thousands of people and supporting many millions of users each

year. These types of facilities and infrastructures did not exist 20

years ago.
In many construction markets there is increasing demand for
flexible, lightweight, multi-function spaces that can be reconfigured for different
uses quickly and cheaply. Users prefer
engineered solutions that offer greater choice of layout, finish
and aesthetic quality. A direct relationship exists between performance in design
and construction and efficient and effective
operation of these facilities. Comprehension of userproducer
relations has never been easy, particularly because of the
involvement of so many organizations and interests in convoluted demand and supply
chains. Yet rapid shifts in patterns of
demand emphasize the need for closer links between producers
and users than has hitherto been the case. This is particularly so
if user needs are to be properly articulated and fulfilled. In
addition, knowledge required for design and construction is
expanding because the operation of new facilities often involves
their management as part of larger and older technical systems
and infrastructures. Thus individual projects must be designed
and built within constraints defined by existing systems and the
legacies of the technologies they embody (David 1985).
Products whose operating requirements and long-term costs are
considered in the design process and are planned and built to
cope with change may therefore offer greater utility.
Pressures on design and construction companies to innovate
and develop new products are likely to continue in the future,
with the need to produce facilities for creating and working with
biochemical, pharmaceutical and genetically modified substances, as well as new
nanotechnology materials produced
through manipulation at the molecular scale. Failure on the part
of design, engineering, construction and related supply industries to develop these
new products could constrain economic
investment and growth, diminishing potential benefits accruing
from a modern infrastructure.
New product development may be the principal spur to
innovation during particular periods of widespread technical,
economic and social transformation, but it is not the only driving
force of change. Others include new ways of financing projects;
the need to comply with evolving international, regional and
local regulatory frameworks particularly concerning health
and safety, sustainability and the environment; and issues
concerning social exclusion, inclusion and acceptability. Moreover, construction
processes themselves have internal dynamics
that drive change, as well as those that constrain and retard
performance improvements.
Construction is often thought of and excused as a traditional,
mature industry that is slow to change. But as Steven Grok
argued, it is wrong to see construction as a failed form of
manufacturing. It has its own dynamics of industrial
development and these are explained in the next chapter.
Efficiency, responsiveness and capability to innovate depend to
a large extent on the structure of firms, the types of skills
employed, management capabilities and relationships with other
firms with relevant technical expertise.
Not all construction organizations are passive recipients of
changes emanating from other sectors. Whilst many innovations
in materials and components are made prior to their installation
in the construction process, construction firms nevertheless
function as systems integrators and intermediaries in the
transformation of technologies from their point of origin to end
users. They can play an important part in modifying and
developing new technologies, conveying vital feedback from
upstream producers to downstream clients and eventual users,
and vice versa. The organization of these processes differs
according to the types of projects and firms business strategies.
Different ways of organizing production processes in turn create
dynamics within the construction system itself, resulting in
incentives as well as inhibitors to innovation. In this projectbased environment,
the capability for innovation in the ways in
which projects are organized is often as important as that of
managing new technologies.
Forces for technical change are particularly strong among
materials and components manufacturers who are often able to
invest in long-term research and product development. Many
major technological changes aimed at improving construction
processes take place away from construction sites and seek to
reduce skill requirements on-site. Value-added in construction is
increasingly being produced upstream in the supply chain, by
component manufacturers. Customers of large projects may also
feed the innovation process by funding and participating in
research and development activities.
Construction firms have always displayed a peculiar capability for innovation. The
site-based nature of production,
increasing numbers of different specialisms, relative uniqueness
and the changing use of final products and variety of production
processes, constantly throw up problems which firms have to
solve in a variety of ways. But in spite of an innate ability to deal
with change, construction is not generally viewed as an
innovative sector, either by those working within it or by outside
observers. Innovation prompted by the need to solve problems,
often needlessly created elsewhere in the production process,
generally lacks direction and can result in further problems
which others have to rectify. Hence the paradox of change:
construction has internal dynamics that generate innovation, but
not necessarily of the type that leads to lasting improvements in