Implementing construction innovations

The need to gain a competitive advantage stimulates many construction organizations to exploit innovative products and processes. The high level of uncertainty associated with innovative construction leads many construction organizations to focus on the application of traditional construction processes and products. Implementing construction innovation often involves experimentation, iteration and refinement of activities that are reliant on volatile information. Although several decision support models have been developed to assess new technologies, innovation as an implementation process has received less attention. This paper presents several tools to assess the value of technological innovation. It also presents a conceptual model, which is currently being developed, that deals with the effectiveness of innovation implementation phase. The proposed model is a decision support tool that models different implementation scenarios. The model uses influence information, managerial and technological benefits to control the implementation phase.