Other Industries
The subsequent step based life-cycle of construction projects offers little flexibility. Project flexibility decreases the further into the life-cycle a project gets. This is one of the reasons why many large and complex projects face project delays and cost increases (Straçusser, 2015). Cost overruns are a big challenge in the construction industry. In order to overcome some of the challenges, it might be wise to look at how other industries manage their projects.
The management of construction projects has much in common with the management of projects in similar industries. Related fields within technology are aerospace, manufacturing and software development (Santos, 2017). Learning from the success of other industries, their lessons can inspire the construction industry to find new and innovative ways of project collaboration and management.
Figure 6 Different ways of organising the product development process through, Sequential (A), partly overlapping (B) and extended overlapping (C).
Manufacturing Industry
In construction, a project is enforced to pass through several distinct subsequent phases. When one phase reaches its end, it kick-starts the next one, as illustrated by type A in figure 6 (Takeuchi & Nonaka, 1986). This is a well-known and traditional approach to a construction project. There are occasions where some of the phases do overlap, illustrated by type B. Overlapping might occur between the initial phase and the design phase, where the design work might start a little bit before all planning has been finished. Both of these ways of managing a project gives little flexibility. A new way of organising the work, through a more integrated approach, has been introduced in some other industries. This is illustrated as type C in figure 6. The integrated approach has a multidisciplinary team where members work together from start to end.
Takeuchi & Nonaka (1986) found six characteristics within project management that gave a more flexible process for product development in some multinational companies. The characteristics are as follows.
Built-in
instability
Management believes that the team will be more creative and achieve better results if they are given more freedom. Still, at the same time goals and requirements are very challenging.
Self-organising project-teams
Based on letting the team start from scratch, like a start-up, encouraging the team to think outside the box. A wide variety in the personality of team members. The team works almost independently from the top management.
Overlapping development phases
The team collaborate as a unit. Keeping an open information channel will allow everyone to always stayss updated, which increases speed and flexibility.
multilearning
Focus on, and facilities for team members to acquire new knowledge and skills to already well-known fields, and also exploring new fields of study. The team is encouraged to stay up to date on the newest technologies and developments.
Subtle control
Enough control from the management to avoid failure, but still encourage creativity and spontaneity.
Organisational transfer of learning
Making sure knowledge is transferred to new projects or other divisions by transferring knowledgeable people between projects and teams.
The construction industry resembles the process of product development to some extent. Both produce a physical product and the process involves several professions. Construction, therefore, can learn a few things from how other big industries apply teamwork and perform project management. It could be beneficial to sometimes think outside the box and challenge themselves in new ways.
Software Industry
Peer production as a way of developing software has previously been linked to stigmergy. Peer production is not the only way of project collaboration in software development. The software industry has several other interesting aspects.
Earlier a traditional way of managing projects called the waterfall method was common. The method gave little room for project flexibility throughout its life-cycle. Most issues are cheapest to fix in the early stages of a project. With changing demands in the later stages of a project, the waterfall method became very expensive and not very suitable. Agile methodology was developed to meet the requirement for a more adaptable and flexible method within software development. The environments were changing fast, and the software industry needed new ways of managing projects. Agile methodology is based on four key values stated in a Manifesto for Agile Software Development. It is further including 12 operating principles called Principles Behind the Agile Manifesto.
Figure 7 Iterative approach of agile development
Agile Management
Agile projects are managed differently from the traditional way. They do, however, go through the same stages in the project life-cycle. The main stages are planning, building and testing. These stages are repeated several times throughout the project's life-cycle (Cohen et al., 2004). In this iterative approach, each loop in the cycle is called a sprint, as illustrated in figure 7. By doing iterative development, the team can more easily and rapidly adapt to changing requirements. The repeated iterations function as a feedback loop where review after testing might lead to changes (Inflectra, 2018).
The focus on the delivery is not on one big final delivery but splitting the project up into several smaller deliveries. There is also an aim of delivering early in the project. Having frequent smaller deliveries assures there is at least something that can be delivered (Inflectra, 2018). By continuously testing, code errors are found earlier, and it is possible to determine whether the project requirements are met.
In agile methodology, it is essential to keep a close relation to the stakeholders and have a frequent collaboration with them. Development teams are often self-organised, and team members meet regularly (Inflectra, 2018). By continually keeping each other updated on the project, the team can prevent misunderstandings and discuss issues.
The agile methodology introduced some new concepts to project management. User stories are the requirements of the project. They are broken down to be short and easy to understand. Their purpose is to inform all team members of the requirements and make sure everyone is on the same page. The user stories are kept in a prioritised product backlog. A backlog allows the team to emphasise the most critical requirements and prioritise their work efforts (Cohen et al., 2004).
Aviation Industry
Computer-aided design (CAD) technologies have traditionally been widely used in the aviation industry. Based on CAD technologies, design through Digital MockUps (DMU) has developed. The design process comprises the use of virtual objects in a virtual reality. The virtual reality is a 3D space where a digital model of the product is represented (Zhang & Li, 2012). The virtual object has graphics showing its characteristics and looks. However, a DMU model is more than just a graphical representation of a product; it is a design model. The model is built to express the looks of the product, and to understand how parts fit together, and how they behave (Dolezal, 2008). In this sense, a DMU is like a digital prototype of the product. The main goal is to simplify or substitute a physical product mockup. By simulating the behaviour of the physical product, a design team can perform product testing and obtain real responses. When being able to test and evaluate features digitally, an optimal design is achieved more efficiently. The opportunity of placing the model in a virtual reality environment while testing makes the testing even more realistic. With DMU technology, the whole life-cycle of product design can be managed. A result might be reduced costs and improved efficiency (Zhang & Li, 2012).
Using a DMU in a project allows all contributors to work in the same design platform. The communication can happen in one, shared environment. A requirement for such collaboration is that all contributors can easily access the most up to date design model in the platform. Airbus is a company that has used Digital MockUps in several large projects (Dassault Systems, 2019). They have experienced a decrease in requests of design changes, compared to when using 2D drawings. When using DMU, they were able to verify the design of each component upon installation. The design and any design changes were easily communicated to manufacturers through the DMU in real-time.
Digital MockUp in Airbus
A similar technology that has appeared in several business areas, is digital twins. A digital twin is a digital model identical to, for instance, a physical machine (Egan, 2015). In order to analyse a digital twin, lots of data from sensors on the real component is required. It might be data related to a plane engine when operated during a flight. The digital model is often cloud-based. Through the Industrial Internet of Things, data from the model can be accessed in real-time. From analysing the data using digital twins, companies can execute predictive maintenance on their machines.
Not only can digital twins be used in predictive maintenance. It might predict future behaviour and performance of a machine or component. Digital twins can further help in design and optimisation to give better solutions (Egan, 2015).