Ruben Vrijhoef

The role of leaders' paradigm in construction industry change

As in other industries, firms in the construction industry need to become more client‐ and market‐oriented. In the last decade, several initiatives have been taken to change the construction industry in that direction. The changes, however, seem to be slower than other industries and less forthcoming than projected. Old practices and patterns die hard. Fundamental changes in orientation, strategy and strategy deployment require shifts in the management paradigms (i.e. the ‘frames of mind’ that steer individual and collective behaviour). Management is seen as a crucial factor in these change processes, but can the new business be created by old management paradigms? Can the leaders in the construction industry shake off the old paradigms? An explorative quantitative study shows that the mainstream paradigm of construction industry leaders today is much as it was in the past: technology‐ and project‐oriented. Acting out of this paradigm, issues as social‐organizational change and strategic focus on the client – regarded as important for the industry – will probably not be addressed properly. Change initiatives could gain in success, when they create wider awareness of existence and persistence of incumbent and prevailing paradigms.

The interdependences of BIM and supply chain partnering: Empirical explorations

ABSTRACT Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology and the concept of supply chain management (SCM) could be a potentially compatible and mutually interdependent practice. The existing research on BIM focuses on improving project-based and intra-organisational goals, ignoring the impact of BIM on existing structured long-term Supply Chain (SC) partnerships. The purpose of this study is to explore the interdependences of BIM and cross-project long-term inter-organisational teams. Five projects in the Netherlands, with BIM and SCM implementation, were analysed empirically using case study methods, including interviews, documents analysis and live observations. The BIM-enabled SC partnerships adopted various SCM practices and displayed distinct BIM collaboration patterns. This exploration revealed three main patterns of BIM-based collaboration, that is, ad-hoc, linear and distributed, in the SC partnerships. The three patterns included various quasi-contractual, physical and digital means for BIM collaboration. The study suggests implications about BIM researchers and practitioners for not only implementing BIM, but also further integrating the construction SC.

Supply chain integration with BIM: a graph-based model

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology to integrate the construction Supply Chain (SC) through the application of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM). It features a renovation case as a proof-of-concept. Design/methodology/approach – After analyzing the relevant gaps in the literature, the research followed a modeling approach. The proposed model merged product-, process- and organizational models in a graph-based model to represent and analyze a BIM-based SCM project. Findings – Presently, the information flows of the construction SC are vague. BIM is an aspiring integrator of information flows for construction. The proposed model for SC integration with BIM, offers an approach to identify the project complexities in relation to organizational structures, roles and interactions and integrate the industry. Practical implications – Currently BIM-enabled SCM is not very widely applied in the industry. However, the authors report the increasing inter...

Tackling Project Management Competence Research

The vast amount of previous research on project management competence does not provide a basis for educational needs. Analyzing previous research poses two challenges: the lack of a uniform list of competences, necessitating a taxonomy, and the use of importance as a criterion, favoring general important competences. Criticality is introduced as the competence a project manager adds to the team. Validation research using criticality and the taxonomy among experienced Dutch project managers is more comprehensive and provides a lesser focus on general important competences than previous research. Criticality focuses more on the essence of the profession.

The Rise of the Smart Circular City: Intelligent Modelling of Cities for Improved Waste Reuse and Environmental Effects

Cities around the globe are facing numerous challenges. Some give reason for concern, for example the extensive use of resources and the decline of air quality. The concept of the smart circular city provides opportunities to make cities more sustainable by applying smart solutions including smart data and smart logistics. Current developments are aimed at increased reuse of construction and demolition waste and assuring improved city environments for inhabitants. In this paper we present the application of such solutions in the City of Utrecht in the Netherlands. Environmental advantages have been sought in facilitating data-driven collection and reuse of construction and demolition waste as well as optimizing the transport of construction materials through the city, and thus the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and congestion. To support this analysis and process of reduced waste and emission, BIM and GIS have been applied to be able to mode the city and be able to know amounts of materials and emissions in the built environment and solutions of waste reuse and emission reduction. This paper is part of a wider development towards a smart and open 3D digital spatial city model to support various aims such as urban mining and city distribution.

Modelling and simulating time use of site workers with 4D BIM

This paper presents a research endeavouring to model site work in a 4D BIM model. Next simulations are performed with this model in 5 scenarios including specific interventions in work organisation, notably changing positons of facilities for site workers. A case study has been done in a construction project in the Netherlands. The research has showed the possibility to model time use of site workers in 4D BIM. Next the research has showed potential to perform and calculate specific interventions in the model, and prospect realistic changes in productive time use as a result.