Balancing Open and Closed Innovation in Megaprojects: Insights from Crossrail
PAPE
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about unveiling innovative solutions,
especially in the area of construction
methodologies, which were likely to
give the firm a considerable advantage
over competitors.
The supply chain was another
important source of innovations, but
its contribution varied depending on
whether the contractors needed the
contributions of suppliers to carry out
project activities. Notably, limited supplier involvement existed for all of the
projects, so that innovative ideas tended
to originate from subcontractors rather
than suppliers. Site personnel, such
as operatives and superintendents and
site supervisors, played an important
role in identifying ideas and imagining
possible applications. In some projects, innovation groups were formed to
stimulate and support project staff to
put forward new ideas and then help
advance them through discussions and
collective evaluations. This allowed
for increases in both the quantity and
quality of new ideas. Some projects
had rather large innovation groups
with more individuals involved, and
a greater number of innovative ideas
generated. In other projects—such as
Bond Street and Paddington—
regular project staff (i.e., employees who
weren’t members of innovation groups)
represented the main source of innovative ideas.
Replicated Innovation
The “Pinch with Pride” scheme encour-
aged the mutual sharing of innovative
ideas among projects, with the purpose
of multiplying the opportunities for the
adoption and implementation of inno-
vations deemed particularly valuable.
The scheme enhanced the project inno-
vativeness by reducing cross-project
transaction costs and also helped
improved performance by creating con-
ditions for evolutionary development
of innovative ideas. As Table 4 shows,
not all projects engaged with “Pinch
with Pride” and many projects played
no role in either generating new ideas
useful to other projects or replicating
ideas generated elsewhere. For the most
innovative projects, the scheme did not
play a significant role in terms of cumu-
latively increasing the number of inno-
vations, but noticeable engagement
existed within the project teams and the
contractors involved. For example, the
main contractor for Liverpool Street was
one of the leading submitters of ideas
then replicated elsewhere; in this case,
however, the “pinching” is partially
explained by the fact that the contrac-
tor was involved in two other projects
(Custom House and Tottenham Court
Road), so that some of the cross-project
implementations might be seen as bro-
kered by the contractor itself. Liverpool
Street was highly prolific of ideas that
were replicated elsewhere, but had not
yet implemented any ideas from other
projects at the time of our study. In
general, station projects were the most
active ones in replicating innovations,
probably due to the complexity of these
types of projects, and the related need
to integrate the numerous systems typi-
cally present in train stations.
Our informants underlined that
the Crossrail Innovation Team played
a key role in encouraging the replication of innovations and providing the
support that was often lacking on the
contractors’ side. Indeed, Crossrail
Limited had committed people’s time
and other organizational resources to
nurturing and implementing innovations, whereas the project companies
encountered several problems and
constraints such as the scarce communication between the head office and
the project teams, particularly about
the opportunities to replicate innovations. Furthermore, corporate influence
on the innovation program tended to
be weak because replicating innovations was seen as a more demanding
task compared with implementing ideas
that had been generated and developed
within the project. An additional constraint was the lack of guidance about
how to engage with the supply chain,
particularly how to participate in innovation competitions.
The principal contractor for Paddington, Bond Street, and Eleanor Street
& Mile End Street Park Shafts was the
most active in sharing innovation across
projects. This contractor had significant corporate support for replication.
Workshops were held quarterly among
the projects’ innovation groups, with
the aim of sharing knowledge, circulating successful ideas, and discussing the
problems experienced and the possible
solutions. Replication thus “facilitated
learning and idea discovery” and often
“prevented repeating the same mistakes
across projects.” Replication practices
were sustained through the central
innovation database and the innovation
competitions. For example, to identify
innovations potentially applicable to
forthcoming project activities, the Paddington, Bond Street, and Eleanor Street
& Mile End Street Park Shafts projects
searched the Crossrail innovation database recurrently, which allowed Paddington to achieve a rather high number
of replicated innovations. The purpose
of the innovation competitions was to
award financial funding for the development of proposed innovations, either
through the competition scheme or via
a Delegated Authority from the innovation program. Table 6 details the funds
awarded during the first year of the
program.
Station projects dominated the competitions, whereas tunnel projects only
had four awards. The most prominent
project was Paddington, with funding
awarded in all three rounds. This success is partly explained by the fact that
Paddington incentivized project staff
with non-monetary rewards such as gift
cards. The main contractor for Paddington, Bond Street, and Eleanor Street &
Mile End Street Park Shafts won eight
awards in total. The outstanding engagement of this contractor was underscored
by its participation in all rounds of competitions, an overall awarded amount
equal to 46% of allocations, and the
highest single award (£ 59,000 or approximately US$84,600). The main contractor for Custom House, Liverpool Street,
