Re-engineering construction: A new management research agenda

Construction management as an academic discipline appears to be developing in an evolutionary way base d on developments in practice which appear to be largely unaffected by mainstream management theories. There appears to be little two-way flow in construction management thought between theory and practice. There is an increasing range of customer-oriented theories emerging within the management discipline which is finding increasing acceptance and application within other management domains both from a theoretical and practical standpoint. Their application within construction appears to be delayed. This short note argues generally for a wider adoption of innovative, emerging management theories to construction. It specifically attempts to do this through an assessment and analysis of the implications of emerging principles of business process analysis based on information technology. Such an analysis results in an argument being made for the re-engineering of construction processes. Business process re-engineering has been portrayed as a revolutionary set of principles that can be used to achieve large-scale productivity and efficiency improvements. Analysing the place of some of its core principles within the way construction management research is evolving shows there to be many similarities. The contribution of the note is in the suggestion of a new research agenda for construction management and a clarification of the place and significance to construction processes caused by the way that information technology and construction management interact.