Integrated structural and construction engineering – A study of project team performance in Swedish bridge design

Doctoral thesis, 2019

The Swedish Transport Administration (STA) ambitiously strives to increase the level of productivity and innovation within its operations while meeting and surpassing national sustainability objectives. In this effort, the STA has concluded that climate gas emissions from construction, operation, and maintenance of the infrastructure must be reduced for Sweden to maintain its position as a pioneer and to reach both national and global climate goals. Emissions from road, rail, and other civil works is mainly related to the production of construction materials, such as construction steel, concrete and reinforcement in bridges, retaining walls, and other structures. For bridges, normally designed for a long service-life, the environmental impact of all stages after realization is greatly dependent on and constrained by decisions made during design and construction of the structure. To succeed in realizing effectiveness in bridge construction project is only possible by close cooperation between all project participants, i.e. client, consultant(s), and contractor(s).

The construction industry is often described as complex, multidisciplinary, and project-focused but with no clear boundaries of who actually owns processes and, consequently, the development of them. The overall purpose of this research is, therefore, to contribute to framing a systematic and holistic design approach fostering many kinds of project-settings and pre-requisites. This research aims to further understand how to introduce construction knowledge in the early design stages through utilizing an approach with integrated projects teams. The thesis is based on several studies exploring how integration is related to the bridge construction process and the key features are for such integration. Further, this thesis explores the prevailing interprofessional dialogue in the Swedish bridge construction process and how this may both support and hinder knowledge and experience transfer in the interprofessional interface.

Given the complexity in construction today, all participants involved, individually, will lack some pieces of the puzzle, but that collectively, they can gather their knowledge and resources to achieve success for all parties involved. When integration is seen from this perspective, the following key features crystallize; skills to collaborate and communicate; interdependency between the parties; importance for the structural engineer to receive feedback from, and to have a dialogue with, the contractors; teams to be provided with the right people.

The contribution of this thesis is that it provides further knowledge to develop and improve the contemporary approach in the design and construction of bridges.