The need to consider sustainability has substantially increased the complexity of implementing construction and infrastructure projects and new management practices have emerged during the past decade to tackle the global sustainability challenges, where the engagement and coordination of broader competences from stakeholders throughout the supply chain is required. This new project management paradigm has been accompanied by greater attention to the concept of collaborative business arrangements, often called partnering, that has emerged in construction and infrastructure projects to improve project deliveries. However, there are uncertainties about the optimal strategy to foster, integrate and maintain the required collaboration, particularly in sustainable management practices in infrastructure maintenance projects. This paper addresses these uncertainties, based on a single case study of an infrastructure maintenance contract involving an extensive collaborative business arrangement. The findings reveal that different collaborative practices affect diverse aspects of sustainable project management. Further, the extensive collaborative business arrangement has promoted sustainable deliveries based upon organizational learning and continuous improvements. Thus, this study offers an encouraging example of how extensive collaboration can be fostered and play a key role in sustainable project management practices.

Both exploitative and explorative innovations are needed for sustainable development in any industry, but balancing the two types is a delicate matter, and exploitation tends to be strongly prioritized in many industries. This is typically evident in project-based industries (PBIs), which are characterized by a fragmented supply chain and the delivery of one-off solutions in business projects. Realizing explorative innovations in this context is complex due to the need to transfer new knowledge between the organization developing the innovations and actors in inter-organizational business projects. The aim of this paper is to highlight areas in the management of explorative innovations developed outside business projects, to increase the understanding of where the specific market setting of PBIs might necessitate an adapted approach for successful realization. A case study of three innovation projects in organizations operating in PBIs have been conducted. The findings confirm that the major challenges lie in the transition between development project and business project. We highlight three aspects linked to this transition that require a flexible management approach: the assignation and acceptance of suitable responsibilities and roles, flexible support for the innovation process, and system acceptance. The findings may provide guidance for actors in PBIs strategically seeking to promote sustainable development, and provide foundations for further research to develop support for explorative innovation.

The rapid ongoing digital transformation creates new opportunities to generate value but also challenges companies in the manufacturing industry to adapt to the recent changes. Moreover, committing to sustainability is essential to maintain competitive advantages, build a more resilient company, and manage increasing societal demands and regulations. Referred to as a “twin transition”, the digital transformation can positively impact firms’ commitments to environmental sustainability. This paper explores challenges that small technology solution providers face on their path toward developing sustainable production solutions for their manufacturing customers. An empirical study was conducted in an industrial cluster of small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) providing innovative, tailor-made production technology solutions to manufacturing companies. As a result, a collaborative process model was suggested for such SMEs to overcome internal and external barriers to obtaining sustainability, thus better supporting the manufacturing companies, i.e., their customers, to strive towards more sustainable production.

The paper suggests an assessment tool for production innovation, a way of assessing innovation aspects in production development projects. The tool captures innovation as “new and value-added change of a production related activity”. The tool was tested through a questionnaire survey sent to 30 research and innovation (R&I) projects funded by the Swedish Strategic Innovation Program Produktion2030, involving research institutions and industrial organizations. Results point at a varied distribution programme impact through resulting change activities. Identified areas for innovation were materials, decision support, tools, methods, and solutions estimated as new to industry and to the global business community.

Over the decades, manufacturing firms have tried to Design for Manufacturability merely by exhorting industrial design engineers to create more producible-designs. This is most often achieved by considering the available manufacturing system capability for the product development, and it is common to run into troubles in many cases due to barriers to integrate product definition and manufacturing operations. In this paper, authors aim to explore how production innovations (as new manufacturing capabilities) can contribute to an increased industrial design space for product design engineers, enabling more design freedom while still obtaining producibility through removing and/or loosening constraints over product designs. The findings of a series of industrial case studies presented in this paper show promising outcomes on how production innovations can influence positively the expansion of the solution space of industrial design engineers. In addition, manufacturing engineers are driven to explore new materials, new manufacturing processes and new manufacturing (working) methods to support product innovation.