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Accessibility is now a major issue in the design and maintenance of housing estates. This paper considers the reasons why this issue has emerged and the main obstacles to accessibility encountered by housing estate residents. Focusing on a mature estate in South Belfast, Northern Ireland, investigates the obstacles to accessibility experienced by the residents in order to produce a hierarchy of impacts. Residents were surveyed on a number of issues including location, roads and pavements, transportation, level change, wayfinding, safety and security, and public areas. It was discovered that obstacles relating to wayfinding created the greatest problems for residents; however, attitudes towards accessibility varied according to the age of the respondent. The study concludes that accessibility should be introduced estate‐by‐estate dependent on a resident profile in order to maximise resources and advocates the adoption of a co‐ordinated interagency approach.

Based on research carried out on a mature estate in South Belfast, Northern Ireland, this paper investigates the obstacles to accessibility in order to produce an appraisal model for external accessibility. The study included a review of best practice, a preliminary access appraisal and resident and service provider consultation. Residents were surveyed on a number of issues including location, roads and pavements, transportation, level change, wayfinding, safety and security, and public areas. It was discovered that obstacles relating to wayfinding and traffic management created the greatest problems for residents. The resultant model will enable housing providers and managers to identify specific areas of inaccessibility and the feasibility of improving them as well as allowing comparisons between estates. It is intended to provide all agencies involved in housing with a basis for collaboration in the enhancement of accessibility.

Operational property is increasingly recognized as an important asset capable of effective management. Indeed, premises can play a significant role by affecting organizational productivity and supporting corporate mission. Many organizations occupy leased properties owned by investment institutions which aim to benefit from their assets through capital appreciation and rental return. The achievement of these objectives can be related to the facilities value of an office building as determined by design/quality and tenant organization characteristics. Reports the results of a post‐occupancy evaluation survey carried out in the City of London. The results illustrate the variability of tenant characteristics, their property requirements and their perceptions of functional performance. The use of building performance appraisal techniques within the investment management function is necessary for the creation of value for both parties. Suggests that facilities management professionals with expertise in the measurement and benchmarking of building performance are well placed for providing unbiased information to investment decision makers.

Office buildings in the City of London accommodate a wide variety of tenant organisations whose business characteristics and property requirements differ. Physical design/quality attributes also differ between buildings and, therefore, either constrain or support specific business activities. The results of a survey carried out using a sample of investment properties and their tenants within the City illustrate the existence of these variations. In particular, the difference between tenant organizations’ perceived supply and demand for individual building design/quality factors is highlighted showing areas of general under‐performance. The owners of City of London office buildings, typically the financial institutions, are concerned with the functionality of their properties which influence the short‐ and long‐term returns of this particular type of asset. Information originating from the utilisation of building appraisal techniques is of considerable use within any property management decision‐making process and in particular the identification of potential problems associated with building obsolescence.

Corporate activity in Ireland has experienced a significant growth as the economy has benefited from extensive inward investment. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of real estate in corporate decision making within Ireland. Corporate real estate issues are initially discussed as the contextual anchoring for a survey of corporate occupiers within both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Findings indicate a high level of professional and practical experience in relation to real estate but this has not been fully exploited by companies in developing a proactive corporate strategy. Real estate plays a largely traditional role within organisations although it appears that differences exist between indigenous and externally parented companies. Comparisons are drawn with other similar surveys at an international level.

The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology for extracting innovation constraints from building projects through stakeholder management competencies and failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA).

The methodology was an iterative grounded theory process using case studies. A literature‐based concept model was generated which mapped project procurement stages against the innovation process. Constraints and stakeholder management strategies were extracted from 30 case studies using content analysis and mapped against the procurement stages. FMEA was used to evaluate the criticality of the constraints. For the purposes of this paper, a sample case study was detailed and referred to as the pilot study. The m\ethodology was applied to all the case studies and a schedule of constraints (SoC) extracted.

This paper evidenced that it is not project constraints which require management to sustain innovation but rather failures in stakeholder competency. This study established the benefits of FMEA as a risk assessment tool for construction innovation research and generated a database of innovation constraints which can be used as a benchmarking framework for future research.

Previous construction innovation research has focused on established project management techniques to manage innovation. This study identified that rather than a process‐driven approach, a stakeholder‐centred approach is required, where successful innovation delivery is incumbent on the right stakeholder competencies being in place at the appropriate stages of the procurement process. The benefit of this contribution is an established risk assessment methodology which can be used by project stakeholders when adopting innovation into construction projects.

The purpose of this paper is to report the production of the key process areas (KPAs) for an e‐capability maturity model for construction organisations, based on drivers and barriers to e‐procurement.

Previous researchers have recognised the positive consequences of possessing a model to sustain the embedment of any business process within an organisation. The capability maturity model progressed into one of the most internationally recognised since the release of the Software Capability Maturity Model (CMM) in 1991. Since then, many CMMs have been developed. This paper reports on how a CMM based on drivers and barriers to e‐procurement identified in Eadie et al. can be developed to form the KPAs in the formation of a model to gauge the maturity of an organisation in relation to e‐procurement.

It was found that factor analysis could be used as a data reduction technique to reduce the 20 drivers and 32 barriers identified as being applicable to e‐procurement in construction, to 12 KPAs: Quality management system; Cost management system; Intergroup coordination; Time management system; Operational analysis; Organisational change management system; Integrated teaming; Governance management system; Requirements development; Knowledge management system; Integration management system; and Organisational environment.

This paper provides particulars of a research project which uses factor analysis to produce a set of KPAs from the drivers and barriers identified in Eadie et al. These KPAs are then subjected to a mapping process linking them to maturity levels to develop a CMM to analyse the e‐procurement capability of construction organisations. This mapping will be reported in a later paper. This e‐readiness of organisations will indicate the current state of a construction organisation in terms of its readiness to carry out e‐procurement. The paper describes in detail the identification of the KPAs.

The office is considered as a strategic resource that can support knowledge‐based organisations to gain competitive advantage and operational efficiency. Although the modern scholar emphasises the role of user involvement in workplace design and management, there is little evidence showing how it can be linked to occupancy cost performance. The purpose of this paper is to investigate benefits of a user‐centric workplace practice by focusing on working time and space utilisation practice of office users.

A scenario‐based approach was designed to analyse office occupancy cost performance. A questionnaire survey was conducted from a number of UK‐based offices to create three workspace utilisation scenarios, namely, existing, property‐centric and user‐centric. Key comparison criteria include potential areas of savings, potential total cost savings and cost saving per person.

It was found that a user‐centric approach reflects an opportunity to save annual occupancy costs in terms of total costs and cost per person where users indicated how they utilised working time and space. In return, the organisations can gain more productivity from office users who are likely to perform better when they can work in the preferred workplace practice.

By adopting this approach, organisations can understand the occupancy characteristics of the offices from multi perspectives, leading to better management in office premises.

This paper is concerned with the analysis of how to achieve higher office efficiency by focusing on office user's working time and space utilisation practice.

Workplace environments and user satisfaction assessment have been recognised as a key research area for improving knowledge‐intense organisation performance through satisfaction‐based productivity. Previous research which focused on satisfaction levels of office users sometimes neglected the fact that not all office users perceived the importance of workplace environment factors (facilities services, design and layout, work and social interactions and distraction control) in a similar way. This suggests a gap in the knowledge base. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a systematic assessment of workplace‐user satisfaction.

Criteria decision analysis tools were reviewed and the use of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was justified as an appropriate method. A survey undertaken in offices across the UK, focused on levels of satisfaction and perceived productivity, in order to construct an AHP Satisfaction Index for comparing with the average score approach.

At the individual level, the AHP Satisfaction Index weighting workplace environment criteria yield a better explanation of workplace‐user satisfaction compared with the average score approach. At the global level, the AHP Satisfaction Index does not impact on the overall statistical behaviour when compared with the original score.

The AHP Satisfaction Index can be used as an alternative way to measure workplace‐user satisfaction levels in the office. This approach provides more comprehensive information when researchers and practitioners are interested in the impacts of workplace environment criteria.

Two main types of models are used worldwide in consideration of the impact of Information Communication Technology (ICT) processes in construction: capability maturity models (CMM) and e‐readiness models. The purpose of this paper is to review the structure behind the different models, their applicability to construction and indicate how organisations move between the levels in a CMM.

This study investigates the literature behind eight e‐readiness models and 53 CMMs.

The findings indicate 88 per cent of maturity‐based CMM models linked to five maturity levels, with the remainder using four. CMMs have common features: the process/application is described by maturity levels; Key Process Areas (KPA) provide the features to allow movement; and the levels are arranged and attained systematically, lowest to highest. Publication dates and trends indicate the rate of CMM publication is increasing (most in 2009), conversely, e‐readiness models are not (most published in 2004).

It is expected that the number of CMMs will increase; conversely, e‐readiness models may not. E‐readiness models have not been adopted by other industries and applications. However, CMMs, although initiated in software engineering, have progressed to incorporate construction models which cover processes as diverse as financial management and documentation. This suggests that a CMM is more applicable for applications such as e‐business in construction.

The paper significantly expands that of Man in 2007 who listed 22 CMM models. This paper categorises a further 31 models and indicates construction applicability, combined with a review of e‐readiness models for the first time.