Lene Faber Ussing

Sustainable Industrialization in the Building Industry: On the Road to Energy Efficient Construction Management

Since the Brundtland report in 1987 sustainability has been an issue in all parts of the world, and the focus is increasing in these years. The building industry has in the same period also been under heavy pressure to increase productivity in the same pace as other manufacturing industries. An important question is then how well these two highly relevant areas can go hand in hand. By means of comparing the main ideas and drivers behind sustainability and industrialization respectively, common threads, possible synergies and evident barriers put forward in this discussion paper. The main method is a review to track past merits in the two domains and to detect knowledge gaps that has research potential. A strategic research agenda focusing on energy efficient construction management is outlined showing the need for future focus on combining industrialization in construction management with sustainability and energy concerns in construction management.

The Project Management Process of Planning and Budgeting in Public Construction Projects

Budgeting and scheduling are central elements in all projects through diverse estimates that are defining the level of project outcome success. It is therefore relevant to study how large public construction agencies apply cost and time scheduling in their projects. The study objective is firstly, to comprehend the process of cost and time scheduling in the initial phases of a project. Secondly, to discover which factors stimulate budget and deadline increases in publicly funded construction projects. Applied data collection is based on semi-structured interviews with publicly agency employed project and property managers. Findings demonstrate that too early decision making disrupt the deadline and total cost in the client briefing stage. Due to lack of clear defined project scope and user requirements are too optimistic. The subsequent project stages are thus pushed by an earlier decided deadline and budget, where following complications within the project organizations were found to stimulate budget and scheduling increases.

Key Mechanisms for Employee-Driven Innovation in Governmental Client Organisations

In order to ensure that knowledge and ideas are transformed into innovative contributions, a systematic approach is important. The aim of this research was to identify the specific mechanisms that are key to implementing an innovation process model when conducting employee-driven innovation in a governmental client organisation. The methodological approach was an exploratory case study of a governmental client organisation within the Danish construction industry. The units of analysis were groups of employees and managers within the case organisation. The primary mechanisms identified were the mechanisms of organisational trust, innovation safety, organisational practices, cultural settings and the recognition and rewards structure to motivate employees. The decision-making procedures should be transparent especially to the idea-owners and the employees involved, and the implementation and putting into practice should be prioritised phases in the innovation process.

Implementation of BIM in the Danish building Sector

The Danish building sector has now for some years worked for implementation of BIM in the whole building process. In practice, it seems with the long way from the wish of using BIM in the whole building process to what really happens on the projects and building sites. To get an idea of how long the BIM implementation has come in the sector, a contractor company at present involved in one of the biggest public construction projects in Denmark was contacted to survey some employees at the project, because such a project ought to be one where BIM is best implemented. This survey shows the building sector is implementing BIM, but there are still big challenges to solve both internally in the company and externally both in the immediate environment and distant environment.

Danish Public Construction Counselling Selection and Assignment Criteria in European Tendering

One of the largest customers in the Danish construction industry is public agencies that own and develop projects. For some of the counselling services, they recur to be put out in European tendering. The aim is to find which selection and assignment criteria are used most in public tendering. How projects use selection and assignment criteria for counselling services and finally if there is significant use of selection and assignment methods in public counselling. The method is based on 74 public counselling tenders from the European Tenders Electronic Daily database from January 2010 to March 2013. A following standard error and Fisher’s exact test were conducted to test if there were any significant relations. Results indicate that invited tender with pre-qualification and most economically advantageous offer in 57.1 % of the tenders are the most used selection and assignment criteria in public counselling services.

Unfavorable Communications Lead to Conflicts in Building Projects

The building industry in Denmark is accused of moving towards a conflict culture. The aim of this survey is therefore to investigate how the parties in the building industry experience this. The study answers the following two questions: Can unfavorable communications in a building project team lead to disagreements and conflicts between the parties? Is the building sector marked by mistrust? The study is based on a questionnaire survey for the most common trade groups in the Danish construction industry, where 167 respondents completed the survey. The investigation shows that the degree of misunderstanding and conflicts depends on the way of communicating, and the degree of trust between the parties in a building project team depends on how familiar the parties are with each other. The results indicate that the building industry has to seek new ways of working together to obtain a better communication and more trust to each other.