Driving Innovative Thinking in the New Zealand Construction Industry

This paper examines the relationship between innovation and productivity improvement in the construction industry. It is argued that this relationship is not well understood due to lack of in-depth understanding of innovation in construction. To overcome this obstacle, the authors present a multi-dimensional innovation classification system which aims at better defining and classifying what is meant by innovation in construction. The use of this classification system is demonstrated by applying it to a database of 500 innovations reported by the construction alliance, the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team. The results clearly demonstrate the diversity of types, degree of novelty and performance improvement benefits among construction innovations. Such diversity means that the impact of the reported innovations on productivity and performance are of different levels of significance. The classification system developed in this study can be used by construction organisations and alliances in the future to develop more detailed methods of calculating innovation performance indicators, based on the innovation type, novelty and benefits factors. By using this system, they can also put in place mechanisms to influence the types of innovation developed in their projects with the aim of maximising their productivity performance.