Beyond “platformania” in the construction sector: Conceptualisations and implications of product platformisation in the UK

The UK government’s recent transformation agenda focused on a Platform approach to Design for Manufacture and Assembly (P-DfMA) has attracted interest from the construction sector. A closer examination of the P-DfMA agenda raises questions about its origins and implications. This paper critically analyses grey sector literature, policy and government-supported reports on P-DfMA to discuss how it has been conceptualised, and the implications for the growing “platformania” in the UK construction sector. To this end, firstly platform conceptualisations are synthesised, and distinctions between product platforms and DfMA are highlighted. Secondly, based on an analysis of policy and related documents, five areas critical to driving the platformisation agenda are identified: Product platform development; digitally designed components; platform leadership and ownership; platform governance; and business models. The critical analysis suggests that product platformisation in the UK construction sector requires two distinct types of platform approaches: the product platform; and a transaction platform or a marketplace for buyers and sellers of the components of product platforms. The implications of both for the strategic organising of construction firms, and the five areas identified, are discussed and synthesised with the evidence from management literature. Practical and policy implications for sector stakeholders are outlined, along with questions for future research on product platformisation in the construction sector.</p

Leadership for responsible digital innovation in the built environment: A socio-technical review for re-establishing competencies

Digitalisation in cities offers new opportunities and challenges for city planners and managers to re-shape their roles and create public value through responsible innovation. However, there is a lack of understanding of the competency requirements to foster leadership capacity for digital innovation with social coherence and responsibility. Based on a socio-technical perspective, this paper presents a multi- and inter-disciplinary framework to identify and evaluate the competencies necessary for leading digital innovation in the built environment. The framework incorporates three dimensions: digital and technical, governance and management, and ethical and responsible innovation. A review of existing competency frameworks for digitalisation in the urban built environment is presented to identify competency gaps across the three dimensions. The results show that existing frameworks rarely strive for comprehensiveness and are limited in their scope to certain competencies along a single dimension. In addition, studies addressing the need for multi- and inter-disciplinary competencies across the three dimensions are lacking. The paper thus demonstrates that our three-pronged framework is a useful and much needed tool to identify competency requirements for local public, private and community stakeholders to steer place-based digital innovation and ensure public value creation.</p