| 1. |
- Hansson, Bengt, et al.
(författare)
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Project Assessments in Construction and Real Estate - Analysing management of end-user needs and ensuring performance in the building life cycle. CREDIT Report 4
- 2010
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this report a generic model for the capture and assessment of end-user requirements and needs, the CREDIT carpenter model, has been developed. The main determinants of the model is the need for the project organisation (including the facilities management organisation) to ensure a thorough understanding of the end-user requirements and needs as well as an assessment through out the project process. The end-users and the project organisation are often working in two different value chains. This, among other things, means that they may not share a common understanding of the process. Apart from just assessing to what extent the requirements and needs has been achieved it is important to assess the process of accomplishing the desired result. This way it is possible to learn from what has worked well and what has not. There is some variation in what and how it is being assessed depending on what type of building it is. Assessments on housing are more inclined to focus on softer aspects, for example perception etc. In the other cases there are, generally, a more technical perspective. It may be an affect of how knowledgeable the users are. In regard to housing the users have possible less experience of construction and communicating their needs than in the case of offices etc. There is also a notable difference between approaches and interest on what to assess in the different countries. Sweden has a much more soft approach and an ambition of getting as many as possible to understand what is being assessed and for what reasons while Finland has a much more technical and measurable approach. The clients, naturally, play a large part in the construction process, also when it come to capturing and transferring the requirements and needs of the end-users. It is mainly the clients that initiate it. Maybe more surprisingly, they do perform a lot of the work themselves as well. Designers play an important role as do known end-users as well. During the project it is mainly the client that initiates the assessments, but the actors of the project process, designers and producers that perform it. Evaluating the degree of fulfilling the requirements and needs as well as assessing the process to enable learning is again mainly a client action both initiating and performing, the rest of the actors do not engage to any larger degree. The processes from begin of the brief to the end of construction have well developed routines as a part of the project management system. These routines are good enough to successfully fulfil the studied project and the control of the process in order to get internal efficiency in the short run perspective. But there is almost no case that shows any assessment tool that support feedback, the knowledge development and the innovation process which is important in the long-run perspective. The missing feedback is marked in the carpenter model. Found in the study there are two examples of tools that together may to some extent overrun this issue. Building Information Models have the potential of acting as an information carrier within a project, storing all types of information needed for assessing a number of different aspects. The main issue is to get the right information and presenting it in a way suitable for the target group. This is done in the case of Falk in Skanska (in Norway). It is a system gathering and presenting a multitude of KPIs, from a number of different systems, in an easy to understand layout.
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| 2. |
- Olander, Stefan, et al.
(författare)
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Productivity comparisons, are they possible or even desirable?
- 2010
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Ingår i: [Host publication title missing]. - Salford : University of Salford. ; , s. 58-67
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Increased productivity is of societal good and efforts to achieve this should be a relevant task for all businesses. However, the concept of productivity is not clear as to what is to be measured. This becomes a problem especially when statements are made that the development of productivity in the construction industry is not as good as other sectors of industry. It is not clear if this comparison is relevant or even possible to make. This study aims to address and discuss the problem surrounding productivity measurements and comparison of them and is based on literature reviews that address the problem of evaluating productivity, with special focus on construction productivity. The results show that there is no uniform measure for construction productivity that can be used. Different situation calls for different measures. There unique circumstances for various construction activities, such as housing, commercial, industrial, infrastructure etc, that makes comparison of productivity between them virtually impossible. If statements of productivity are made without the knowledge of what the measures really show or is based on, there is a risk that these lead to misleading conclusions. Every study of productivity needs to be critically scrutinised with a high degree of scepticism. Instead of trying to achieve one uniform measure of productivity a set of key performance indicators can be used instead in order to obtain more qualitative facts about the state of the construction industry.
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| 3. |
- Pemsel, Sofia, et al.
(författare)
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Bridging boundaries between organizations in construction
- 2011
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Ingår i: Construction Management and Economics. - Abingdon, Oxon : Routledge. - 0144-6193 .- 1466-433X. ; 29:5, s. 495-506
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Organizations have boundaries that serve various purposes; for example, differentiating internal operations from external activities and controlling flows of information. Boundaries can however hinder knowledge exchange in inter‐organizational collaboration, leading to less effective outcomes. Empirical results from comparative case studies on how boundaries between organizations in a project can be bridged effectively to support knowledge exchange are presented. End‐user organizations and real estate companies form the subjects of the enquiry. The results show that the depth of involvement of the end‐user organization varies widely and, with it, the use of bridging roles and activities. To identify bridging strategies that can foster productive knowledge exchange in inter‐organizational collaboration, it is necessary to understand contextual aspects of end‐users’ needs to ensure the availability of sufficient competence within, and time for, the project team to perform its duties. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.
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| 4. |
- Pemsel, Sofia, et al.
(författare)
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Creating knowledge of end users' requirements: the interface between firm and project
- 2010
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Ingår i: Project Management Journal. - Hoboken, NJ : SAGE Publications. - 1938-9507 .- 8756-9728. ; 41:4, s. 122-130
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In order to stay competitive and meet the changing needs of the market, construction firms must develop efficient means of gathering and using knowledge of end-users requirements. This study uses two case studies, to explore the knowledge creation of end-users requirements in project driven firms. The focus of the study is the interface between firm and project. The interface is analyzed from both an autopoietic and cognitive, organizational and societal view. The findings implicates the importance of understanding (a) what kinds of knowledge that is dominated in the different organizations (b) what could be expected in the exchange of data, (c) what action needs to be taken in order to create value of it. The study suggests that considering the organization as an autopoietic system could be useful to understand the organizations responses to a dynamic environment.
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| 5. |
- Pemsel, Sofia, et al.
(författare)
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Managing the needs of end-users in the design and delivery of construction projects
- 2010
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Ingår i: Facilities. - Bingley : Emerald. - 0263-2772 .- 1758-7131. ; 28:1/2, s. 17-30
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose – The two-fold purpose of this paper is identifying areas of difficulty in managing the needs of end-users in the course of the design and delivery of construction projects and suggesting possible solutions. Design/methodology/approach – The focus of the paper is the interaction between three principal parties: end-users, project leader (a selected end-user) and facility planner (a facilities professional). The context is two projects in the public sector: a university and a hospital. The end-users of both are known from the start and participate in the whole process. The paper is based on a case study comprising 12 interviews – seven end-users and five professionals. Findings – The research shows that during the project's design and delivery, communication and attitudinal problems have to be managed alongside the inherent difficulty of understanding end-users' real needs. To help in managing these issues, facility planners relied heavily on pedagogical and behavioural skills, rather than formalised methods as found in the literature. Practical implications – The findings highlight areas of difficulty for managers and planners and how these areas were handled in practice. Suggestions on how to resolve some of the areas are presented and discussed. Originality/value – Much of the research related to managing end-users focuses on how to extract value from the construction process, for instance providing greater flexibility and improved air quality. This paper concentrates on relations between parties who are central to the briefing, design and delivery process
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