Embracing Innovative Technology in the Construction Industry - Research Proposal Example

BРR- Grоuр Rероrt Assignment 2: Building Project Report 392 A Critical Review of papers on Innovation & Technology A Report Submitted By: STUDENT’S NAME: STUDENT’S NUMBER: UNIT NAME: INSTRUCTOR: SUBMISSION DATE: © 2014 INTRODUCTION Innovation and Technology in the Construction industry has gained enormous popularity in recent times all over the world. Innovative technology in building construction is represented in the form of ICT, BIM and the general use of Computers as demonstrated by the literature reviewed. Virtually all the papers accessed underscored the importance of Innovation and Technology in meeting the demands for state-of-the-art housing for modern-day clients. This importance mostly came out clearly in the introduction carried by these papers. In all the articles, it emerged that the construction industry has lagged behind in embracing innovative technology for too long. LITERATURE REVIEWS Usually, literature review in any paper considers all the relevant literature accessed that can indicate how else the same topic under study was addressed. The paper authored by 1 successfully fulfilled the requirements of a good literature review by presenting a comprehensive literature search divided into relevant sub-headings explaining certain aspects of BIM. In these sub-headings, the author explained the meaning of BIM, its use in construction management, the tools therein and its cost implications. Similarly, 2 clearly demonstrated how the construction industry has benefited by implementing ICT technologies despite its late entry into innovation. The literature review is presented in clear self-explanatory sub-headings in line with the requirements of an ideal literature search. The same is true for the paper delivered by 3 on the legality of owning BIM. 4 has been very thorough in reviewing the use of BIM in Construction Management, and the uses ranged from “visualization, 3D coordination, prefabrication, and construction planning and monitoring, cost estimation as well as record model”. Similar format was illustrated by 5 where an exhaustive literature review addressed the legal issues of BIM in construction industry. These included the broad areas of “obligations, duty of care, tools, jurisdiction, cyber security, and consideration of all other aspects”. In spite of the fact that papers by 6 and 7 lacked a correctly presented literature review, authors of both articles demonstrated an in-depth search of literature in their varied areas. 8 for instance demonstrates that innovative technologies for buildings have greatly contributed to the provision of high-quality housing for needy residents. The technologies according to the author are responsible for a number of break-through including the introduction of ‘intelligent houses’ that meet safety and life-style aspirations as well as the making of tunneling to be safer, faster, and more economical. These same technologies have facilitated the emergence of “industrialised concepts that promise huge savings especially in the textile sector”. On the other hand, one paper completely lacks a comprehensible literature search section but goes ahead to indicate how the construction industry has been slow on the adoption of innovative technology like other industries. The authors here present very scanty background information on the previous researches conducted on construction technology innovation with comments on pros and cons. In view of this, the authors praise how innovation of construction technologies have revolutionalised the construction practice especially with the advent of Portland cement in 1824 and the steel structural technology in the first quarter of the 20th century. These advancements are in spite of the slow start-off rate as demonstrated by other authors of the accessed articles. Finally, 9 and 10 separately review the benefits that come alongside the adoption of innovation and technology in construction. According to these authors, innovative technologies result in a marked improvement in the “performance of construction processes in terms of cost, time, quality, and client satisfaction”. Similarly, 11 argues that innovative technologies will bring with them ‘intelligent houses’ that are keen to meet safety and life-style aspirations of clients. METHODOLOGIES The methods used in a good paper must be clear and appropriate to gather the required data. The paper written by 12 used a simple method of “Systematic Technology Innovation Procedure (STIP)” to study the development of fast innovation method for construction technologies. In view of the authors of this paper, the STIP method is founded on three building blocks namely: ‘patent analysis, Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ), and a computer aided innovation tool’. The method was used in a case study performed on building pipeline leakage repairing technology to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed STIP method. As indicated by the authors13, it was found that the STIP method could provide a powerful tool for fast innovation of construction technologies. Another paper which was also accessed written by 14 employed a multiplicity of methods to study different variables of BIM in construction industry. Firstly, the author sought to gather information on the various uses of BIM by construction managers. This was done by collecting primary data using a survey which brought together some 424 respondents as indicated in the paper. These participants were drawn from various professions in the construction industry with their composition comprising of 34% architecture, 12% engineering, 10% contractors, 9% construction managers, 8% BIM consultants, and 7.5% others including about 2% subcontractors 15. The information adduced by the survey indicated BIM uses to range from ‘visualization, clash detection, building design, As-built model, feasibility studies, alternative development, and environmental analysis in order of their significance. The method unfortunately failed to focus on the risks faced by construction managers. The second type of methodology used by the same author to get an insight into the benefits and uses of BMI in construction industry was through two case studies where the first was MIT Koch project which included real life examples of BIM uses and benefits16. The second was a prototype house project which examined the 3D and 4D Building Information Modeling as well as BIM based scheduling as indicated by the authors. In the first instance, the authors indicate that the project involved the “utilization of BIM for visualization, 3D coordination, prefabrication, construction planning and record model in a cancer research facility17. Additionally, the authors used ‘BIM tools’ in the second study to model 3D and 4D of a house as is the case in extant literature. This modeling procedure required scheduling by applying Microsoft programmes like ‘AutoCAD 2012 and Revit Architecture 2010’, both downloaded from students’ Autodesk community website. The article written by 18considered the different methods of implementing ICTs within the Construction Industry. The authors identified a number of these methods including ‘virtual construction before starting the procurement, ‘virtual prototyping (VP), nD modeling, Global Engineering Networks (GEN) and collaborative virtual teams’. Virtual construction involved building a structure in a virtual environment without procuring anything to enable the participants enough time for testing the project and estimating costs. On virtual prototyping, the authors explained that this was necessary to examine AutoCAD models for their suitability in different end user applications19. The nD modeling on the other hand incorporates all the design information and alterations to reflect the final product. The technique borrows heavily from the concept of 2D, 3D and 4D as illustrated by20. Two papers written by 21 and 22 respectively were found to be seriously defective in their handling of the methodology section as required by other papers. 23for instance goes straight into explaining about the ideals of innovative technologies for buildings without even having an introduction, a well demarcated literature review and research methods. This is painfully replicated by24. CONCLUSIONS A well written paper should have an abstract which highlights the whole paper at a glance. A number of the accessed papers satisfy this obligation. The paper written by 25 for instance presents a well composed abstract and a list of keywords as is the requirement. Additionally, the paper has a conclusion which wraps-up the key issues before making recommendations for future research. The same is repeated by papers written by26, 27, and 28 respectively, all which have abstracts and keywords. The paper by 29 lacks keywords but contains an essential inclusion of acknowledgements instead. Similarly, the three papers contain comprehensive conclusions at the end. In addition to foregoing, includes a section on discussion of the results of the paper which is surprisingly missing in the others except the one by30. On further examination of the paper by31, it is noticeable that the author went an extra mile to make it more detailed than the rest. This is found resident in the presence of ‘a table of contents, list of tables and figures, results, conclusions and recommendations as well as appendices. The results section of this paper properly discussed with clear illustrations of relevant figures. The use of illustrative figures becomes important during the time of presenting drawings in either 2D, 3D or 4D models better understanding. The conclusion and recommendations sections cannot be overrated for this paper. Finally, it is with utter dismay to note that the paper authored by 32lacks all the necessary other sections including an abstract, aims, results, conclusions and recommendations. The paper on the contrary presents a section on ‘outlook’ which passes off as an abstract. It also has acknowledgements section which thanks all those who took part in the preparation of the paper. BIBLIOGRAPHY Hergunsel, Mehmet F. Benefits of Building Information Modeling for Construction Managers and BIM based Scheduling, A Thesis, pp.1-69, 2011. Hosseini, M. Reza, Nicholas Chileshe, Jian Zuo and Bassam Baroudi. ‘Approaches for implementing ICT technologies within construction industry’, Australasian Journal of Construction Economics and Building, Conference Series, 1 (2) 1-12, 2012. Oluwole, Alfred Olatunji. A preliminary review on the legal implications of BIM and model ownership, Journal of Information Technology in Construction (ITcon), Vol. 16, pg. 687-696, 2011. Vallés, J. L. Innovative technologies for buildings. EU-funded research to transform the construction sector, European Commission, pp.1-27, 2009. Yu, Wen-der, Chih-Ming Wu and Wei-Chih Lien. Fast Innovation of Construction Technologies with Computer Aided Innovation Tools, International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (ISARC), pp.521-526, 2008. Read More