Editorial
Issue 13.1 sees ECAM entering its 13th year. Some cultures look on 13 as an unlucky number but we hope that this is not so for ECAM; personally 13 has never held any fears. I was married on the 13th and my next anniversary will be my 40th so 13 has not been unlucky for me.
This edition has four papers from UK-based authors, one from Australian-based authors and one from Finland. One of the UK-based papers has an author from South Africa and one from industry another paper also has an industrial author. The inclusion of industrial authors is to be welcomed if the academic researchers are working with industry and the work is practical, relevant,useful and applicable then the industrialists will be happy to join in publication. Thus an industrial co-author is a powerful sign of industrial relevance, worth and collaboration.
The six papers took 19 authors to produce, one single authored paper, one with two authors (industrialist and academic), two with three authors, and two with five authors (one with multi-country and an industrialist). The distribution of authors by country are 15 from UK, three from Australia, one from Finland and one from South Africa.
The papers in this issue are:
Bibby, Austin and Bouchlaghem argue that contractors are having increasing responsibility for design and hence become responsible for design management a process they have been ill-equipped to undertake. What the authors offer is a design management training initiative to improve the performance of design management by contractors. The authors also report on implementation barriers that affect the success of the training initiative.
Karim, Marosszeky and Davis are intent on improving the management of the sub-contractor supply chain to reduce defects. Their approach has been to observe defects on three construction projects. They present their analysis of the defects and their cause. They use this analysis to propose a method of converting raw data from observations into a decision support tool.
Thomson, Austin, Root, Thorpe and Hammond offer a problem-solving approach to value-adding decision making in construction design. The argument is that value management and value engineering is usually limited to conceptual design and detailed proposal stage. What the authors are promoting is a value adding toolbox for use throughout the project including the latter stages.
Jeong, Kagioglou, Haigh, Amaratunga and Siriwardena wish to enable the sharing of good practice within process improvement. Arguing that the drive for process improvement is continuous and relentless,the authors present a development model for contractors. Having gathered data and information the authors have developed and present a set of key processes for a managerial infrastructure aimed at achieving process improvement.
Blyth and Kaka return us to a recurring issue, cash flow forecasting. Cash flow forecasting appears every year as a topic that still interests researchers and practioners alike. The authors attempt to improve on the traditional approach of producing an “S-curve” the basis of predicting cash flows. This time they offer a multiple linear regression model based on an analysis of 50 projects as a tool for producing the “S-curve” for use in cash flow calculations.
Oyegoke reports on the management of contractual claims in Finland. A comparison of Finnish and international contract conditions produces an analysis as to why contractual claims are not as pronounced in Finland. Much of the author’s data is drawn from a project-exporting company and hence the need to build competence in managerial contractual claims that is not naturally developed in the domestic market.
Ronald McCaffer
