Research roadmap summary - Integrated Design and Delivery Solutions (IDDS)

Changes in the construction sector are creating opportunities in research to maximise the benefits of those changes and to continue the exciting developments in improved people skills, new processes and developing technologies. Many research centres around the world are investigating aspects of the current changes to drive their particular expertise forward. However, the CIB Integrated Design and Delivery Solutions (IDDS) priority research theme takes a higher-level view of the changes and then focuses down on a prioritised set of research targets. These targets have been investigated, re-focussed and validated over a period of four years through many workshops, conferences and meetings by a wide ranging group of representatives from approximately 90 industry and research organisations. The outcomes of such research, once put into practice should be significantly shortened timespans from conception of need to occupation of new or revised structures. As time is money, the owners will get their investments into productive use sooner, which means a shorter payback time. In addition, there will inevitably be a reduction in construction costs as productivity increases. The improvements in reliable delivery and improved quality currently being seen in relatively simplistic use of Building information Modelling (BIM) (compared to full IDDS) will inevitably continue its on-going trajectory of improvement. We should also consider the wider economic contribution to society that will stem from such improvements and, finally, and by no means unimportantly, the reliable modelling and delivery of sustainability at both the building and estate/ area scale will significantly improve carbon footprints and other sustainable outcomes. Whilst there are huge opportunities for early adopters, the primary risk will be the expansion of the gap between those working in this way and those who are not so advanced or who even refuse to progress . The opportunities to address the significant and widely varying wastes within the structure of the construction sector and within and across projects are huge and timely and industry is encouraged to become involved.

Integrated design and delivery solutions

Integrated design and delivery solutions (IDDS) is a priority theme of the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB), which will be used to drive the global research agenda forward. IDDS will use collaborative work processes and enhanced skills together with integrated data, information and knowledge management to minimize structural and process inefficiencies and to enhance the value delivered during design, build, operation, and across projects. IDDS build on building information modelling (BIM), incorporating advances in the training and employment of people, together with supporting new technologies. The successful use of IDDS involves changes in each of the project phases from conceptual planning and business case formulation to all stages of the supply chain: design, construction, commissioning, operation, retrofit and decommissioning. For each of these phases, key changes in the structure and culture of the project team across the different collaborating firms create a favourable context for IDDS. Special for IDDS thinking is the idea of adding project and whole-life value in all phases, for all stakeholders...

Research roadmap report : Integrated Design and Delivery Solutions (IDDS)

Changes in the construction sector are creating opportunities in research to maximise the benefits of those changes and to continue the exciting developments in improved people skills, new processes and developing technologies. There are many research centres around the world investigating aspects of the current changes to drive their particular expertise forward. However, the CIB Integrated Design and Delivery Solutions (IDDS) priority research theme takes a higher-level view of the changes and then focuses down on a prioritised set of research targets. These targets have been investigated, re-focussed and validated over a period of four years through many workshops, conferences and meetings by a wide ranging group of representatives from approximately 90 industry and research organisations. This roadmap prioritises and details the research to be performed, why and by whom. In particular, some 25 CIB Working Commissions and Task Groups are explained as having potential roles in the delivery of this research theme. We are extremely privileged to have been urged on by such distinguished construction professionals in their forewords and the case for research. The outcomes of such research, once put into practice should be significantly shortened timespans from conception of need to occupation of new or revised structures. As time is money, the owners will get their investments into productive use sooner, which means a shorter payback time. In addition, there will inevitably be a reduction in construction costs as productivity increases. The improvements in reliable delivery and improved quality currently being seen in relatively simplistic use of Building information Modelling (BIM) (compared to full IDDS) will inevitably continue its on-going trajectory of improvement. We should also consider the wider economic contribution to society that will stem from such improvements and, finally, and by no means unimportantly, the reliable modelling and delivery of sustainability at both the building and estate/ area scale will significantly improve carbon footprints and other sustainable outcomes. Whilst there are huge opportunities for early adopters, the primary risk will be the expansion of the gap between those working in this way and those who are not so advanced or who even refuse to progress1. However, a similar issue arises between industry, clients, educators and trainers; the latter have particular challenges, having existed for many years in a sector that has had relatively few technological changes. However, the opportunities to address the significant and widely varying wastes within the structure of the construction sector and within and across projects are huge and timely. Whilst this Roadmap is specifically targeted at the Standing Commissions and Task Groups of the CIB, it is hoped that there are elements for research and applied research across academia and industry.

Improving construction management : an investigation into the influences of effective stakeholder involvement on project quality outcomes

This research has developed a framework to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of stakeholder involvement during the early planning stages of residential construction projects, in order to improve many of the quality issues that occur during the construction phases of such projects. A mixed methods approach (survey, interviews and case studies) was employed to collect the required data. It is expected that with development, this framework can bring some significant benefits to future construction projects in terms of reducing rework and wastage, improving timely delivery and avoiding disputes. The research is also anticipated to produce three high impact journal articles.

Personal media and wireless cities : towards an urban spatial analysis

For the past decade, at least, varieties of small, hand held networked instruments have appeared on the global scene, selling in record numbers, and being utilized by all manner of persons from the old to the young; children, women, men, the wealthy and the poor and in all countries. Their presences bespeak a radical shift in telecommunications infrastructure and the future of communications. They are particularly visible in urban areas where mobile transmission network infrastructure (3G, 4G, cellular and Wi-Fi) is more established and substantial, options more plentiful, and density of populations more dramatic. These end user products—I phones, cell phones, Blackberries, DSi, DS, IPads, Zooms, and others – of the mobile communications industry are the latest, hottest globalized commodities. At the same time, wirelessness, or the state of being wireless, and therefore capable of taking along one's networks, communicating from unlikely spaces, and navigating with GPS, is a complex social, political and economic communications phenomenon of early 21st century life. This thesis examines the specter of being wireless in cities. It lends the entire idea an experimentally envisioned, historical and planned context wherein personalization of media tools is seen both as a design development of corporate, artistic, and military imagination, as well as a profound social phenomenon enabling new forms of sharing, belonging, and urban community. In doing that it asserts the parameters of a new mobile space which, aside from clear benefits to humankind by way of mobility, has reinscribed numerous categories including gender. Moreover, it posits the recognition of other, more nuanced theoretical spaces for complex readings of gender and gendered use, including some instantiation of the notion of 'network' itself as a cyborgian and gendered social form. Additionally, cities are studied as places where technology is not only quickly popularized, but is connected to larger political interests, such as the reading of data, tracking of information, and the new security culture. In so doing the work has been undertaken as an urban spatial analysis and experimental ethnography, utilizing architectural, feminist, techno-utopian, industrial and theoretical literatures as discursive underpinnings from whence understandings and interpretations of mobile space, the mobile office, networked mobility, and personal media have come, linking the space of cities to specific, pioneering urban public art projects in which voice, texting and MMS have been utilized in expressions of ubiquitous networks and urban history. Through numerous examples of techno art, the thesis discusses the 'wireless city' as an emerging cultural, socially constructed economic and spatial entity, both conceived and formed through historic processes of urbanization.

The impacts of FOREX fluctuations on construction business performance : an organisational capabilities perspective

Construction projects are a high risk business activity. When undertaking projects in an international context, it is further complicated by the risk of fluctuations in the foreign exchange rates (FOREX). Construction business performance is affected by these fluctuations. They affect progress and cause delays, which in turn create problems for subcontractors, namely cost overruns, disputes, arbitration, total abandonment and litigation. FOREX fluctuations also cause the price of raw materials to increase, leading the cost overruns. Managing FOREX risk is critical and past research have focused on the need for adequate insurance, careful planning and management, and foreign exchange futures hedging to overcome issues that have been caused by the FOREX risk. Analysis of FOREX risk in international construction business usually focused only on issues at the project level. There is currently lack of understanding of Organisational Capabilities (OC) to manage the impacts of FOREX risk, which when examined, are seen in isolation. This paper attempts to bridge the gap by discussing the impacts of FOREX fluctuations on the international construction business. The focus is on the OC perspective and the need to develop OC framework to mitigate the risk in sustaining construction business performance.

An analysis of dispute review boards and settlement mediation as used in the Australian construction industry

If there is a silver lining to the adversarial, dispute-prone nature of the building and construction industry, it can be found in the concomitant rise of innovative dispute resolution mechanisms. Time, cost and relationship concerns have meant that the formal adversarial system holds little appeal for disputing parties. As these alternative forms of dispute avoidance/resolution have matured in Australia over the last 20 years, attention has turned to the key characteristics of each process and their suitability to the building and construction industry. This article considers the role of dispute review boards (DRBs) and mediation as two alternative methods for avoiding/resolving disputes in the construction industry. Criteria are established for evaluating the efficacy of these procedures and their sensitivity to the needs of construction industry disputants. The ultimate conclusion reached is that DRBs represent a powerful, yet underutilised dispute resolution tool in Australia, and possess many industry-specific advantages that more traditional forms of alternative dispute resolution (particularly mediation) do not provide.

Configurations of Gender, Class and Rurality in Resource Affected Rural Australia

Historically, class has been a key concern in studies of resource affected communities (e.g., Williamson 1982, Warwick and Littlejohn 1992). While work continues, particularly in Britain, today it reflects the rationalization of the British mining sector, and thus focuses largely on mining heritage (e.g., Strangleman et al. 1999, Dicks 2008). In contrast, this chapter examines class relations as manifest in a contemporary setting in rural Australia. This site, the Ravensthorpe Shire in the south west of Western Australia, relied largely on agriculture until 2004 when BHP Billiton commenced construction of a nickel mine in the area. This affected the entire Shire as well as the two rural communities of Ravensthorpe and Hopetoun. The mine, which was officially opened in June 2008, is one of a large number of new mineral and energy developments being established in non metropolitan areas of the country as high international demand for resources fuels significant growth in the sector. In a single six month period in 2009, for example, 15 major minerals and energy projects were completed across the nation and a further 74 projects were at advanced stages (Australian Bureau of Agricultural Economics 2009). A number of these were, as was the case in Ravensthorpe, in what had been traditionally agricultural communities.

Conceptualising, evaluating and reporting social resilience in vulnerable regional and remote communities facing climate change in tropical Queensland : marine and tropical sciences research facility transition project final report

Regional and remote communities in tropical Queensland are among Australia’s most vulnerable in the face of climate change. At the same time, these socially and economically vulnerable regions house some of Australia’s most significant biodiversity values. Past approaches to terrestrial biodiversity management have focused on tackling biophysical interventions through the use of biophysical knowledge. An equally important focus should be placed on building regional-scale community resilience if some of the worst biodiversity impacts of climate change are to be avoided or mitigated. Despite its critical need, more systemic or holistic approaches to natural resource management have been rarely trialed and tested in a structured way. Currently, most strategic interventions in improving regional community resilience are ad hoc, not theory-based and short term. Past planning approaches have not been durable, nor have they been well informed by clear indicators. Research into indicators for community resilience has been poorly integrated within adaptive planning and management cycles. This project has aimed to resolve this problem by: * Reviewing the community and social resilience and adaptive planning literature to reconceptualise an improved framework for applying community resilience concepts; * Harvesting and extending work undertaken in MTSRF Phase 1 to identifying the learnings emerging from past MTSRF research; * Distilling these findings to identify new theoretical and practical approaches to the application of community resilience in natural resource use and management; * Reconsidering the potential interplay between a region’s biophysical and social planning processes, with a focus on exploring spatial tools to communicate climate change risk and its consequent environmental, economic and social impacts, and; * Trialling new approaches to indicator development and adaptive planning to improve community resilience, using a sub-regional pilot in the Wet Tropics. In doing so, we also looked at ways to improve the use and application of relevant spatial information. Our theoretical review drew upon the community development, psychology and emergency management literature to better frame the concept of community resilience relative to aligned concepts of social resilience, vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Firstly, we consider community resilience as a concept that can be considered at a range of scales (e.g. regional, locality, communities of interest, etc.). We also consider that overall resilience at higher scales will be influenced by resilience levels at lesser scales (inclusive of the resilience of constituent institutions, families and individuals). We illustrate that, at any scale, resilience and vulnerability are not necessarily polar opposites, and that some understanding of vulnerability is important in determining resilience. We position social resilience (a concept focused on the social characteristics of communities and individuals) as an important attribute of community resilience, but one that needs to be considered alongside economic, natural resource, capacity-based and governance attributes. The findings from the review of theory and MTSRF Phase 1 projects were synthesized and refined by the wider project team. Five predominant themes were distilled from this literature, research review and an expert analysis. They include the findings that: 1. Indicators have most value within an integrated and adaptive planning context, requiring an active co-research relationship between community resilience planners, managers and researchers if real change is to be secured; 2. Indicators of community resilience form the basis for planning for social assets and the resilience of social assets is directly related the longer term resilience of natural assets. This encourages and indeed requires the explicit development and integration of social planning within a broader natural resource planning and management framework; 3. Past indicator research and application has not provided a broad picture of the key attributes of community resilience and there have been many attempts to elicit lists of “perfect” indicators that may never be useful within the time and resource limitations of real world regional planning and management. We consider that modeling resilience for proactive planning and prediction purposes requires the consideration of simple but integrated clusters of attributes; 4. Depending on time and resources available for planning and management, the combined use of well suited indicators and/or other lesser “lines of evidence” is more flexible than the pursuit of perfect indicators, and that; 5. Index-based, collaborative and participatory approaches need to be applied to the development, refinement and reporting of indicators over longer time frames. We trialed the practical application of these concepts via the establishment of a collaborative regional alliance of planners and managers involved in the development of climate change adaptation strategies across tropical Queensland (the Gulf, Wet Tropics, Cape York and Torres Strait sub-regions). A focus on the Wet Tropics as a pilot sub-region enabled other Far North Queensland sub-region’s to participate and explore the potential extension of this approach. The pilot activities included: * Further exploring ways to innovatively communicate the region’s likely climate change scenarios and possible environmental, economic and social impacts. We particularly looked at using spatial tools to overlay climate change risks to geographic communities and social vulnerabilities within those communities; * Developing a cohesive first pass of a State of the Region-style approach to reporting community resilience, inclusive of regional economic viability, community vitality, capacitybased and governance attributes. This framework integrated a literature review, expert (academic and community) and alliance-based contributions; and * Early consideration of critical strategies that need to be included in unfolding regional planning activities with Far North Queensland. The pilot assessment finds that rural, indigenous and some urban populations in the Wet Tropics are highly vulnerable and sensitive to climate change and may require substantial support to adapt and become more resilient. This assessment finds that under current conditions (i.e. if significant adaptation actions are not taken) the Wet Tropics as a whole may be seriously impacted by the most significant features of climate change and extreme climatic events. Without early and substantive action, this could result in declining social and economic wellbeing and natural resource health. Of the four attributes we consider important to understanding community resilience, the Wet Tropics region is particularly vulnerable in two areas; specifically its economic vitality and knowledge, aspirations and capacity. The third and fourth attributes, community vitality and institutional governance are relatively resilient but are vulnerable in some key respects. In regard to all four of these attributes, however, there is some emerging capacity to manage the possible shocks that may be associated with the impacts of climate change and extreme climatic events. This capacity needs to be carefully fostered and further developed to achieve broader community resilience outcomes. There is an immediate need to build individual, household, community and sectoral resilience across all four attribute groups to enable populations and communities in the Wet Tropics region to adapt in the face of climate change. Preliminary strategies of importance to improve regional community resilience have been identified. These emerging strategies also have been integrated into the emerging Regional Development Australia Roadmap, and this will ensure that effective implementation will be progressed and coordinated. They will also inform emerging strategy development to secure implementation of the FNQ 2031 Regional Plan. Of most significance in our view, this project has taken a co-research approach from the outset with explicit and direct importance and influence within the region’s formal planning and management arrangements. As such, the research: * Now forms the foundations of the first attempt at “Social Asset” planning within the Wet Tropics Regional NRM Plan review; * Is assisting Local government at regional scale to consider aspects of climate change adaptation in emerging planning scheme/community planning processes; * Has partnered the State government (via the Department of Infrastructure and Planning and Regional Managers Coordination Network Chair) in progressing the Climate Change adaptation agenda set down within the FNQ 2031 Regional Plan; * Is informing new approaches to report on community resilience within the GBRMPA Outlook reporting framework; and * Now forms the foundation for the region’s wider climate change adaptation priorities in the Regional Roadmap developed by Regional Development Australia. Through the auspices of Regional Development Australia, the outcomes of the research will now inform emerging negotiations concerning a wider package of climate change adaptation priorities with State and Federal governments. Next stage research priorities are also being developed to enable an ongoing alliance between researchers and the region’s climate change response.

Creating flexible mappings between building information models and cost information

During the early design stages of construction projects, accurate and timely cost feedback is critical to design decision making. This is particularly challenging for cost estimators, as they must quickly and accurately estimate the cost of the building when the design is still incomplete and evolving. State-of-the-art software tools typically use a rule-based approach to generate detailed quantities from the design details present in a building model and relate them to the cost items in a cost estimating database. In this paper, we propose a generic approach for creating and maintaining a cost estimate using flexible mappings between a building model and a cost estimate. The approach uses queries on the building design that are used to populate views, and each view is then associated with one or more cost items. The benefit of this approach is that the flexibility of modern query languages allows the estimator to encode a broad variety of relationships between the design and estimate. It also avoids the use of a common standard to which both designers and estimators must conform, allowing the estimator added flexibility and functionality to their work.

She'll be right mate : inclusivity experiences of men and women working in projects

Occupational segregation is a major source of labour market rigidity and economic inefficiency due to a waste of human resources. Organisations are repeatedly recognised as gendered constructs exhibiting sustained work segregation, income and status inequality, as well as cultural and individual images of gender, and these are perpetuated through their processes, practices and pressures (Acker, 1990). A large percentage of Australia’s workforce is now employed in project-based or project-oriented organisations, leading to the claim that Australia is a project-based economy. For a continued strong performance in this economy, organisations that employ project personnel will need to consider how they address inclusivity and equality in diversity in project based temporary organisations to ensure the supply of high quality project professionals into the future. This paper investigates the inclusion processes experienced and exercised by men and women working in temporary organisations in project situations through a review of reports on the inclusion processes experienced by 60 project managers and project workers in three project based industries in Australia. Results indicate that temporary organisations are not implementing equality and diversity management strategies at the macro level and project workers are accepting this lack of recognition. However inclusivity and equality at the micro level of the team is seen as vital.

Family Mobility : Reconciling Career Opportunities and Educational Strategy

Family mobility decisions reveal much about how the public and private realms of social life interact and change. This sociological study explores how contemporary families reconcile individual members’ career and education projects within the family unit over time and space, and unpacks the intersubjective constraints on workforce mobility. This Australian mixed methods study sampled Defence Force families and middle class professional families to illustrate how families’ educational projects are necessarily and deeply implicated in issues of workforce mobility and immobility, in complex ways. Defence families move frequently, often absorbing the stresses of moving through ‘viscous’ institutions as private troubles. In contrast, the selective mobility of middle class professional families and their ‘no go zones’ contribute to the public issue of poorly serviced rural communities. Families with different social, material and vocational resources at their disposal are shown to reflexively weigh the benefits and risks associated with moving differently. The book also explore how priorities shift as children move through educational phases. The families’ narratives offer empirical windows on larger social processes, such as the mobility imperative, the gender imbalance in the family’s intersubjective bargains, labour market credentialism, the social construction of place, and the family’s role in the reproduction of class structure.

Digital Modeling, Integrated Project Delivery and Industry Transformation: An Australian Case Study

This research is focused on realizing productivity benefits for the delivery of transport infrastructure in the Australian construction industry through the use of building information modeling (BIM), virtual design and construction (VDC) and integrated project delivery (IPD). Specific objectives include: (I) building an understanding of the institutional environment, business systems and support mechanisms (e.g., training and skilling) which impact on the uptake of BIM/VDC; (II) gathering data to undertake a cross-country analysis of these environments; and (III) providing strategic and practical outcomes to guide the uptake of such processes in Australia. Activities which will inform this research include a review of academic literature and industry documentation, semi-formal interviews in Australia and Sweden, and a cross-country comparative analysis to determine factors affecting uptake and associated productivity improvements. These activities will seek to highlight the gaps between current-practice and best-practice which are impacting on widespread adoption of BIM/VDC and IPD. Early findings will be discussed with intended outcomes of this research being used to: inform a national public procurement strategy; provide guidelines for new contractual frameworks; and contribute to closing skill gaps. Keywords: building information modeling (BIM); virtual design and construction (VDC); integrated project delivery (IPD); transport infrastructure; Australia; procurement

Aggregating energy supply and demand

Energy usage in general, and electricity usage in particular, are major concerns internationally due to the increased cost of providing energy supplies and the environmental impacts of electricity generation using carbon-based fuels. If a "systems" approach is taken to understanding energy issues then both supply and demand need to be considered holistically. This paper examines two research projects in the energy area with IT tools as key deliverables, one examining supply issues and the other studying demand side issues. The supply side project used hard engineering methods to build the models and software, while the demand side project used a social science approach. While the projects are distinct, there was an overlap in personnel. Comparing the knowledge extraction, model building, implementation and interface issues of these two deliverables identifies both interesting contrasts and commonalities.

Critical factors for waste management in office building retrofit projects in Australia

Office building retrofit is a sector being highlighted in Australia because of the mature office building market characterised by a large proportion of ageing properties. The increasing number of office building retrofit projects strengthens the need for waste management. Retrofit projects possess unique characteristics in comparison to traditional demolition and new builds such as partial operation of buildings, constrained site spaces and limited access to as-build information. Waste management activities in retrofit projects can be influenced by issues that are different from traditional construction and demolition projects. However, previous research on building retrofit projects has not provided an understanding of the critical issues affecting waste management. This research identifies the critical factors which influence the management of waste in office building retrofit projects through a literature study and a questionnaire survey to industry practitioners. Statistical analysis on a range of potential waste issues reveals the critical factors, as agreed upon by survey respondents in consideration of their different professional responsibilities and work natures. The factors are grouped into five dimensions, comprising industry culture, organisational support and incentive, existing building information, design, and project delivery process. The discussions of the dimensions indicate that the waste management factors of office building retrofit projects are further intensified compared to those for general demolition and construction because retrofit projects involve existing buildings which are partially operating with constrained work space and limited building information. Recommendations for improving waste management in office building retrofit projects are generalised such as waste planning, auditing and assessment in the planning and designing stage, collaboration and coordination of various stakeholders and different specialists, optimised building surveying and BIM technologies for waste analysis, and new design strategies for waste prevention.