Managing Innovation Cases from the Services Industries (1988) / Chapter Skim
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Modern Bridge Construction and Engineering Services
Modern Bridge Construction and Engineering Services
Pages 165-174
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From page 165... ...
As a result, there has been a noticeable lag in innovation and the transfer of technology from Europe to the United States and there are many opportunities for improvements in the efficiency of design and construction methods in the United States. It is crucial that suppliers and buyers of bridge design and construction services in the United States recognize that innovation is necessary and that the barriers to enriching daily practice with the new technology lie not in technology itself but in the limited roles and expectations that have become traditional to bridge designers, contractors, and owners In particular, in the United States a contractor building a bridge works under the supervision of the engineer responsible to the owner for compliance of the work with the contract documents and the design intent.
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From page 166... ...
Steel fabricators were not ready to roll structural steel for bridge applications, so as concrete substituted for steel as the dominant material for bridge building, the combined design/build concept was adopted to encourage competition and reduce design and construction time. The postwar European experience can be divided into two distinct historical decades, each with its own special character.
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From page 167... ...
Furthe~nore, the newly introduced construction schemes overwhelmed existing analytical bookkeeping methods, which were both cumbersome and prone toi computational errors. For example, to mathematically simulate the construction and stress history of a balanced cantilever bridge, computations must be updated at each stage of construction to reflect changes in the structural behavior of the bridge.
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From page 168... ...
Also, contractors started allowing better plant quality control in concrete production, plus getting the benefit of reducing creep and shrinkage in the finished structure, by letting segments undergo their natural and unrestrained strain changes during storage in the casting yards before they were finally incorporated in the structure. Construction methods advanced rapidly, and segmental bridges were used in a wide range of erection schemes.
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From page 169... ...
If we look back, it is clear that while major developments in European bridge technology were taking place, no similar efforts were under way in the United States. Not until the European market was saturated did the Europeans try to export their technology.
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From page 170... ...
The first bridges built in the United States based on the European experience were the Pine Valley Creek Bridge in California in 1969, using castin-place segmental construction with traveling forms, and the JFK Memorial Causeway Bridge, which opened to traffic in 1973. The precast segmental box girder for the JFK bridge was built in Corpus Christi, Texas, as a pilot project following a comprehensive model test program at the University of Texas at Austin.
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From page 171... ...
forced changes in material use by demanding plant control tolerances, for example, reducing field fabrication to a minimum, which improves quality, and stricter quality controls overall. Such requirements enabled both more and better construction control and improved fabrication techniques, and encouraged engineers and contractors to use more sophisticated analytical methods under more demanding quality control conditions.
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From page 172... ...
Second, after the design phase is completed, but before a bridge project begins, price competition among contractors drives innovation in the means and methods of construction, factors that can dramatically affect the price tag on a structure. The alternative design requirement also means that the contractor has alternatives under redesign clauses in the bidding documents.
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From page 173... ...
The current claims atmosphere is definitely an obstacle to innovation. Current practices suggest that although the roles of engineers and contractors are still separate, alternative designs are emerging despite the reduction in the range of contractors' options for design modifications.
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From page 174... ...
POLICY LESSONS FOR THE UNITED STATES In an atmosphere where the cost pressures on public works projects such as bridge construction continue, efficiency gains are most likely to come only through innovation, and, in policy, from lessons learned from European experience. In particular, closer relationships between the design function and the construction function appear to be a better formula for innovation than the separation typically practiced in the United States.
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