Awarding a contract to a bidder who has unbalanced the bid may cost more money to the owner. An owner who determines that a bid has been unbalanced has the legal right to reject the bid. Although several models have been developed to detect unbalanced bids, some researchers still assert that the number of cases in which owners mistakenly identify balanced bids as unbalanced is too great to ignore. One of the reasons of this failure is the use of an inappropriate benchmark against which the offered unit prices are compared. In this paper it is argued that the use of the geometric mean of the unit prices provided by the bidders as a benchmark helps to obtain robust solutions and an advanced decision-making model is proposed in which the Information Entropy and VIKOR methods are used to detect unbalanced bids. The results obtained from an example project drawn from the literature demonstrate how owners may be misled if they use an inappropriate benchmark in detecting unbalanced bids. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by highlighting the negative impacts of using flawed benchmarks in this process, an area of research that is mostly ignored in the unbalanced bidding literature.
Building design and construction require the collective effort of diverse project participants. The coordination performance of these project participants is important for effective management and needs to be assessed periodically. However, there is no uncomplicated quantitative way to measure coordination. Measuring coordination is cumbersome and time-consuming particularly during the project execution phase. This study proposes an easy procedure for monitoring the coordinative performance of project participants. The degree, betweenness, and closeness centrality measures of the project participants in a wayfinding signage project at a major airport construction project are calculated using social network analysis on the e-mail communication network between the participants. A centrality index is defined for each firm based on the average of these three centrality measures. The firm's coordination score is also calculated based on content analysis of the sent and received e-mails between the participants. The coordination scores are found to be highly correlated with the centrality indices. To define the coordinative role of a firm, its centrality index could therefore be measured easily using a simple software and only the number and direction of e-mails exchanged between
Construction management has been in existence for many years. This paper reviews the graduate construction management programmes offered by departments of civil engineering in the US. The courses offered in such programmes are categorized and examined in twelve groups. The findings indicate that the most popular subjects are those related to laws, contracts, and specifications; planning and scheduling; and operations research methods. Also, it was found that programmes differed a great deal from each other in terms of the concentration of and emphasis on the subjects treated. It is concluded that a clearer conception of the disciplineis necessary both by educators and the industry for higher quality and more uniform graduate programmes in construction management.
Construction management has become a vital aspect of the construction process over the years. This paper reviews the Master's programs in construction engineering and management (CEM) offered by departments of civil engineering in the United States. The findings indicate that only 20% of the American educational institutions, which offer accredited civil engineering programs, offer Master's programs in CEM. Most of the Master's programs in CEM constitute an effort to convey information to students on mainly six categories, namely, contract administration, project management, scheduling, equipment management, construction technology, and CEM research. It seems that the Master's programs in CEM do not differ much from program to program in terms of content. When the trends in course offerings are compared in 1982, 1996, and 2008, there seems to be minimal change except for the number of courses in project management that went up significantly while the number of courses in cost estimating went down. The trends in the remaining courses have been stable. Even though contents and trends in CEM programs appear to be relatively stable, there seems to be some variability in the concentration of the course offerings. Some CEM programs concentrate on some of the categories at the expense of other categories. A close relationship and a sound dialogue between construction educators and the industry are likely to lead to Master's programs that are in sync with the expectations of the industry.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A construction company's decision to expand into international markets must be based on a good understanding of the opportunities and threats associated with international business, as well as the development of company strengths relative to international activities. These factors were evaluated in this study by surveying the executives in charge of international construction of large United States based contractors. The information was collected by means of two rounds of a Delphi survey, the results of which were used as input in an analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The findings indicate that track record, specialist expertise, project management capability are the most important company strengths; loss of key personnel, shortage of financial resources, and inflation and currency fluctuations are the most important threats relative to international markets; and increased long term profitability, the ability to maintain shareholders' returns, and the globalization and openness of the markets are the most important opportunities available in international works. This study is of relevance to practitioners as it systematically highlights the factors that affect international construction for the benefit of executives of medium-to-large size construction companies who are considering expanding into overseas markets. It is of relevance to researchers too as it demonstrates the successful use of the combined Delphi and AHP.
Accessing the required information in the supply chain of structural steel components is critical for minimizing costly reworks and delays. This paper identifies the information items generated in the different phases of the supply chain related to structural steel components and formalizes the process of producing and using this information. Precise details about different features of the components (e.g., their geometry and weight, connection details, cutting/bending/ punching requirements, and the type and grade of the material) are set in the various tasks performed in the different phases of the supply chain. Regardless of whether one uses paper-based systems or advanced technologies such as smart tags and radio-frequency identification (RFID), a better understanding is achieved of the processes through which a structural steel component passes. The results of this research can be used to streamline the information flow in the supply chain of structural steel components, regardless of the type of tracking technology used, hence reducing delays and reworks.
Sustainable building projects deal with a multitude of technical, environmental, economic, social, organizational, and innovation-related issues, to name but a few. Achieving sustainability goals depends on how well these issues are handled. While some sustainable building projects are quite successful, some are not. It is therefore important to learn lessons from past projects. This research aims to reveal the key lessons concerning sustainability-related issues in building projects. To that end, challenges in the achievement of sustainability goals of building projects are discussed, and lessons learned systems are examined. After that, the events experienced by project managers in a large number of sustainable building projects are obtained from a major public agency's website and are analyzed. The findings show the key lessons that have an important impact on the success/failure of sustainable building projects. The expected contribution of the study is to foster advanced solutions for future sustainable projects.
The study reported in this paper has been conducted to shed light on the use of life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) in municipal organizations. The major objectives of the study are to identify the sources of data used in LCCA, examine how cities assign values to the main parameters used in their calculations, explore the possible relationships between LCCA and value engineering, investigate the use of LCCA in the bidding and construction phases of a project, investigate the possible ways of improving the efficiency of LCCA, and define the major factors considered in assessing success in LCCA implementation. The findings indicate, among other things, that major sources of data include archives, computerized databases, and data obtained from other cities. The major criteria that cities consider when assessing the rate of success in LCCA implementation include the extent to which LCCA helps to optimize the total cost of owning and operating the physical assets, achieve lower maintenance costs, allow longer useful life, overcome the problem of limited funds, and achieve lower initial costs. For more successful LCCA implementation, cities are demanding formal guidelines that describe the method of utilization, published values for the different parameters used in LCCA, and the development of standard software.
This paper presents an automated tool named the stochastic project financing analysis system (SPFA). The system makes use of critical path method (CPM) schedule data exported from Primavera Project Planner (P3), computes the best-fit probability distribution functions (PDFs) of historical activity durations, assigns to respective activities the probability density functions identified, simulates the schedule network, computes the deterministic and stochastic project cashflows, plots the corresponding cash-flow diagrams, and estimates the best-fitPDFs of overdraft and net profit of a project without user intervention at any time. The SPFA improves the reliability of project cash-flow analysis by effectively dealing with the uncertainties of the activities' durations and costs, increases the usability of the schedule data obtained from commercial CPM software, allows the user to incorporate the contractual terms of payment into the cashflow, and effectively handles the variability of the overdrafts and net profits by finding their best-fitPDF. It is implemented as an easy-to-use computer tool programmed in matrix laboratory (MATLAB). The SPFA allows a financial manager to estimate the extent of cash-flow problems in a specific period by using both deterministic and stochastic modes. Two test cases verify the usability and validity of the system in practice
The construction industry has been criticized as an “old-school” industry, because of being a slow adopter of mobile technologies. This has changed recently. A 2014 survey of 1,048 participants found that 72% of construction practitioners have smartphones, and use smartphone applications for work purposes. While there are thousands of smartphone applications advertised as “construction apps”, the most popular smartphone applications offered by software providers to the construction industry are for field data collection, project management, bidding, building information modeling (BIM), accounting, customer relationship management, and estimating. This paper discusses the current state of smartphone applications available to the construction industry, and examines the apps’ functions. Due to the rapid growth in the smartphone applications market, new applications become available every day for use in different industries. Given the large number of choices, both companies and individuals in the construction industry must beware when selecting and purchasing smartphone applications. The business needs of the potential users and the expectations from the applications must be well identified, and the selection must be made accordingly. Properly selecting and deploying smartphone applications for construction-related tasks is expected to improve communication, enhance workflow with real time information, and increase productivity.
