Corley, J and Deasley, P (2003) Factors affecting teamworking in construction service delivery projects. In: Greenwood, D J (ed.) Proceedings of 19th Annual ARCOM Conference, 3-5 September 2003, Brighton, UK.
Abstract
Towards the end of the last century research into construction looked at how the improvements achieved in manufacturing could be transferred into the industry. Means such as lean construction, process management, culture change, teamworking, integrated supply chain management, prime contracting and strategic alliancing have been proposed and have, in certain cases, realized important progress. However, despite the recurrence of reports on the industry and initiatives such as the M4i and Rethinking Construction, the industry does not seem to be reaping the benefits promised. There are dissenting voices that suggest that the models sought to be applied to construction are inappropriate. The purpose of this research is to ascertain whether the literature suggests reasons why progress has been slow and to verify in the field that the suspected problems exist in practice. This is an interim report on an ongoing study. An extensive literature review carried out suggests that there are problems in applying long-term collaborative working to short-term project-based contracts. Furthermore, extant research has concentrated on isolated aspects of construction such as site management, technological improvement or IT and not looked at the holistic perspective. Empirical research, in the form of interviews and questionnaires, was carried out with manufacturers, consultants, contractors and clients engaged upon a variety of long-term contracts. This research identifies that real problems exist in the practical implementation of teamworking and that these problems have been largely overlooked by previous studies. The hypothesis is made that the advent of service delivery focused projects, such as PFI, which are long-term Asset and Service projects, may be the route which has eluded previous seekers after change in the industry. Future developments of the research are proposed.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | long-term; service delivery focus; supply chain management; teamworking |
| Index terms: | literature review, service delivery, lean construction, alliancing, manufacturer, service project, interview, implementation, process management, questionnaire, site management |
| Subjects: | management, production management, service delivery, building construction, data collection methods, practitioner, data analysis and analytics, contractual arrangements, construction operations |
| Topics: | Business Strategy, Project Management, Research Practice, Roles and Professions, Procurement, Site Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here