Editorial

Citation

McCaffer, R. (2009), "Editorial", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 16 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ecam.2009.28616daa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Volume 16, Issue 4

Volume 16 Number 4 features papers on organisational learning, payment mechanisms, stability test for excavators, competencies of project managers in Ghanaian house building, the integration of numerical tools in construction processes and enhancing the visualisation of 4D CAD. So the description of the range of topics as rich and varied would seem to apply once more. The research methods are equally rich and varied. Two papers are based on surveys but with evidence that the researchers were well connected with the target respondents. One paper on payment mechanisms is based on modelling. The stability test for excavators paper has a developmental approach involving a group of experts. The paper on construction process improvement largely uses simulation and the paper on 4D CAD is a technical appraisal.

The contribution of these papers to our industry looks good. The stability test for excavators should be taken up and I am confident the authors will make this happen. The papers on improving learning and on the competence of project managers should lead to training and development. The paper on improving construction processes using concurrent engineering, if demonstrated sufficiently, should find other users. The paper on payment mechanisms needs examples to demonstrate the worth of the proposed approach to encourage further application. Finally the paper on 4D CAD will eventually come through to application and we will all forget how poor visualisation used to be.

It has taken 17 authors – from Thailand (two), Malawi (one), Algeria (five), Canada (one), Ghana (two) and UK (six) – to produce these papers. One paper is single authored, three papers have two authors, one has four authors and one has six authors. Six authors is a large number but one short of our record.

The papers in this issue are:

Kululanga extends his work in organisational learning by seeking construction process improvement through the learning processes. Kululanga surveyed business teams employed by contractors in Malawi. His conclusions are that construction teams displayed low cognitive, social and physical competences because of lower generative learning than other industries. The implications of this is that construction executives have the additional role of managing learning and developing cognitive power that they do not seem to have embraced. The utilisation of the various business teams needs to be re-conceptualised according to the author.

This is quite a sophisticated subject of which Kululanga would seem to be emerging as one expert. The concepts are too theoretical at the moment for ready application. So we need to look to our experts in learning to devise the awareness training that will alert our industry executives to their role in this respect and to the benefits of creating a learning organisation.

Motawa and Kaka have been experimenting with payment mechanisms. The argue that each payment mechanism has different characteristics favouring different participants. Thus Motawa and Kaka’s solution is to offer a method for exploring the various payment mechanisms so that the agreed mechanism can be “fine-tuned”. This is an approach to design payment mechanisms for individual projects suitable for all including off-site fabricators and others in the supply chain.

Edwards and Holt who seem to have made the management of construction plant their life times work offer, in this paper, new stability tests for construction excavators.

The authors identify the health and safety risks of mini-excavators and, say, surprisingly, that no standard test exists to assess excavator stability. So, together with a group of plant experts, the authors have designed and trialled such a test involving five stability criteria.

The “tests” now for the new stability test are:

• •

  will it be widely used; and

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  will it lead to a reduction of accidents.

We invite the authors to update us on this in due course.

Ahadzie, Proverbs, Olomolaiye and Ankrah have studied the competencies required of project managers in mass house building projects in Ghana. The data was obtained by survey from managing directors of home builders for the Ghana Real Estate Development Association So the data reports the managing directors’ perceptions of the competencies required by project managers. The purpose of this is to inform project managers what competencies they require and to inform their training and continued professional development. I hope the authors do not leave the study at this stage but continue to develop the training and development guidelines needed to inform employers, trainees and training providers. Such a diverse group of different participants will not come to the same set of conclusions unless lead to those conclusions. Having started this work the authors, hopefully, will see it through to effective implementation.

Attar, Boudjakdji, Bhuiyan, Grine, Kenai and Aoubed conducted a case study on the construction of a metro station and used it as a pilot to demonstrate the effectiveness of more innovative approaches.

This study used the principles of concurrent engineering to optimise the execution time of the underground structure and simulation to integrate design parameters with real site conditions. The authors claim time and cost savings and advocate the use of concurrent engineering by demonstrating its value.

This is an interesting paper taking us to the heart of construction and tackling the issue of “time” in construction processes and the “cost” of the construction. The authors should seek other outlets to demonstrate their approach which looks valuable and should be widely disseminated.

Benjaoran and Bhokha attempt to identify the deficiencies of visualisation of the 4D CAD model and propose improvements. The authors address four aspects of visualisation namely overview of the schedule, duration and relationships of an activity and project progress tracking. The visual properties they experiment with are colour, line weight and line type.

This is an important topic in which most of us either admire the visual quality or complain at the lack of it. Behind these perceptions of the many users are the detailed work of the few who get involved to such a level of detail. To these developers we will be eventually grateful.

Ronald McCaffer