Mobilizing the skills of specialist firms to reduce costs and enhance performance in the European construction industry: two case studies

Ezio Micelli

Construction Management and Economics, 2000, vol. 18, issue 6, 651-656

Abstract: Analyses are made of procurement strategies capable of leading to cost reduction and higher quality through the contribution of specialized firms. An exploration is made of the literature concerning the procurement of manufactured goods and progress by analysing two case studies: the East Bridge of the Storebælt link and the Grand Canal Maritime bridge. Both these projects adopted procurement systems that led to a learning process capable of enhancing performance and reducing overall costs. It is evident that the success of learning-oriented procurement strategies relies on two major conditions. First, the client's tender must be issued with an open design demanding an active contribution from the firms involved in the construction process. Second, the firms bidding for the job must be able to manage two distinct sets of skills: the technical skills relating to a specific production process and the ability to connect these skills to the client's needs through a co-design process, or what is known as the strategic intermediation function.

Date: 2000
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/014461900414709 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:conmgt:v:18:y:2000:i:6:p:651-656

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RCME20

DOI: 10.1080/014461900414709

Access Statistics for this article

Construction Management and Economics is currently edited by Will Hughes

More articles in Construction Management and Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().