Infrastructure owners with projects and asset management units reconfigure their operational capabilities to deal with external stressors. We distinguish between two reconfiguration approaches, the discrete and the continuous approach. The discrete approach is broadly adopted in the infrastructure sector and draws from the project capabilities literature, whereas the continuous approach draws from the general management literature and views reconfiguration as a best practice dynamic capability. This article compares and contrasts the two approaches by leveraging an ethnographic study of an infrastructure owner. We explain why the discrete approach was initially adopted but ultimately failed. Later, by adopting the continuous approach, the organisation succeeded by enabling the two units to work collaboratively by developing two dynamic capabilities: negotiating and disseminating for reconfiguring their operational capabilities. Our research contributes to the theoretical elaboration of why and how change management processes succeed or fail. We discuss the implications of our study to the capabilities literature and project organising research and the managerial implications of developing dynamic capabilities for operational reconfiguration in organisations with projects and asset management units.

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An academic-industry team present the results of research conducted into the current benefits being derived from the use of digital twins across the entire life cycle of an asset. We reviewed the benefits being derived by the asset management community as this is where through life productivity and effectiveness benefits will be realised. We conducted a review of relevant literature, surveyed 122 practitioners and worked with our industry partner and the UK professional body to validate our conclusions. Specifically, (1) We examined the current application of digital twins in three industry sectors: Process industries; Infrastructure (Civil Engineering); and Manufacturing. (2) We grouped our data according to role types, i.e., professionals working predominantly in the design and build, and professionals in the operation and maintenance part of the lifecycle. As regards the sector results, we found the responses contradictory. When we control by role type, the results are more cohesive. Individuals involved in the operation and maintenance stages consistently indicated that digital twins are not delivering to their promise. We present a series of problem statements to define the current state, together with some managerial recommendations and we propose further work to establish detailed guidance for infrastructure sector projects.@en

Through a systematic literature review we explore how digital technologies reshape and catalyze digital innovations in the built environment—a highly project-based setting. We analyzed circa 3,000 titles, further narrowed down to 87 articles. We synthesized an original framework for data analysis. The article presents implications for the deployment of digital technologies on three levels: individuals, organizations, and projects. Whereas most of these studies examined the impact of digital innovation in projects, recommendations focused on organizations, suggesting future directions for performance measurement, developing capabilities of firms to manage changes in dynamic environments and interorganizational settings.

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Complex projects and megaprojects are increasingly shaped by new enabling technologies and new demands from businesses, including how people are treated when working on these endeavours. This is often referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Project leaders and practitioners are not fully leveraging the opportunities unlocked by the 4IR, and project performance shows little sign of improvement despite the highly innovative and collaborative environment that the 4IR stimulates. This paper discusses this challenge and concludes that a significant reason why these benefits are not being realised is because there is a competence gap in both the project leader and practitioner communities. These communities are attempting to deal with twenty-first-century issues using competences, toolsets and a mindset created 100 years ago. Significant developments in competences associated with the 4IR in general are required. In this paper, specific competences are proposed and justified: collaborative working including people, process and digital components; lean six sigma; and agile. Success will be to empower the people who deliver megaprojects such that they are able to deliver the planned social value to all stakeholders involved.

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Through a systematic literature review we explore the concept of digital transformation in construction. Despite the increasing prevalence of digital technologies and their profound impact on the products and production of the built, such a systematic and longitudinal view of the evolution to the current status of digital transformation, does not exist. The paper contributes by improving our understanding of the current status of digital technologies and their impact of the built environment. The review analyses 3,091 titles and abstracts and 79 full papers. We find that 50% of the studies of the sampled literature on digital transformation were published after 2015. The paper also presents implications of digital transformation with regards to professionals, projects and organisations. Surprisingly, although most of the reviewed sampled studies examine the impact of digital transformation at a project level, the future recommendations and proposed remedies focus on organisational and ecosystem levels. Finally, future directions and suggestions for digital transformation in construction are discussed.@en

The adoption of Building Information Modelling (BIM) which offers integrated software and processes for digital delivery, is becoming imperative for the UK construction industry. Literature thus far is unclear if the benefits claimed by the industry are exaggerated for commercial reasons. Our exploratory study investigates how the benefits of adopting BIM can be quantified. The findings reported through a focus group of industry experts specialising in digital innovation offers a reality check at project/firm/sector level to scrutinize the benefits and costs of BIM. The key results offer four areas the construction sector could further investigate to report monetary benefits and costs of BIM. The study thus provides insight into how businesses can develop a robust but adaptable methodology for capturing BIM costs and benefits. @en