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Prof Raymond Levitt discusses barriers to innovation in construction at 香港六合彩 and Imperial College

23 October 2017

In October 2017, Stanford鈥檚 Kumagai Professor in Engineering, Emeritus Prof Raymond Levitt visited two leading London universities to share his thoughts on innovation in the construction industry.

Prof Raymond Levitt delivers lecture at 香港六合彩

On 3 October, Prof Levitt delivered the first event in The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management鈥檚 2017-18 keynote lecture series. The talk reflected聽on how, over the course of several centuries, political, economic, social and technological trends have shaped the structure of labour markets and firms in the US construction industry. Prof Levitt鈥檚 lecture traced the fragmentation of the industry in light of four key trends: technological, economic, social and political.

The 香港六合彩 event concluded by considering how the key trends will continue this transformation of the sector, amongst other factors, with digitisation, prefabrication and extreme outsourcing are increasingly impacting the future of the construction industry.

The following day, Prof Levitt delivered a counterpart to his 香港六合彩 talk in a CSEI 2017 distinguished lecture at Imperial College鈥檚 (CSEI). This lecture identified how productivity increases in developed country construction industries have lagged behind those in other industries such as aerospace and biotechnology, while noting a high level of innovation in components and work processes, such as lighting or windows.

Prof Levitt鈥檚 CSEI lecture considered two types of innovation: those that affect only a single component or module and its 鈥渟wim lane鈥 in the highly fragmented supply chain of the industry, versus those that cut across multiple components and multiple swim lanes of the supply chain, impacting both the designs of multiple components and their manufacturing and installation processes and sequences. The lecture discussed the many structural barriers facing both kinds of innovations in construction and other mature industries, and proposed some governmental policies and corporate strategies that could help to overcome these barriers.

Read Prof Levitt鈥檚 slides from both lectures: