ABSTRACT

Infrastructure projects exemplify engineer-to-order supply chains, where there is a high degree of complexity and uncertainty associated with developing a ‘unique’ product. While there is much advocacy of translating operational excellence techniques from high volume manufacturing sectors, we argue that such an approach is based on a mis-presumption of order and structure at all systems levels. We suggest an alternative ‘travel of an idea’ from the knowledge management discipline, a phenomenological framework describing contexts in terms of ordered and un-ordered, which directs us towards the need for diverse management approaches if we are to minimise the risk of project underperformance and failure. We contemplate the value of the framework and reflect on the contribution it can make to the construction industry specifically and to engineer-to-order production systems more generally; we provide a basis to bring a healthy challenge when ‘travelling ideas’ and expose how unthinking choices can be expected to fail.

摘要

基础设施项目体现了按订单设计的供应链，其中与开发“独特”产品相关的复杂性和不确定性很高。虽然有很多人提倡从大批量制造部门转换卓越运营技术，但我们认为这种方法是基于对所有系统级别的秩序和结构的错误假设。我们建议知识管理学科的另一种“想法之旅”，这是一个用有序和无序来描述上下文的现象学框架，如果我们要最大限度地降低项目绩效不佳的风险，就需要采用多样化的管理方法和失败。我们考虑了框架的价值，并反思了它可以对建筑行业和更普遍的按订单设计的生产系统做出的贡献；我们提供了一个基础，可以在“旅行想法”时带来健康的挑战，并揭示不加思索的选择如何预期会失败。