Globalized competition and customer needs forced construction companies to measure their performance beyond the financial measures such as profitability, turnover, etc. As qualitative determinants were added to measurement systems, their investigation and evaluation became a major area of research. In this study, the impact of "resources and capabilities," "strategic decisions," "project management competencies," and "strength of relationships with other parties" on "company performance" was investigated. A questionnaire survey was administered to 73 Turkish contractors and the results of the survey were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The findings indicate that, as expected, resources and capabilities and strategic decisions have an important and direct impact on company performance, whereas project management competencies and strength of relationships with other parties impact company performance only indirectly, through their impact on companies' resources and capabilities and strategic decisions.
Resource-constrained project scheduling (RCPS) aims to minimize project duration under limited resource availabilities. The heuristic methods that are often used to solve the RCPS problem make use of different priority rules. The comparative merits of different priority rules have not been discussed in the literature in sufficient detail. This study is a response to this research gap. It compares 17 heuristic priority rules and seeks the best performing heuristic priority rule. This is the first study ever that compares heuristic priority rules by considering combinations of variations in (1) resource allocation procedures, (2) number of activities, (3) number of resource constraints, and (4) resource supply levels. The objective is to understand the relative merits of heuristic rules used in solving the RCPS problem. The findings indicate that the “minimum late finish time” rule generates the shortest predicted project duration when used in parallel resource allocation, whereas the “minimum late start time”, “minimum late finish time”, and the “highest rank of positional weight 2” rules perform best in serial resource allocation. It was also found that parallel resource allocation is slightly superior to serial resource allocation in most instances.
In the absence of any method of measurement by which the impact of network planning on profitability can be assessed, it is hypothesized that user satisfaction offers a ‘subjective’ measure of success in network applications. Various implementation characteristics and success as defined above were measured in a sample of construction companies in a developing country. The data collected indicated that neither site managers nor head-ofice planners were totally satisfied in most respects; further, the entire phenomenon of network planning and control was perceived differently by site managers and planners. Statistical analysis indicated that the degree of detail and the mode of presentation; the duration and extent of usage; site autonomy and the degreeofformalization in sitemanager - head-ofice planner relationships; the extent of R & D activities; and finally the reason why networks were introduced in the first place seemed to affect success in network implementation.
The timely execution of a construction project is very important to the owner, who makes plans and commitments on the basis of the project's anticipated completion date. Failure of design professionals to consider how a builder will implement the design can result in scheduling problems, delays, and disputes during the construction process. Constructability of design is a subjective scale that depends basically on a number of interdependent project-related factors. Many design firms have a formal (explicit) constructability program that is launched as early as the conceptual planning stage of the project. This research examines design professionals' efforts to pursue constructability and provides recommendations for performing constructability reviews in an efficient and effective manner.
A survey was conducted of the largest 230 property management firms in the United States to investigate their current maintenance practices. The findings shed light on property management firms' policies concerning outsourcing versus using in-house maintenance services; their use of preventive/routine/corrective/deferred maintenance; the frequency of their meetings with tenants; their policies about cleaning, inspection, repair, and replacement; the way they select maintenance contractors; the severity of the maintenance-related complaints they receive from tenants; the extent to which they are involved in the design process of the buildings they subsequently manage; and the frequency with which designers come back to assess their buildings' performance after the projects are completed. Property managers should be cognizant of building users' concerns and they should also make designers aware of these concerns; the performance of buildings is likely to be enhanced if designers and property managers take action in the design and operation phases, respectively, in response to users' concerns.
Purpose – This study aims at capturing the perspectives of construction professionals into a classified taxonomy of the various characteristics of smart buildings and at developing an index able to define their level of smartness. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire survey has been administrated to construction professionals in the service of designers, constructors and owners. Results have been analyzed with the Kruskal–Wallis test and they have been used to develop a smartness index. Findings – Designers and owners are more focused on the energy issue than constructors. The energy captures the attention of practitioners with less years of experience, confirming that the awareness of the energy topic is rather recent. Originality/value – The main characteristics of smart buildings have been structured in domains and subdomains. Their importance has been rated by construction professional and a smartness index for smart building has been developed to provide with a convenient tool for evaluation and benchmarking.
Delay is one of the most common problems in the construction industry. This paper presents a method for computing activity delays and assessing their contributions to project delay. The method consists of a set of equations, which can be easily coded into a computer program that allows speedy access to project delay information and activity contributions. The proposed method contrasts the as-planned and as-built schedules. It is not based on critical path analyses; therefore, it does not require the calculation or updating of the critical path, and it is even not necessary to update the as-planned schedule, as required by the traditional delay analysis methods. The results calculated from the proposed method include various variations of activity schedules and their contributions (in days) to the overall project delay. They provide an objective baseline for determining responsibilities of delays. The method can be integrated into any delay analysis system to further improve and automate the construction delay analysis process. Practical examples are used to illustrate the computation mechanism.
Construction productivity has been on the decline in the last decade. The results are presented on a survey of the Engineering News‐Record 400 largest contractors to obtain their views on where productivity improvements would most help and to compare the trends with a similar survey carried out in 1979. Data were collected on the general company characteristics of the responding contractors, and on the contractors' opinions on potential areas for productivity improvement in the office and in the field. Findings indicate that immediate research should concentrate on improving marketing practices, planning and scheduling, labor‐management relations, site supervision, industrialized building systems, equipment policy and engineering design; and that governmental regulations have lost the immediate urgency attached to them in 1979.It is also recommended that similar surveys be conducted every 3 to 4 years to identify new trends and to steer research in the appropriate direction.
Abstract: This article introduces a system called Construction Quality Management Audit (CQMA) Expert that assesses the performance of a quality management system (QMS) implemented in a construction firm. CQMA Expert is programmed by using MATLAB's GUI components and its Fuzzy Logic Toolbox. CQMA Expert's rule base is constructed using information obtained from auditors of QMSs. CQMA Expert imports the quality requirements relative to the many quality management processes specified in ISO 9000, processes audit inputs, and generates consistent decisions relative to conformance to standards. It provides an interactive user interface for recording evidence collected during the audit and clearly states the reasons for the conclusions. It contributes to continuous quality improvement because (1) it enhances the maintenance of a QMS by quantifying its performance, (2) it assists with and facilitates the implementation of the duties of auditors in charge of assessing the performance of a QMS, (3) it simplifies the burdensome process involved in keeping track of the audit results of the many quality management processes investigated, and (4) it reduces the impact of the variability caused by the use of different auditors assessing different quality management processes. Case studies based on Section 4.11 of the ISO 9000 standard entitled "Control of inspection, measuring and test equipment" are used to illustrate the system and verify its usability and validity.
Highway improvement investments constitute an important part of the total investments in the transportation sector. Yet, the numerous proposals have to be ranked in an order of priority. The General Directorate of Highways in Turkey calculates the benefit-cost ratio for every proposal separately and ranks them in a descending order of magnitude. This paper presents the results of a regression analysis between the benefit-cost ratio on the one hand and a number of carefully selected independent variables on the other. The purpose of the study is to minimize the considerable amount of time and labour spent by the General Directorate of Highways in such evaluations. The findings indicate that car traffic, construction cost per kilometer and length of improved highway are the most salient variables that affect the benefit-cost ratio under the conditions prevailing in Turkey.
An integrated computerized system is described that can be used as a dispute‐resolution tool for managing owner‐directed acceleration. It can also be used as an aid for helping owners and contractors foresee the implications of accelerating a project in terms of cost and liabilities involved. The system is composed of an analysis module written in LISP as its backbone, and a knowledge base limited to related aspects in major contract forms. After obtaining the initial information from the user, the system triggers the analysis module. The analysis module generates several schedules to perform time‐impact analysis. Then, the system uses the knowledge base to assign liabilities to the parties for past events, including delayed, accelerated, added, and canceled (DAAC) activities that were not foreseen in the original schedule. It does this by means of a set of if‐then rules and certainty indices based on the responses obtained from the user. The system then incorporates this information chronologically into a compression analysis carried out again by the analysis module. The system can make a human mediator's job more effective and economical, and can also considerably reduce the occurrence of acceleration‐related disputes.
Despite the fact that all professional associations, including ASCE, CMAA, PMI, AACE, and NSPE have codes of ethical conduct, the majority of the stakeholders in the construction process have encountered unethical behavior at one time or another. This is a contentious issue because there is always disagreement about what is and is not ethical. This paper looks into two practices that are most common in construction contracting, namely unbalanced bidding, and pre-award bid shopping. Both practices are considered to be totally acceptable by some, and totally unethical by others. Both practices can be stopped if preventive measures are put in place. The nature of these behaviors is examined, their impact is assessed, and preventive measures are formulated. In addition, in rare instances, illegal practices come to light. Collusive behavior is one such practice that is difficult but not impossible to detect. The nature of bid rigging is examined, its impact is assessed, and recommendations are made to detect parties that are involved in collusive practices. In addition to professional associations’ efforts to publish standards for ethical conduct, the construction industry needs to be proactive in creating awareness about ethics issues, clear the confusion about what is ethical and what is not, and in promote ethical values throughout the entire spectrum of professions involved in construction.
The nuclear power industry in the United States is experiencing technological as well as construction and operation problems in nuclear facilities. It is the intent of this paper to review past research done on the factors that cause these delays, to indicate their relative importance and impact on the nuclear industry, and to describe possible resolutions that are either currently being implemented or that have been proposed for future use.
