QUICK BIO

Dr. Andrew McCoy is an assistant professor of Building Construction and adjunct professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech, teaching several undergraduate and graduate Building Construction courses, including Principles of Construction and Integrated Leadership Studio, which give students practical experience working on estimating and project management of real construction projects.  Dr. McCoy also teaches a graduate course, which explores concepts, theories and applications of innovation in construction.  Dr. McCoy’s main area of research involves diffusion and commercialization of innovative projects in the construction industry.  Dr. McCoy contributes construction subject matter expertise on construction supply chain, adoption, diffusion and implementation of innovation, platform development, integration, scheduling, estimating and industry appropriate r2p knowledge transfer.  He is the main author of four peer-reviewed journal articles and numerous of conference papers on the subjects of innovation and commercialization in residential construction.

 Dr. McCoy has been the co-primary investigator on more than a million dollars in funded projects, including ‘green’ construction practices and safety practices in the construction supply chain.  Recently funded endeavors include: 1) CREATES, a Department of Labor grant to increase Southwest Virginia Constructors knowledge and application of green technologies, and 2) “The Case for a Whole Industry Approach to Safety,” a NIOSH grant on safety across cultures and sectors of the construction industry. Another endeavor was the 2009 Department of Energy “Solar Decathlon” competition, in which university teams compete to design, build, manage and operate the most attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered house. He and his faculty teammates received the university-level 2010 XCalibur Award, for excellence in integrating technology into the Classroom Environment, won the European Premier Prize (first overall).  Dr. McCoy was solely responsible for the “Industrialization and Market Viability” portion of the competition, which won third prize internationally.  He and a colleague recently received CAUS’ 2011 University Excellence in Outreach as a Team award and the 2011 Alumni Excellence in Outreach for Virginia Tech, based on his work with engaging industry.  The alumni excellence award places him permanently into the Academy of Outreach Excellence.  He also received the 2011 Exemplary Faculty award for Building Construction and the Myers Lawson School of Construction.    Dr. McCoy has over 15 years of experience in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry, including 8.5 years of fieldwork and 4.5 years of managing a design-build firm that maintained a Class A Virginia contractor license and employed licensed architects.    Dr. McCoy received undergraduate degrees in Architecture and Architectural History from the University of Virginia, and an MS in Building Construction and a Ph.D. in Environmental Design and Planning from Virginia Tech.

VIRGINIA TECH CENTER FOR HOUSING RESEARCH

Dr. McCoy holds the title of Associate Director for Technology Research in Virginia Tech's  Virginia Center for Housing Research (CHR). The Virginia Center for Housing Research also offers expertise in market analysis and affordable homeownership opportunities including ADU Programs as well as in construction and cost estimation. Dr. McCoy and CHR recently assisted Fairfax County in revising its ADU guidelines and developing guidelines for its WDU program by: 1) comprehensively reviewing, revising, and developing Affordable Dwelling Unit (ADU) construction specifications and pricing methodology and 2) developing Workforce Dwelling Unit (WDU) construction specifications and pricing methodology in conformance with Fairfax County’s guidelines. CHR has established a solid reputation for performing housing market studies to help localities make policy decisions affecting housing. CHR has performed over a dozen projects contributing to housing policy and strategic planning for localities. In addition, CHR has earned a national reputation for conducting housing technology research and has completed numerous projects for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and the National Science Foundation. In addition to research focusing on trends in housing affordability, workforce housing, and processing information on new technologies within the homebuilding industry, the Center is expanding its role to include research related to green building including environmental innovations in homebuilding and the impact of environmental regulations on the housing market.

DISSERTATION WORK

Throughout the world, innovation is viewed as a critical factor in the future health of the construction industry. There is universal interest in successful commercialization of innovative construction products. This work focuses on the United States, which particularly is on the verge of becoming either a net importer or a net exporter of construction materials. US small sized, limited resource firms will be key players in this balance. Recent failures of entrepreneurial business ventures in the commercialization of such products suggest the potential benefit of a study unique to the complexities of the construction industry. Based on previous literature, the work makes the following assumptions:

• Innovation commercialization success is vital to the future of the residential construction industry.
  
• No current roadmap exists for innovation commercialization success in residential construction.
• Most studies of successful product commercialization focus on manufacturer best-practices. Studies of manufacturer best-practices, barriers and accelerator are needed within the residential construction industry for benefiting commercialization success.
• Innovation theory primarily tries to understand user practices through behavioral studies. Behavioral studies unique to the construction market are still needed.
• Users of innovative products are the most likely to successfully innovate. In the construction industry, builders are the best suited to understand user market characteristics and therefore most appropriate for user preference study.
• No studies understand user-defined best practices, barriers and accelerators for the commercialization of innovative products in residential construction.
• No studies look at builder adoption preferences for innovative products over time nor do they adequately incorporate external factors.

A better understanding of the role of builder firms within innovation commercialization will facilitate innovation success for the residential construction market. To facilitate success, this work will use a generic commercialization model as a lens to view and establish important steps, barriers and accelerators to the process. Once identified by industry experts and data, important steps, barriers and accelerators of the generic roadmap equate to commercialization best-practices for the residential construction industry. This work will next use fifteen successful product manufacturer case studies within the industry, create consensus among a panel of builder firms as experts through a workshop setting and perform quantitative analysis of builder adoption preferences over time for ten products included in the case studies to establish these important steps, barriers and accelerators specific to the residential construction industry. This work aims to benefit the successful adoption of innovation in the residential construction market through a better understanding of these important commercialization steps, accelerators and barriers.