Editorial

Citation

McCaffer, R. (2006), "Editorial", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 13 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ecam.2006.28613eaa.001

Editorial

Edition 13.5 has produced a wide ranging group of papers including health and safety in pre-construction planning, public-private partnerships, cost indices for Egypt, construction performance times in Malaysia, residential construction quality in Taiwan and the barriers to long term alliances. This group of papers has taken 13 authors to produce, three from Malaysia, two from Egypt, two from Australia, one from Taiwan and five from the UK. There is one single authored paper, three papers with two authors and two with three authors. One paper is transnational involving Australia and Taiwan and one paper from, Malaysia, involves a Government Department as well as the academic authors.

The papers in this edition are outlined below:

Hare, Cameron and Duff report on a study commissioned by the UK Health and Safety Executive to investigate the integration of health and safety with pre-construction planning. The study involved interviewing four steering groups and three expert panels as focus groups. The conclusions are that if the construction and design team are integrated health and safety will be integrated with pre-construction planning. The researchers also argue for the development of a process model using integrated management tools. The research findings were reported to the HSE as part of their review of construction design and management regulations.

Jefferies uses the Sydney SuperDome as a case study of an Australian Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) project. This case study is the exemplar of public-private partnerships and is an indication of how Australia is providing its infrastructure for the next millennium.

Hassanein and Khalil want to provide a cost index for Egyptian construction. They have taken an indices model published in the Engineering News Record and modified it to suit the Egyptian market. The index they have produced, Egypt 1, combines three indices relating to general construction. The study period is 1988 to 1998 leaving the question how does this index perform in more recent times.

Othman, Torrance and Hamid examined the construction time performance of 244 public sector projects in Malaysia. The results the researchers produced are compared to similar studies in Nigeria and the UK. The authors give attention to what they describe as “excusable delays” and go on to make representations as to how such delays can be tackled through improved planning.

Forester and Hsieh have developed a method for assessing residential construction quality for Taiwan at an industry wide level. The motivation for this work was to relate construction quality and earthquake damage. Past earthquake assessments are too slow, late and complex for effective use. The assessment they propose is mainly based on ratios of construction materials to production levels. The authors believe that use of their assessment methods indicate that dwelling units built from 1990s boom are at high risk.

Ingirige and Sexton examine the barriers for long-term collaboration in construction alliances. The authors take a theoretical approach supported by a case study. Their findings are that there is a project based mindset that is overly narrow constraining the development of more fruitful and longer-term alliances.

Ronald McCaffer