, owners and service providers: new relations and their effects

Corporate real estate management has undergone important changes in many countries. In recent years, companies have increasingly sold their facilities to external independent investors or placed their real estate in semi‐independent subsidiaries. Both manufacturing companies and real estate companies increasingly prefer to buy facilities management services from external contractors. This implies that new relations between users, owners and service providers emerge, where roles are separated in different legal entities without ownership links and are related to each other by explicit and formal contracts. This paper describes the Swedish development and discusses consequences for roles, relations and decision processes. Three key research areas are identified: how space supply and service management may be related to strategic levels of the core business; management of formal and informal aspects of interfirm relations over time; and decision making in the area of flexibility, generality and user adaptation of workspace.

Outsourcing facilities management in the process industry: A comparison of Swedish and UK patterns

The use of external providers, multiple or single, for peripheral support services has expanded during the 1990s. This investigation analyses patterns of support service outsourcing against a background of industry and national differences. Questionnaires and interviews with managers of three Swedish and three UK process industry plants (chemical, newspaper and steel) show to what extent facilities management (FM) and FMrelated services were outsourced in 2000 and expectations for the next two years. Why process industries tend to rely less on outsourcing than other manufacturing industries can be partly explained by the consequences of process interruption. The UK tendency to outsource is stronger than in the Swedish cases, probably owing to stronger ties between employers and employees in the Swedish process industry. The management of skills and tacit knowledge also emerge as explanations. Lower population density in Sweden may contribute to a higher degree of integration in companies.

Construction Productivity Measures for Innovation Projects

A 30-year retrospective analysis of resource use in a range of new construction and repair projects reveals insignificant productivity increase when applying traditional narrow measures, as shown in a case study of beam bridges. It appears as necessary to estimate hidden quality changes in both outputs and inputs. Changes in government regulations, in specifications, and the development of nonprice criteria for contract award emerge as important. Schemes for benchmarking the performance of construction projects as well as life-cycle analyses suggest that customer risk aversion and effects on customer productivity should be taken into account. The outcome is a set of measurements that can be applied to the selection of any type of proposed new construction or repair technology innovation according to their potential impact on industry productivity.

Construction contractors integrating into facilities management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse why certain construction contractors engage as facilities management (FM) service providers.Design/methodology/approach – Against a background of theories of vertical integration, information asymmetries and service innovation, a questionnaire survey of the 50 largest construction contractors in Sweden has been conducted.Findings – Of 44 respondents, eight were engaged in FM, and these differed by being more diversified both into a broader range of services and also upstream from traditional construction. Those engaged in FM were more innovative in general, and they tended to have employees with a high level of formal education.Research limitations/implications – The Swedish situation may differ from that in other countries. Competence‐based views of service innovation are supported by patterns identified in the survey data.Practical implications – Construction contractors entering the FM supply market need to develop a competence strategy that transforms ...

The construction productivity debate and the measurement of service qualities

Since the 1960s, researchers have provided short-term and long-term explanations for low productivity growth in the construction industry. In retrospect, the main challenge appears to be the measurement of changes in heterogeneous input and output qualities. The aim here is to review earlier construction productivity research and to compare it with more recent approaches to quality measurement used when analysing services productivity, ultimately intending to provide guidance for using performance data from construction projects. Relying on the EU KLEMS database, industries with similar patterns of productivity growth are identified, primarily the business services industry. In services productivity analyses, the attempts to introduce output quality measures reflecting customer satisfaction are particularly interesting, as this creates a link to productivity effects on clients. A conclusion is that it should be possible to use the increasing volume of performance indicator data collected for construction project benchmarking for extending the range of output quality variables. However, resource constraints imply that it is infeasible to base industry productivity statistics on project level data reflecting customer satisfaction and customer productivity effects.

Office space change in six Swedish growth firms

Facility resources of growth firms have seldom been studied. The purpose here is to analyse how firms that increased their number of employees changed their office space use between 1995 and 2000 in the Gothenburg region. Six firms have been selected among those who had 1‐25 employees in 1995 and 50‐500 employees in 2000. Site visits with retrospective interviews have been used. Results indicate that growth firms tend to relocate when passing from an entrepreneurial to a managerial phase. Once having relocated within the region, these firms tend to plan for multisite operations with new small offices. Spatial expansion seems to be triggered when no more than 20sq.m are left per full‐time employee. When density rises, these firms avoid raising the proportion of remote work. This may reflect that security is a crucial issue, and a concern with protection would also explain an emphasis on creating office boundaries for visitors.