Journal of Management in Engineering

Recent technological advancements are transforming the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry, focusing on digitalization and automation opportunities as drivers for improvement. In a realm as complex as building permitting, the drive for automation should be anchored in a comprehensive understanding of the process it seeks to transform. Furthermore, analyzing the process from a global perspective is essential for identifying opportunities for improvement. This article addresses the need for a systematic and robust approach to evaluate and compare building permit processes globally. Traditional approaches for process comparisons fail to capture the intricacies of a building permit process. Hence, in this paper, the authors propose and introduce the Process Analysis and Comparative Evaluation methodology, PACE-BP, which was tailored for building permit processes. The proposed method relies on a previously developed framework for process mapping which provides a comparable data set of building permit process maps in different countries. The comparative evaluation is then performed by assessing the maps based on predefined indicators, which are used to compile a representative vector for each process. The computational method for compiling the vectors and calculating the similarity measures between pairs of processes is described in detail. The application of PACE-BP for analyzing and comparing building permit processes in Germany, the US, Israel, and Italy is demonstrated in this paper. Our findings challenge the pursuit of a universal “best practice,” emphasizing the need to balance priorities and stakeholder’s objectives. The PACE-BP method is a powerful tool for policymakers and stakeholders, providing meaningful insight into existing processes and pinpointing drawbacks and limitations in current practices, while revealing opportunities for improvement.