The latest in the series of ‘Technology, Strategy and Business Models’ workshops was held at Cass Business School, City University London from 2-3 September 2014. Dr. Sunila Lobo presented her work on her thoughts regarding the potential for co-creating and capturing value in the complex business ecosystem of construction megaprojects; so firms in ‘loosely coupled networks can share complex and usually un-codified knowledge and co-evolve their capabilities to create more value and improve efficiency’ (Williamson and De Meyer, 2012). These workshops are organized by the business models group at CENTIVE, Cass Business School and are for junior faculty across Europe to present their work and receive feedback from the community. Senior faculty also present their leading edge work and the sessions are highly interactive. Participants from France, Austria, Switzerland, and the UK attended.

This 2-day workshop was preceded by a meeting called ‘Better Business Models’ on the 1st of September 2014, to update senior faculty on work carried out since the December 2013 conference on Business Models and to discuss next steps regarding research on business models. Dr. Sunila Lobo updated this senior group on work being carried out at the Design Innovation Research Centre, on behalf of Prof. Whyte.

For more information, please contact s.lobo@reading.ac.uk.

Within and across organisations, visual tools (e.g., charts, diagrams, models) are being increasingly adopted by managers, policy makers and project teams to inform their decision making. And yet our understanding of the role of visual tools in decision practices is still limited. An international workshop set up by Professor Alberto Franco (Loughborough University) aimed to fill this gap, by drawing on the knowledge, perspectives and experiences of scholars from different disciplines. An attempt was made to leverage insights from disciplines as diverse as strategy as practice, system dynamics, geovisual/geospatial planning, communication research, and operations management. Topics of discussion included, but were not limited to, i) the role of visual tools in the formation of strategy, ii) the use of 3D/4D visualization in design and decision making, and iii) the generation of options through simulation modelling. This workshop laid the foundation for an international research network on visual decision practices, by providing participants with opportunities for learning, networking, and collaborating.

For further details on the Data in Construction – A G4C Constructing Excellence event please visit G4C website.

Great Railway Debate: How Britain’s railways can meet the needs of the 21st century  – This event, at 6pm on 18 March 2014 at the University of Reading, provides a briefing on the way in which the Railways are changing over the next 10 to 20 years, with the opportunity for the audience to ask questions and to express their own views. Professor Jennifer Whyte will be on the panel to talk about Digital Asset Information, discussing research on managing data from delivery into operations, alongside other speakers Rob Avery, Construction Planner for HS2; Terry Morgan, Chairman of Crossrail, Paul Newman, Network Rail. Chaired by Professor Stuart Green, this is the eighth in a series of similar events covering topics of general interest to both engineers and the general public, organised by the Engineering Institutions in the Thames Valley to demonstrate how engineering is contributing to developments in our railway system that will benefit the travelling public. For further information or to book to attend: http://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-events/about-event-reg-greatdebate.aspx

Leif Granholm, Senior Vice President at Tekla, Finland visited the Design Innovation Research Centre. He has been involved with the development of BIM related software since 1979, when he joined Tekla as Programmer, then IT Manager, Sales Representative, Senior Consultant, Technology Director and Director for both Public Infra and Energy/Utilities Business Areas. He has also worked as Managing Director for the Swedish Subsidiary and been responsible for Tekla’s construction industry business in the Nordic and the Baltic countries. Leif also participates in the planning of Tekla’s BIM strategy, implementation and support. He is Tekla’s strategic level representative in Building SMART and also serves as Trimble corp:s representative in OGC, building SMART alliance and a number of ISO committees.

Leif Granholm met with those staff and students at the University of Reading whose research area is related to BIM and made a presentation on DRUM research project dealing with distributed information management in BIM, and web based BIM.

The Design Innovation Research Centre Spring 2014 Spring Newsletter is out, you can read about our latest news, activities, publications and events. Please contact the Centre at designinnovation@reading.ac.uk or individual authors for further details or to request copies of these papers. For more information about our work please visit our website .