Engineering Management in the Digital Economy

Details of the presentations at the event, run at the Institution of Civil Engineers, and co-sponsored by AIM Research, are now available.

Spring 2011 - AIM visiting international fellows

Three AIM Visiting International Fellows will be visiting the University of Reading in spring 2011. These are Prof Andrew Hargadon, Prof Deborah Dougherty and Assist. Prof Paul Leonardi. All three are well published in management journals, and the University will be hosting AIM capacity building workshops for UK early career researchers in relation to these visits. The call will be out on the AIM Research website early in January 2011.

Building Information Modeling and Management

Fundamental questions about management practices are raised by the activities involved in the production and use of long-term physical assets such as buildings and infrastructure. Diverse social groups are involved in the various stages of design, delivery, maintenance, use and re-purposing. How can knowledge be sustained across these different stages?

Information technologies are increasingly seen as part of the solution. The UK government has announced its intention to increase the use building information modelling and management over the next five years. New technologies provide the potential to integrate diverse streams of data about buildings and infrastructure, through a range of CAD, GIS and asset management software solutions. We will be discussing these opportunities, and the challenges, at the 'Engineering Management in the Digital Economy' at the end of this week.

IT and the Management of Projects

Our the last few days, both at the Stanford Center for Research on Global Projects  open house, and up in Stanford Sierra at the Engineering Project Organization Society's conference, there has been a lot of interesting discussion about the delivery of global projects. The conference brings together a small set of researchers with a focus on the organization of engineering projects. The contribution that Ray Levitt and I made to the new Oxford Handbook on Project Management, which explores IT and the management of projects was initiated at the conference two years ago. this book chapter explores the new forms of project management that are breaking the mold of traditional approaches.

Links with the USA

Travelling straight from the BISRIA event on Building Information Modelling on 2nd November, I will be attending the Engineering Project Organization Conference next week. This conference, co-organized by Profs Paul Chinowsky and Ray Levitt, brings together researchers interested in a range of management, leadership and organizational issues relating to engineering projects. It also provides an opportunity to catch up with members of the international advisory board for the Design Innovation Research Centre and to visit the R&D laboratories of one of our collaborators, Bentley Systems. I will be visiting both the Collaboratory for Research on Global Projects and the Center for Integrated Facilities Management at Stanford as part of the visit, and Prof Martin Fischer will be speaking at the event on Engineering Management in the Digital Economy at the Institution of Civil Engineers and visiting the Centre in Reading in December.

Management Practices and 'BIM'

The increasing use of integrated software solutions, such as Building Information Models (BIM), on large projects has significant implications for management practices in project-based design environments. It is the focus of industry and policy-making attention, with a number of events this autumn.

On 3rd December 2010, I am hosting an event on Engineering Management in the Digital Economy: Research and Practice at the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), which is co-sponsored by AIM and the ICE. This will bring together senior practitioners and leading academics to consider how the issues encountered in leading practice can help shape research agendas; and how the outcomes of research can help inform industry and policy in this area. While the full event is invitation only, the talks will be broadcast.
The increased interest in BIM is demonstrated by increased attendance at a recent event hosted by Autodesk. Other UK events this autumn include a CPIC workshop on 2nd November (see http://www.bsria.co.uk/training-and-events/details/building-information-model-2010/#content) and CIBSE training day on BIM in building services on 2nd December (see http://www.cibsetraining.co.uk/conferences/single/1975). I am engaged in research to inform the evolving debate, working with colleagues to examine the handover of digital data to construction clients in particular. 

Open Standards, International Collaborations and Data in Construction

An interesting week catching up with colleagues in Copenhagen Business School, and with what is going on in the industry. Developments in new technologies for coordination and integration are leading to new issues for management in project-based design environments.

The Building Smart conference here drew my attention to the role of government in promoting Digital Construction in Denmark. There is an international set of delegates here, and I was particularly interested to learn about initiatives such as http://bimserver.org/ that are developing software on an open standard basis. Over the week I also had some conversations with colleagues in the USA this week, catching up on initatives such as the BIM Execution Planning Guide and a recent McGraw Hill guide to green BIM.

Connections to Danish Infrastructure Projects?

I got a boat from Harwich to Esberg and am now visiting colleagues at the Copenhagen Business School, and then hoping to catch a bit of the Building Smart conference that is going on in and around Copenhagen this week. Over the next year I am looking to understand best practice on major building and infrastructure projects in Denmark, as part of my AIM Fellowship work involves comparing UK practices to those in the USA and/or Denmark. I would be interested in hearing about any existing comparisons, or infrastructure projects that are using innovative new digital approaches to coordination.

More from the Academy

The socio-materiality professional development workshop, run by Anne-Laure Fayard, Samer Faraj and Wanda Orlikowski stimulated thinking about the relationships between material, embodied, practices and social relationships and interactions. Theorizing sociomaterial practice is important, as phenomena observed in research are difficult to understand in terms of a social realm that is separate from / outside of the material world.


Questions that I brought to the PDW are:
• How to build socio-material constructivist (as opposed to social constructivist) explanations of organizational practices?
• How to use interviews as well as observation to study digitally-enabled work through the range of situated material practices?
• How our understanding of the role of management might be reframed in/through socio-material studies?

Back from Montreal

A set of interesting discussions around strategy as practice, the socio-material and digital, and new forms of work at the Academy of Management conference. Particular highlights were the workshop on 'strategy as practice' at HEC before the main conference, and a range of presentations by researchers who are starting to theorise about new forms of work - for example around issues of building trust in 'remote management'; and of projects with different levels of 'membership intensity.' Steve Barley's keynote on 'IT in the Wild' provoked thought about the changing forms of labour relations involved....

The paper that I discussed at the Academy is now published as: Whyte, J. and Lobo, S. (2010) Coordination and control in project-based work: digital objects and infrastructures for delivery, Construction Management and Economics, Vol. 28, Issue 6, 557-567.

Progressive Data and Value in Design

It may be summer, but there is plenty of activity in the Design Innovation Research Centre. We are in the field conducting research on a number of projects, to answer some questions around the use of integrated sofware solutions in large building and infrastructure projects.

How is data developed and managed through the design process? How does is it handed over and how does it add value to clients? These are questions that we are investigating this summer in work with the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Information Systems Panel. The findings will be discussed at an event in their London Headquarters in December. To register an interest email designinnovation@reading.ac.uk

I am off to Montreal to the Academy of Management, where I will be discussing the findings of some of our research in this area, comparing and contrasting practices on three large infrastructure projects.

Organizations and Society - Social Movements and Routines

A very interesting workshop in HEC, near Paris, bringing together researchers interested in routines with those interested in social movements, got me thinking about process theories and how they are developed and articulated. The workshop brought together a set of American academics, with European discussants, exposing PhD students to ideas across the Atlantic. A very nice workshop to stimulate thought ahead of the main organization studies conference - European Group for Organization Studies (EGOS).

Understanding Management

A recent event, hosted by the Advanced Institute of Management  brought a new book to my attention. In the book 'Reinventing Management' Julian Birkenshaw thinks through what management is, and why it needs to be revisited and rethought to make organizations better places to work. In the project-based environments I study the challenges of management are particularly acute, as groupings are temporary and changing, and the pressures of deadlines can become intense. I have also recently been interested to read an older book, set in a different industry, and from a sociological perspective - Kunda's classic text on 'Engineering Culture' - whiel this book is now 25 years old, the quality of the writing make its stories from inside a high-tech industry instantly recognisable, insightful and entertaining. As a researcher, about to set-out into the field, I have found this valuable reading.

Constructions Matter

I'm in Copenhagen, having just attended the 'Constructions Matter' conference at the Copenhagen Business School (http://www.clibyg.org/conference2010/). There were, as usual, a great set of people, papers and conversations. The conference raised questions about how people engage with digital technologies, and the consequences of this for the built environment. There are some interesting connections between the set of papers in the session on 'Management Practices and Digital Designs,' and some early ideas about taking these conversations forward....

Metamorphosis of design

Yesterday I participated in a workshop on the metamorphosis of design management, involving a coalition of researchers, teachers and practitioners and organized by the http://www.mdmn.org/ I was particularly struck by Peter Swann's presentation about e-waste (what happens to your computer when you upgrade) and the need for systemic thinking in design.

Project processes in the digital economy

The introduction of new technologies into project-based organizations is a challenge. The scale of this challenge is captured in an image of a wedge, by Mark Bew and Mervyn Richards, showing the road map associated with implementing new building information models in the construction industry.

They show different levels of implementation, where at the thin end there is poor information, but a well known and traditional project management process. At the other end of the wedge, data is much more tightly coupled, but there is much less known about the processes of design and delivery. The practical challenge for project-based firms is to understand how to develop new processes, to gain competitive advantage and drive up the productivity of the sector. 

These issues inform the AIM Fellowship research. They, as well as the new questions about information technologies and sustainability, will be discussed at a construction industry event, being hosted by the University of Reading on 19th May 2010.

For more details and to register for the "United Construction Information" event see: http://www.comitproject.org.uk/events/UCI%20Spring%202010%20Event%20Flyer.pdf

New Paper

A new paper is published by Chris Harty and Jennifer Whyte:

Harty, C. and Whyte, J. (2010) Emerging hybrid practices in construction design work: the role of mixed media, ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Vol 136, No. 4, pp. 468-476.

Management Practices in the School Building Programme

How do management practices affect the success of the delivery of a major programme of construction work? The UK is engaged in a major school building programme. In England this is through the 'Building Schools for the Future' (BSF) programme, which seeks to rebuild or refurbish every secondary school in the country, and through the 'Primary Capital Programme', which is an investment in primary education. The last time there was such a large investment in education infrastructure was in the post-war period. Though there is a long tradition of organizational studies in schools (Rowan 1982; Meyer et al. 1994; Scott and Meyer 1994), there is surprisingly little organizational research on school-building given the scale of current government investment.

Through the AIM Fellowship, I am analysing management practices in this large construction programme. I have begun by studying the use of the Design Quality Indicators (DQI), indicators that are mandated for use on the BSF programme and have been used on 724 schools. I then plan to compare and contast the approaches taken in different parts of the country to better understand the role of management practices. 

PhD opportunities related to the Fellowship

There is funding available for UK residents (fees and £12-15k subsistence) and EU residents (fees only) in three broad areas related to the work that I am doing on this AIM Fellowship. Please apply before the deadline of 30th March:

PhD Area 1: Organizational issues related to the use of Building Information Models in design of buildings
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AAL094/phd-studentship-1-in-design-innovation-in-the-built-environment-/

PhD Area 2: Organizing for design quality on programmes of building work (e.g. UK school-building)
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AAL095/phd-studentship-2-in-design-innovation-in-the-built-environment-/

PhD Area 3: Visualizing digital models to improve designers appreciation of safety issues in construction
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AAL096/phd-studentship-3-in-design-innovation-in-the-built-environment-/

To apply, please prepare a 1000 word proposal that details how you propose to take forward one of the above areas of study - with draft details of research strategy (e.g. aim, objectives, methods, timescales for delivery, plan for reading of the related literatures etc).  You can send a draft of this to me directly for comment before submission, but the formal application must go through the University of Reading website as detailed in the adverts. I suggest that if you email me you might give me some context to your application in the email, describing your work to date and what you want to learn from your supervisors and from being part of the team at the University of Reading.

Crafting Qualitative Research - AIM Early Career Peer Workshop:

I am involved in organizing an early career workshop on crafting qualitative research on 24 February 2010.

This is an intensive full-day workshop giving early career researchers an opportunity to gain feedback on written work before journal submission. It is co-organized with Dr Markus Perkmann (Imperial) and David Denyer (Cranfield), and has a number of senior academics as discussants. The deadline for submission of a working paper is 5th February, for more details see:
the full call.

Launch of the Design Innovation Research Centre

Drawing on the work of the Fellowship, I am building a wider research team through the EPSRC Challenging Engineering 'Design Innovation Research Centre.'

The official launch of the Design Innovation Research Centre was on 21st January 2010. This new exploration group, funded through the Engineering and Physical Sciences (EPSRC) flagship 'Challenging Engineering' programme. The vision is of a new mode of design in the digital economy.
For more details of the team see: www.reading.ac.uk/designinnovation