Khalfan, M M A (2001) Benchmarking and readiness assessment for concurrent engineering in construction (BEACON). PhD thesis, Loughborough University, UK.
Abstract
In the increasingly competitive business environment reduced project cost, improved time-to-market, better quality products, and customer involvement are becoming the key success factors for any product development process. Many organisations within different industries are now focusing on concurrent engineering (CE) to bring improvements to their product development process in order to keep pace with the competitive environment. The adoption of CE has shown positive effects on project quality, cost, lead time, schedule, and customer satisfaction. For a targeted and effective implementation, it is recommended to carry out a readiness assessment of an organisation prior to the adoption of CE. This thesis discusses the adoption of CE within the construction industry, reviews existing CE readiness assessment tools used in other industry sectors, and assesses their applicability to construction. It then presentsa new developed CE readiness assessment tool for construction called the 'BEACON Model', its associated questionnaire, and associated software. Description and results of CE readiness assessment case studies, which were conducted within five sectors of the construction industry, are then presented. At the end of the thesis, CE implementation strategies and considerations are presented based on the assessment results, followed by conclusions, recommendations and future work. The most important conclusion from the research is that the construction industry, as a whole, still needs improvements in most of the critical areas identified by the BEACON Model in order to adopt CE effectively.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | case study; concurrent engineering; prototype development |
| Index terms: | project cost, success factor, strategy, prototype, industry sector, product development process, benchmarking, questionnaire, becoming, case study, competitive busines, construction industry, implementation, readiness assessment, customer satisfaction, lead time, concurrent engineering |
| Subjects: | health monitoring assessment and metrics, business management, contractual arrangements, modelling and simulation, innovation studies, data collection methods, risk assessment, philosophical process, industry analysis, project controls, service delivery, engineering methods, economics, management, performance measurement |
| Topics: | Research Practice, Cost Management, Business Strategy, Stakeholder Management, Time Control, Engineering Principles, Health and Safety, Procurement, Risk Management, Quality Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
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