This two-volume set comprises the proceedings of the 2002 symposium concerned with innovation in the construction industry and global competition. Approximately 115 papers address topics ranging from business improvement to the impact of innovation on the built environment; and globalization and competitiveness.

In the past decade construction and engineering have changed dramatically, with an explosion of innovative new approaches to construction and new methodologies. By bringing together economic, social and construction/engineering management perspectives, this book offers a unique and comprehensive survey of these approaches and techniques. It presents a history of studies in innovation in construction and engineering, and then presents the most recent models of innovation brokering and risk-management, based on complex project-based industries. Innovation is defined and competing theories are discussed in the light of operational issues. The book covers all aspects, including the importance of construction and engineering 'cultures' in the trades for successful project innovation. It also discusses the role of government and policy makers, the implications of rapid change for the building trades and skilled labour, and the difficulty of measuring innovation quantitatively.

'This book represents a significant step towards dealing with the lacuna constituted by the inadequacy of the literature on the services. And, as such, it approaches its task from a variety of directions.' From the foreword by William J. Baumol, New York University, US 'The Handbook of Innovation and Services is an exceptional volume. Its contributors, including Faïz Gallouj, William Baumol, Jean Gadrey, and Pascal Petit, are among the major thinkers in both the fields of the economics of services and the economics of innovation. Selected topics include the "cost disease", services innovation in the global economy, social innovation in the services, and innovation and employment in services. The book, I am sure, will become a standard reference volume in both these fields in the ensuing years.' Edward Wolff, New York University, US This Handbook brings together 49 international specialists to address an issue of increasing importance for the world's post-industrial economies; innovation as it relates to services. Contemporary economies have two fundamental characteristics. Firstly, they are service economies in as much as services account for more than 70 per cent of the wealth and jobs in most developed countries. Secondly, they are innovation economies as recent decades have seen an unprecedented development of scientific, technological, organisational and social innovations. This Handbook expertly links these two major characteristics in order to investigate the role of innovation in services, an issue that until now has been inadequately explored and one that poses many theoretical and operational challenges. This comprehensive volume encompasses the views of eminent scholars from a range of disciplines including economics, management, sociology and geography, and draws on a number of different analytical and methodological perspectives. With its multi-disciplinary approach this Handbook will be an invaluable reference source for academics and students in the fields of economics, management and the geography of services and innovation. Public authorities and managers in the service sector will also find this book fascinating.

This report is a useful tool for countries starting to recycle aggregates or construction and demolition waste. It contains the latest developments in this field, introduces a completely new approach to the procedure of proportioning concrete mixtures with recycled aggregate, references recent publications, opinions and discrepancies in relation to the durability of recycled concrete, such as freeze-thaw standards, studies of chloride penetration and diffusion, and sulfate attacks, the use of the fine fraction This volume will be of interest to recyclers, researchers and consumers.

An organisation’s competitive advantage lies in the knowledge of its employees and the organisation’s ability to harness that knowledge to meet business objectives. Knowledge management is recognised in the construction industry as a potential tool for providing organisational benefits, but for a number of reasons – particularly the project based nature of construction, where teams are transient, multidisciplinary and often from different organisations – implementation has been only marginally successful. Capture and Reuse of Project Knowledge in Construction describes a methodology for the 'live' capture of reusable project knowledge that reflects both the organisational and human dimensions of knowledge capture and reuse, as well as exploiting the benefits of technology. This methodology was developed in response to the shortcomings of current practices in managing project knowledge, the benefits offered by capturing and sharing knowledge immediately after it is generated, and the organisational benefit of reusing knowledge within a project based environment.

Making buildings and infrastructure more sustainable represents a key and global challenge. This presents the results of research from the Australia Co-operative Research Centre for Construction Innovation, covering four themes, applied to regeneration as well as to new build: Sustainable Materials and Manufactures; Virtual Design, Construction and Management; Integrating Design, Construction and Facility Management over the Project Life Cycle; and Integration across spatial scales.

Proceedings from the International Conference on Advances in Engineering and Technology (AET2006)

This book examines the various quality management systems applied to the construction industry in Hong Kong and other parts of the world. Hong Kong's experience is particularly important because it plays a leading role in construction quality management globally. The text traces the change from quality control (QC) practice in the 1970s and 1980s, to the quality assurance (QA) concept in the 1990s, and finally to the emerging total quality management (TQM) philosophy. All the tools and techniques used in relation to construction quality management are discussed in detail in the 12 chapters.

During the past several decades, the manufacturing and service industries significantly increased their levels of productivity, quality, and profitability through the application of process improvement techniques and information technology. Unfortunately, the construction industry lags far behind in the application of performance improvement and optimization techniques, as well as its overall competitiveness. Written by Lincoln H. Forbes and Syed M. Ahmed, both highly regarded for leadership and innovation, Modern Construction: Lean Project Delivery and Integrated Practices offers cutting-edge lean tools and other productive strategies for the management of people and processes in the construction industry. Drs. Forbes and Ahmed focus mainly on lean construction methodologies, such as The Last Planner(R) System, The Lean Project Delivery System (TM), and Integrated Project Delivery(TM). The tools and strategies offered draw on the success of the world-renowned Toyota Production System (TPS) adapted to the construction environment by construction professionals and researchers involved in developing and advocating lean construction methods. The book also discusses why true lean construction can best occur when all the construction stakeholders, owners, designers, constructors, and material suppliers are committed to the concept of optimizing the flow of activities holistically while de-emphasizing their self-interest. The authors also reintroduce process improvement approaches such as TQM and Six Sigma as a foundation for the adoption of lean methodologies, and demonstrate how these methods can improve projects in a so-called traditional environment. The book integrates these methods with emerging interest in "green construction" and the use of information technology and Building Information Modeling (BIM), while recognizing the human element in relation to motivation, safety, and environmental stresses. Written specifically for professionals in an industry that desperately needs to play catch up, the book delineates cutting-edge approaches with the benefit of successful cases and explains how their deployment can improve construction performance and competitiveness.