How construction can deliver innovation faster

The TG96 group has seen increased interest in research that supports the delivery of innovation to enhance digital transformation and promote learning across sectors such as manufacturing, aerospace and car industries.

At national level I have been working with a diverse team from the School of Built Environment, Engineering and Computing at Leeds Beckett University and key players in the construction industry to examine how we can diffuse critical innovations that affect national priorities such as productivity and quality as well as environmental challenges. The research focuses on the effective diffusion of advanced technologies and changing behaviour.

Why is it important to the construction industry now?

The advent of sustainability has fuelled interest in understanding innovation processes, strategies and the tools necessary to deliver on challenging targets to meet sustainability goals.

The more recent agenda for a smart built environment, driven by the digital revolution experienced across many sectors of the economy, has created urgency to deliver innovation at a faster pace in our own industry.

Developing and integrating smart systems to enhance various aspects of the built environment and infrastructure pose a major challenge for today’s cities. Key issues facing urbanisation development include affordable housing, employment, transportation, energy, clean water, food supply and food security, quality education, health services, pollution and waste management.

The efforts to transform the industry to a ‘smart construction industry’ could shift focus from the physical structure to the intelligent systems and tools that would create, operate and control the built environment. This shift would create greater opportunities for interface with other industries, such as manufacturing and information technology industries, where the pace of innovation is arguably faster.

What is new about this research/innovation, compared to past work on this topic?

The role of the client, the customer, has long been recognised – more so in the Egan Report (1998) – as a leader and motivator that can drive change and provide the leadership to define the future innovation agenda for the industry.

Over the last four years research at the School of Built Environment, Engineering and Computing, Leeds Beckett University, has examined how the client can influence change in construction project stakeholders’ behaviour and drive change in corporate business models. Further research has also examined how the use of KPIs (key performance indicators) can motivate and support important changes in supply chain behaviour.

Such KPIs would create clarity of client priorities and enable the industry to develop and adopt a long term-innovation agenda.

The research has also recognised how clients can influence change in the industry through the adoption of more innovative engagement strategies with their stakeholders.

The focus here is on how we can deploy digital tools – how we can facilitate effective interactions between the client and the supply chain to communicate effectively the priorities and sensitivities of the client and motivate change and development in supply chain behaviour.

Are you working with any construction companies so they can apply your research/innovation on their projects?

The research outlined above was planned and executed in close collaboration with industry, which included significant industry funding.

The process was designed to ensure academic and industry perspectives are woven together to create solutions that are relevant to industry and can be applied in practice. Dissemination activities were offered through publications, workshops and conferences.

What areas of research do you think are most crucial for academics to focus on now to meet industry challenges?

The construction industry finds itself in a unique position where it faces significant challenges to meet national goals in areas such has housing, sustainability and energy.

At the same time, the industry is given the opportunity to embrace innovation enabled by the digital revolution that is sweeping industry, nationally and globally.

We need, hence, greater focus on how we can motivate and enable a change in the industry culture to adopt business models in which innovation is seen as an opportunity and not a threat.

Further research into the role of main contractors in supporting and motivating SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) to develop and adopt innovation could prove critical here.

Enabling SMEs to invest in and adopt innovations may facilitate the effective diffusion of innovations in industry, especially in bigger organisations.

There is an opportunity here for bigger firms to consider small firms as ‘startups’ that have the flexibility and agility to develop more disruptive innovation. l

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