Since the late 1990s, web-based collaboration technologies (‘project extranets’) have become increasingly widely used within the UK construction industry and are now routinely deployed on the design and construction of thousands of projects. The first book dedicated to the topic, this comprehensive guide will help current and future construction professionals understand, implement and use such systems more effectively. Cutting through the hype and jargon, it offers expert advice and guidance from an industry insider on choosing a software provider, key software features, hosting, legal issues, connectivity, achieving user buy-in and assessing the benefits.

Since the late 1990s, web-based collaboration technologies (‘project extranets’) have become increasingly widely used within the UK construction industry and are now routinely deployed on the design and construction of thousands of projects. The first book dedicated to the topic, this comprehensive guide will help current and future construction professionals understand, implement and use such systems more effectively. Cutting through the hype and jargon, it offers expert advice and guidance from an industry insider on choosing a software provider, key software features, hosting, legal issues, connectivity, achieving user buy-in and assessing the benefits.

This book gathers papers presented at the 11th International Conference on Construction in the 21st Century, held in London in 2019. Bringing together a diverse group of government agencies, academics, professionals, and students, the book addresses issues related to construction safety, innovative technologies, lean and sustainable construction, international construction, improving quality and productivity, and innovative materials in the construction industry. In addition, it highlights international collaborations between various disciplines in the areas of construction, engineering, management, and technology. The book demonstrates that, as the industry moves forward in an ever-complex global economy, multi-national collaboration is crucial, and its future growth will undoubtedly depend on international teamwork and alliances.

Sustainable Construction Technologies: Life-Cycle Assessment provides practitioners with a tool to help them select technologies that are financially advantageous even though they have a higher initial cost. Chapters provide an overview of LCA and how it can be used in conjunction with other indicators to manage construction. Topics covered include indoor environment quality, energy efficiency, transport, water reuse, materials, land use and ecology, and more. The book presents a valuable tool for construction professionals and researchers that want to apply sustainable construction techniques to their projects. Practitioners will find the international case studies and discussions of worldwide regulation and standards particularly useful. - Provides a framework for analyzing sustainable construction technologies and economic viability - Introduces key credit criteria for different sustainable construction technologies - Covers the most relevant construction areas - Includes technologies that can be employed during the process of construction, or to the product of the construction process, i.e. buildings - Analyzes international rating systems and provides supporting case studies

Construction innovation is an important but contested concept, both in industry practice and academic reflection and research. A fundamental reason for this is the nature of the construction industry itself: the industry and the value creation activities taking place there are multi-disciplinary, heterogeneous, distributed and often fragmented. This book takes a new approach to construction innovation, revealing different perspectives, set in a broader context. It coalesces multiple theoretical and practice-based views in order to stimulate reflection and to prepare the ground for further synthesis. By being clear, cogent and unambiguous on the most basic definitions, it can mobilise a plurality of perspectives on innovation to promote fresh thinking on how it can be studied, enabled, measured, and propagated across the industry. This book does not gloss over the real-life complexity of construction innovation. Instead, its authors look explicitly at the challenges that conceptual issues entail and by making their own position clear, they open up fresh intellectual space for reflection. Construction Innovation examines innovation from different positions and through different conceptual lenses to reveal the richness that the theoretical perspectives offer to our understanding of the way that the construction sector actors innovate at both project and organizational levels. The editors have brought together here leading scholars to deconstruct the concept of innovation and to discuss the merits of different perspectives, their commonalities and their diversity. The result is an invaluable sourcebook for those studying and leading innovation in the design, the building and the maintenance of our built environment.

With a number of disparate, often geographically distributed,organisations involved in the delivery of construction projects,there has been considerable interest in e-business tools within theconstruction industry. These tools open up a range of possibilitiesfor the industry to rethink existing processes and working methods,so their use is increasingly common. Nevertheless, there has beenlittle definitive guidance for practitioners, researchers andstudents on the major issues in electronic business from aconstruction perspective. By bringing together 16 contributions from research and industrycovering theory, technological issues, practical implementation andlegal matters, and illustrated with a number of case studies,e-Business in Construction fills that gap. Starting with thetheoretical aspects of e-commerce and moving on to consider thespecifics of the construction context, it includes a mechanism forthe assessment of the e-readiness of construction sectororganisations. The middle part of the book focuses on the role ofvarious technologies in e-business, with examples included asappropriate. This is followed by a discussion of practical, legaland trust issues. The potential of next generation of informationand communication technologies is also addressed. With a fine blend of theoretical and practical aspects ofe-commerce in construction, and well illustrated with a number ofindustrial case studies, e-Business in Construction will find anappreciative audience of construction practitioners, researchersand students at all levels.

The design process has always been central to construction, but recent years have seen its significance increase, and the ways of approaching it multiply. To an increasing degree, other stakeholders such as contractors have input at the design stage, and the designer’s role includes tasks that were traditionally the realm of other professions. This presents challenges as well as opportunities, and both are introduced, discussed, and analysed in Collaborative Design Management. Case studies from the likes of ARUP, Buro Happold, VINCI Construction UK Ltd, and CIOB show how technologies (BIM, podcasting), innovative working (information management, collaboration), and the evolution of roles (the designer-contractor interface, environmental compliance) have changed design management as a process. Starting from a basic level, the reader is introduced to the key themes and background to the design management role, including definitions of the responsibilities now commonly involved, and the strategic importance of design. Influential technologies currently in use are evaluated, and the importance they are likely to have in future is explored. This combination of case studies from leading practitioners, clear explanations of design management roles and activities, and an exploration of how to succesfully achieve collaborative design management makes this a highly topical and uniquely valuable book. This is essential reading for professionals and students of all levels interested in construction design management, from all AEC backgrounds.