Reorganizing the building process: The holistic approach: Dissertation

The present building practice has faced several problems. The trends in the business environment of construction indicate clearly that the prevailing organization cannot perform optimally in its future environment either, or especially in it. Thus, the study aimed to define the most appropriate generic structure of the overall building process organization for the Western countries in the future. It was anticipated that a more or less fundamental restructuring of the building industry is needed in the long term. The research made use of the wide-ranging practical work done in various countries. It analyzes the development of various new and integrated building production philosophies, which are based not only on the problems of present practice but also on different trends and phenomena existing in the market in general. The chosen nation-based philosophies are: `Computer integrated construction' from Japan `Open building system' from the Netherlands `Sequential procedure' from France and `System unit procurement' from Finland. Their beneficiality and organizational impact were analyzed by production philosophies. The general principles required to describe the needed organizational change were based on the parallel aims of different philosophies. Naturally, the compatibility of principles was also determined and their general suitability was ensured by broad reference material. The overall suggested change in organizing the building process produced by the research is described through ten principles in relation to the traditional practice. The change principles are called: 1 Consumer-oriented phased and focussed decision making 2 Distinction between the shell and interior of the building 3 Performance approach in planning and specification 4 Competition based on implementer's technical solutions 5 Extended commercial means of competition 6 Activation of research and development 7 Establishment of system units for assigning scopes of liability 8 Industrial component production 9 System unit based multi-skilled teams on site, and 10 Continuous collaboratorion between parties. To summarize, comprehensive renewal of the organization of the building process and industry, based on the above principles, offers the most potential for improvning the quality, productivity and innovativeness of construction.