Madanayake, U H and Çıdık, M S (2019) The potential of digital technology to improve construction productivity. In: Gorse, C and Neilson, C J (eds.) Proceedings of 35th Annual ARCOM Conference, 2-4 September 2019, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK.
Abstract
Firms in the construction industry have increasingly been adopting digital technologies to improve their performance. However, whether these technologies have improved productivity of construction firms is an underexplored topic in the construction management literature. In order to shed some light and generate better informed debate on this topic, this paper presents the views of a variety of industry practitioners occupying managerial roles at various levels in the UK construction companies using Building Information Modelling (BIM) and/or Big Data Analytics (BDA). The data is collected from a representative population sample through semi-structured in-depth interviews and a questionnaire survey as part of an ongoing Ph.D. study which explores the relationship between digitalisation and competitive advantage in construction firms. The initial findings show that, when implemented and exploited strategically, BIM and BDA have the potential to make performance improvements that can be tied to productivity gains. Based on these findings, a critical discussion is provided regarding the correlation between digitalisation and productivity improvement in construction. It is concluded that digitalisation enables productivity increase in the construction industry which has not been captured by previous studies that have argued that construction productivity has been stubbornly low.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | big data; BIM; competitiveness; digital technology; productivity. |
| Index terms: | population, performance improvement, questionnaire, competitiveness, practitioner, digital technology, construction industry, construction productivity, building information modelling, interview, competitive advantage, digitalization, big data, productivity, survey, construction company, construction firm |
| Subjects: | digital technology, operations management, data collection methods, organization, computing systems, practitioner, demography, market analysis, industry analysis, information systems, management, performance measurement |
| Topics: | Business Strategy, Project Management, Research Practice, Roles and Professions, Urban Studies, Digital Applications, 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