Construction Digitalisation

A Capability Maturity Model for Construction Organisations

Douglas Aghimien, Clinton Aigbavboa, Ayodeji Oke, Wellington Thwala

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000415957
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Business
• Categoria: Gestione dell'informazione

This book explores construction digitalisation, particularly in developing countries. The book conceptualises a digitalisation capability maturity model that will enable construction organisations to self-assess and benchmark their digital capabilities in their quest for digital transformation.

Digitalisation offers a significant solution to the age-long problems of the construction industry. Research shows that when construction organisations transform from a traditional service delivery approach to a more digitalised approach, significant improvement in project delivery and better competitive advantage for these organisations will be attained. The attainment of these benefits is evident in developed countries where the digitalisation of construction activities continues apace. Unfortunately, the story is not the same for construction organisations in developing economies. While some organisations might be willing to be digitally transformed, most have no clue how to go about it. To this end, this book provides guidelines for construction organisations seeking to transform their entities digitally. Its content is a valuable read for construction company owners as it provides a model which they can use in the digitalisation of their activities. Also, regulatory bodies in the construction industry can adopt the capabilities identified in the book as essential prerequisites for their members. Furthermore, the book serves as excellent theoretical background reading for management researchers seeking to expand their knowledge on the digitalisation of the construction industry and other associated industries.

Part I
Background information

Part I presents the overview of the book and likewise sets the foundation of what the book is all about.

1 General introduction

Introduction

The construction industry is one of the most critical sectors in the socio-economic development of any nation. The industry contributes significantly to infrastructure development, gross domestic product, direct and indirect employment in both developed and developing countries. Evidence of a healthy economy can be seen from the increase in construction activities through a series of infrastructure projects. Furthermore, the industry’s physical product is crucial to the delivery of services of other sectors, as these other sectors of the economy require one form of physical structure or the other to perform their activities. Evidently, the construction industry’s importance to the growth of both developed and developing countries cannot be overemphasised. However, the industry’s impact is felt more in developing countries where the services of the industry are needed for the continuous provision of infrastructure that will help them measure up to their developed counterparts.

Despite the high importance attached to the construction industry, it is not without its challenges and difficulties. The industry is described as a demanding industry characterised by large, dynamic, and complex activities (Behm, 2008). These activities are evolving due to construction clients’ growing demand, technological advancement resulting in the complex nature of designs, and rapid growth of innovations (Oke & Ogunsemi, 2011). Every day clients’ taste and demand increases, and construction participants are saddled with the responsibility of meeting these demands through every method available. This creates a highly competitive environment, especially for construction organisations whose responsibility is to meet these clients’ ever-changing tastes in return for financial gain. To stay relevant and survive in this competitive environment, these organisations have to continuously improve their service delivery by carefully planning their strategies and adopting innovative ideas (Aghimien et al., 2019b). To this end, imbibing the culture of “working smarter, not harder”, has never been more important (Abidin et al., 2014; Dimick, 2014). This situation re-echoes the need for innovation in construction organisations. Similarly, since the construction environment is filled with uncertainties, organisations therein need some amount of contingency to improve their standard of service delivery, achieve quality, and attain optimum client satisfaction. Only through this can survival within the industry be assured.

The construction industry in most developing countries is failing to deliver successful projects. Evidence of projects being delivered above budget, beyond the agreed schedule, and below specification is recorded in these countries, leaving clients and other stakeholders dissatisfied (Agarwal et al., 2016; Khalfan & Anumba, 2000; Ogunsemi & Jagboro, 2006; Oshodi et al., 2017). This poor performance has been attributed to several challenges faced by the industry in different countries. One of these is the slow pace of technological advancement that has characterised most developing countries. This slow pace of technological advancement is evident in the poor digital technology adoption experienced in the construction industry (Aghimien et al., 2019a; Alaloul et al., 2020; Boton et al., 2020; Kane et al., 2015; Oesterreich & Teuteberg, 2016). The industry in the developing countries is slow to implement technological innovations, and as a result, has been seen to lack innovativeness. Old approaches to construction, such as tape measures and paper drawings are still familiar sights within these industries (Hudson, 2017). Therefore, there is need for some cultural shift as sticking to traditional methods will only leave construction organisations at the tail of the value chain and create more dissatisfaction in the product they deliver.

No doubt, the fourth industrial revolution (4IR), also known as Industry 4.0 is upon us, and it is disrupting the way we live and function as individuals and as societies. With digitalisation being a core driver of 4IR (Bienhaus & Haddud, 2018; Li et al., 2017; Schwab, 2017), construction organisations stand the chance of benefitting from this industrial revolution by adopting the digital technologies therein. Furthermore, with the clamour for the adoption of “Construction 4.0” (Boton et al., 2020; Forcael et al., 2020), coined from Industry 4.0, where ubiquitous technologies are used for real-time decision-making and construction projects are handled using digital technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing, virtual and augmented reality, new business models, and e-value chains (Bibby & Dehe, 2018; Oesterreich & Teuteberg, 2016), construction organisations in developing countries can digitally transform their service delivery and change the narrative of poor project delivery that has characterised their industry.

While the benefits of adopting digital technologies in the construction industry are enormous, one question remains pertinent; how matured are organisations in the construction industry of developing countries to fully and effectively adopt digitalisation in all aspects of their construction service delivery? It has been observed that digitalisation is not a one-off event but rather should be considered as a piecemeal activity (Strukova & Liska, 2012). Drastic digital changes within an organisation might not bring the digital transformation being sought but rather might lead to some negative outcomes such as agitation among workers due to fear of replacement. Organisations must understand that skills should be enhanced through digital technology adoption and not replaced by it. Therefore, knowing what skill to improve, what technology to adopt in enhancing this skill, and what process and strategy to take in achieving this skill improvement and at the same time achieve the organisational objective of digital transformation and better project delivery is essential. The implication of this is that digitalisation of construction organisations can be a complex task that requires proper planning and a clear road map. With the complex and dynamic nature of both the construction industry and the digital world (Navon, 2005; Solis, 2016), having a digitalisation road map that tells the digital maturity level of construction organisations and the direction towards achieving digital maturity is important.

It is pertinent to note that while several maturity models have been developed in different industries and domains to measure different situations, there is the absence of a maturity model designed to address digitalisation of the construction industry specifically. Herein lies the problem of this study. While several maturity models have been developed over time in different industries (De Bruin et al., 2005), none has been targeted at the construction industry’s digitalisation. The available digital maturity models have looked at technological issues, strategies, process and operations, organisational culture, and policy issues within the business, education, manufacturing, and telecommunication domains. Although the construction industry operates in a similar manner with these industries as it is business-oriented and delivers finished products to its consumers, some other variables are deemed pertinent to the industry and must be considered. It is against this theoretical backdrop that this book seeks to provide possible direction for attaining digital transformation of construction organisations by developing a conceptualised digitalisation capability maturity model (DCMM).

Digitalisation at a glance

The word “digitalisation” has come with diverse meaning since the advent of 4IR, which brings about using a more digitalised form of production. Digitalisation is now a common feature in individual devices and large industrial systems and has become a popular concept around the world today due to its ability to create efficiency in operations, effectiveness, and provide new opportunities (Dall’Omo, 2017). The term “digitalisation” is the increased use of digital or computer technology in an organisation’s operations (Kalavendi, 2017). When organisations decide to be digitalised, they abandon the old analogue ways for a more digital-oriented approach.

In past studies, words like digitisation, digital technology, digital collaboration, and computerisation have been used in place of digitalisation. In some cases, this exchange has been made wrongly. Rouse (2017) viewed “digitisation” as the process of transforming information into digital format. By doing this, information is organised into distinct units of data that can be separately addressed. This is the binary data that computers and many devices with computing capacity can process. This implies that digitisation involves converting or representing something non-digital into a digital format, which can be used by a computing system for diverse purposes. Digitalisation, on the other hand, is the strategic realignment of investment with technology, business models, and processes to compete in an ever-changing digital world (Solis, 2016). On more simplified terms, Ochs and Riemann (2018) described the term “digitalisation” as the integration of digital technologies into everyday life, through digitising anything capable of being digitised. These digital technologies are known to enable a large amount of information to be compressed on small storage devices for easy preservation and transportation. They include all types of electronic equipment and applications that use information in the form of numeric codes. These devices can be mobile phones, video cameras, tablets, laptops, computers, the internet, communication satellites, and other innovations geared towards making certain activities easier and more effective (Anjos-Santos et al., 2016; Pullen, 2009). Digital technologies can also be viewed from three facets, and these are software, information technology (IT) equipment (computers and related hardware), and communications equipment (Dimick, 2014). What makes these technologies different from other earlier technologies is their ability to be re-programmed, the use of homogenous data, and their self-referential nature (Yoo et al., 2010). Thus, while digitisation is seen as the digital transformation of specific processes that were not digital, using digital technologies, digitalisation is the deployment of these transformed processes into the organisation’s business life.

Based on the aforementioned descriptions, in the context of this book, the term “digitalisation” is conceptualised as the innovative use of digital technologies in the delivery of tangible and intangible services within a construction organisation to gain a competitive advantage over other competitors while providing better service delivery. This implies that an organisation within the construction industry can be said to have attained digitalisation when it can optimally utilise existing digital technologies in the delivery of its services and at the same time gain better advantage over its counterparts in the industry. These digital technologies include Building Information Modelling (BIM), augmented and virtual reality, IoT, big data, robotics and automation, cloud computing, 3D printing, machine learning, among others. Viewing digitalisation from this perspective is premised on the fact that these different technological innovations are based on digital operations. Gerbert et al. (2016) mentioned that with digitalisation, construction around the world would soon be depicted by the connection of systems using sensors, intelligent machines, mobile devices, and new software applications that will all be integrated on a central platform BIM. This further strengthens the notion of this study that digitalisation can be regarded as the digitisation of construction processes using the aforementioned digital technologies to attain a digitally transformed built environment.

Objectives of the book

The concept of digitalisation is not entirely new to the construction industry in developing countries as evidence of the use of some digital technologies like BIM and cloud computing has been observed in past studies (Aghimien et al., 2019a; Dos Santos et al., 2015; Ibem & Laryea, 2014). While lack of awareness and required skills have been attributed to the slow adoption of some of these digital technologies (Boton et al., 2020; Oke et al., 2018), the absence of a road map for organisations that are willing to be digitally transformed can also be a significant barrier. It is not unlikely that some organisations might have the idea of digital transformation in the quest for better service delivery and improved competitive advantage but find it challenging to understand the right process to follow. The absence of a digital transformation road map tailored to suit the construction industry that will guide these organisations in their digitalisation journey reveals a crucial gap that needs to be filled. Therefore, the objective of this book is to conceptualise a capability maturity model that will help assess and to improve the digitalisation of construction organisations by unearthing the key capability areas wherein maturity needs to be attained for construction digitalisation to be achieved.

Value of the book

Past research studies seeking to improve project delivery in developing countries have been tailored towards the performance of construction projects, factors responsible, and several suggestions have been proffered (Hussin et al., 2013; Ibrahim et al., 2010; Kaming et al., 1997; Memon et al., 2010; Ogunsemi & Jagboro, 2006; Omoregie & Radford, 2006; Windapo & Cattell, 2013). However, as a result of 4IR, recent trends have shown that if construction project delivery is to improve, and construction companies are to gain better reputation, then the construction process must be rooted in digital knowledge and strategically driven by digital technologies. The strategic application of digital tools and the benefits to be derived at the design, construction, and operation phases of construction projects have been well documented (Agarwal et al., 2016; Castagnino et al., 2016; Delgado et al., 2017; Gerbert et al., 2016; Ibem & Laryea, 2016; Ikuabe et al., 2020). However, there still exists a gap in the body of knowledge regarding the capabilities needed by construction organisations in their ...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• List of abbreviations
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Part I Background information
• Part II Digitalisation in the construction industry
• Part III Theoretical perspective of digitalisation capability maturity
• Part IV Conceptual perspective of construction digitalisation capability maturity
• Part V Conclusion
• Index