Digital project capabilities and innovation: insights from the emerging use of platforms in construction

Digital information brings connections across projects into view, changing the relationships between project-based firms and the projects on which they work. It problematizes the point at which the production systems that are involved in manufacturing (organized as continuous flow) meet the delivery of complex product systems (organized through projects). To extend our understanding of digital project capabilities and innovation in the context of these changing relationships, this chapter examines the case of UK construction and the emerging use of digital platforms. Drawing on this case, we observe how firms in this project-based setting (1) take a product-based rather than project-based strategy, (2) manage innovation at the portfolio level, (3) seek to influence project set-up, (4) engage in competition between platforms and (5) strategically interact with industry-level initiatives. We discuss how they combine the use of digital manufacturing capabilities in their supply chains with digital project capabilities, and we conclude by articulating the implications for further research.