Abstract
The BRITE (Building Research Information Technology and Environment) project was established by the Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation to encourage innovation in the construction industry. While innovation is generally perceived to be broadly beneficial, there has been little formal study of its occurrence or impact in Australian construction or of the factors which foster an innovative atmosphere within an enterprise. In order to benchmark innovation performance, the BRITE project conducted a survey in 2004 into the nature, incidence and variety of technological and organisational innovations in various sectors of the industry. With some exceptions, the survey found that clients and consultants engaged in significantly higher levels of innovation than did suppliers, main contractors or trade contractors. Within the industry sectors those organisations classified as high innovators favoured the adoption of advanced management practices and had formal evaluation systems in place to judge their progress. They reported significant positive impacts on their profitability from innovation and can therefore provide instructive examples for the rest of the industry to follow.
Highlights
The BRITE (Building Research Information Technology and Environment) project was established by the Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation to encourage innovation in the construction industry
After analysis of the survey response, respondents were classified as high, medium or low innovators according to an index compiled from the degree of novelty and profitability of their innovations, along with the number of advanced managerial practices adopted and the level of investment in research and development
No main contractors reported „new to the world‟ innovations but they did report high levels of „new to the country‟ innovation and this is indicative of their local competitive focus. 10 respondents or 2.6% reported „new to the world‟ organisational innovations
Summary
The importance of innovation to the construction industry at all levels is widely accepted. Ideas can be generated in any of several ways, but the creative process requires certain favourable conditions if it is to produce realisable improvements. Such realisable or measurable benefits are necessary if an innovation is to be regarded as successful. The connection between innovation and profitability has been acknowledged by diverse sources (Flynn et al 2003; Steele and Murray 2004; van der Panne et al 2003). The BRITE Survey tested, among other things, the strength of the relationship between innovation and profitability
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