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.
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.
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.
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.
Obtaining, handling and distributing information among participants in the building design process has become more difficult with increasing project complexity. In individual areas such as scheduling, estimating and drafting, it is possible to have access to computerized tools but it is clear that there is a gap in architects’ offices regarding the integration of these tools into a unified system. Architects work closely with engineers, clients, suppliers, and public authorities. Managing the information flow among these participants may not be much of a problem in small offices. But the larger architectural offices face serious management‐related problems in the design process because of the lack of an efficient information system. This paper presents a computer‐based information system called ASAP that was developed to respond to the stated problem of large architectural offices. The conceptual framework as well as a description of the prototype are presented in this paper.
Assessing the impact of delay and resolving disputes are contentious issues since courts and administrative boards do not specify standard delay analysis practices. First, the advantages and disadvantages of widely used delay analysis methods, including the as-planned versus as-built, impact as-planned, collapsed as-built, time impact, and productivity analysis methods are summarized. Fifty-eight claim cases associated with time-based disputes in government work during the 1992–2005 period are extracted and analyzed to observe issues in time-based claims, including the reasons why they occur and the common practices in their resolution. The effects of various factors on the selection of a delay analysis method are examined. These factors include the type of schedule used, the schedule updating practice, the use of existing versus newly created schedules, and the availability of expertise, information, time, and funds. A project management system that makes use of regularly updated network schedules, and that maintains adequate project records should allow a scheduling expert to select a delay analysis method that would make a claim quite convincing.
Building up knowledge stocks in a firm is achieved through organizational learning, an important activity in a rapidly changing and competitive business environment. This paper investigates the impact of organizational learning on the performance of architectural design firms in Turkey. A questionnaire survey was administered to Turkish architectural design firms to collect information about the extent of learning at individual, project, and organizational levels and to measure the performance of the firm. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data. Three hypotheses were tested to explore the interrelationships between learning at different levels and firm performance. The findings indicate that the extent of learning at the individual level positively affects the extent of learning at the project level, which in turn affects learning at the firm level. It is the extent of learning at the firm level that governs the firm's performance, while learning at individual and project levels have an indirect effect.
Recent research findings on pricing strategies both in general and in construction are reviewed and explored. First%2C pricing strategy in general%2C mostly in the manufacturing industry%2C is reviewed. It includes the concepts of pricing strategy%2C predatory pricing%2C price wars%2C and price policy development. Second%2C pricing strategy in construction is explored. It includes various pricing models for bid price determination%2C such as the Friedman-Gates models%2C expected utility models%2C risk-pricing model%2C and the crew-day%2C multiple regression%2C and fuzzy-set pricing models. In conclusion%2C pricing strategies in construction are still predominantly based on a cost-based approach. More recent models try to close the gap between the models and the real life conditions of a bidder%5C%27s decision-making process. It appears that there are more problems in cost-based pricing as opposed to market-based pricing. Consequently%2C it is highly recommended that%2C alternative pricing approach such as that are closer to the proposed market-based pricing model need to be explored and developed for use in the construction industry. Abstract in Bahasa Indonesia : Pricing+strategy%2C+cost-based+pricing%2C+market-based+pricing.
Compared to other categories, the Energy and Atmosphere category contributes the most to the maximum obtainable points in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification system. The objective of the study was to identify the extent to which project teams take advantage of the credits in the Energy and Atmosphere category of LEED. This study analyzes the performance of practitioners in achieving points in the Energy and Atmosphere credits of LEED-New Construction (NC) 2009 for 1500 buildings that received LEED certification in the US. For a better understanding of the credit patterns, the differences in the performance of practitioners are investigated relative to certification levels and project ownership. Achievement in credits is calculated in terms of percent of maximum points (PMP), since the maximum achievable points differ for each credit. Practitioners’ achievements in the credits were ranked as follows: (1) enhanced commissioning, (2) optimized energy performance, (3) enhanced refrigerant management, (4) green power, (5) measurement and verification, and (6) on-site renewable energy. The largest achievement differences were observed in the on-site renewable energy credit. Concerning building ownership, investors were found to optimize mostly energy efficiency and on-site renewable energy, but to mostly skip enhanced refrigerant management. Performance in the measurement and verification credit was similar for all owner types, whereas investors performed differently from corporations, and government agencies in the enhanced commissioning credit. Practitioners who recognize these priorities and differences are expected to be better positioned to make sustainability-related decisions in building design and construction.
Purpose A “pre‐project peer review” (PPPR) is conducted by a construction company or CM‐at‐risk firm to mitigate or reduce project risks prior to committing to a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) or lump sum. The purpose of this paper is to find out the common PPPR practices that may affect the outcome of a GMP/lump sum contract and to provide guidelines to the construction industry for PPPR implementation. Design/methodology/approach A survey was administered to the top 400 construction companies listed by Engineering New‐Record that also includes the top 100 construction management firms . The closed survey method was used. Respondents were asked to select from multiple answers to each question. The survey preparers worked on the predetermined answers carefully to ensure that respondents are comfortable with their selections. For some questions, respondents were allowed to provide their own answers in addition to the selection. Findings Even though conducting formal PPPRs is not common practice in the industry, the results confirm the necessity and importance of this process in GMP or lump sum contracts. The other findings provide information about the current practices related to PPPR implementation. For example, more companies prefer conducting PPPRs on an informal basis; the PPPR team in most companies is composed of professionals in the local office with day‐to‐day responsibilities; the cost of PPPRs is included in the budget as part of overhead; and finally, a follow up process to PPPRs is conducted by many companies and is considered to be a critical by even those companies that do not conduct PPPRs. Originality/value A literature survey indicates that there are no published studies related to PPPRs. The study reported in this paper fills this gap.
<p>The outcome of construction litigation depends on a large number of factors. To predict the outcome of such litigation is difficult because of the complex interrelationships between these many factors. Two attempts are reported in the literature that use, respectively, case-based reasoning (CBR) and artificial neural networks (ANN) to overcome this difficulty. These studies were conducted by using the same 102 Illinois circuit court cases; an additional 12 cases were used for testing. Prediction rates of 83% in the CBR study and 67% in the ANN study were obtained. In this paper, CBR and ANN are compared, and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed in light of these two studies. It appears that CBR is more flexible when the system is updated with new cases, has better explanation facilities, and handles missing data and a large number of features better than ANN in this domain. If the use of CBR and ANN is understood better and if, as a result, the outcome of construction litigation can be predicted with reasonable accuracy and reliability, all parties involved in the construction process could save considerable money and time.</p>
This paper attempts to find ways to reduce an owner's construction contingency budget such that just enough contingency is allocated that will allow the owner to deal with uncertainties but at the same time not tie up valuable funds that can be used for other activities. It is suggested that the common practice of allocating a fixed owner contingency (e.g., 10% of the contract value) to all projects contracted out by an owner is not appropriate. Instead, a methodology is proposed whereby the owner (1) analyzes historical project data; (2) identifies the line items that are problematic; (3) takes the necessary measures at the preconstruction stage to streamline these line items with respect to site conditions, time constraints, constructability issues, and project scope; and (4) finally budgets contingency funds based on this information. A case study was conducted to analyze the contingencies budgeted and actually spent by an owner in nine parking lot projects. The findings indicated that a systematic approach such as the methodology proposed in this paper is likely to minimize the owner's contingency budget.
An integrated prediction model (IPM) was used to predict the outcome of construction litigation with the hope that it will generate a higher prediction rate than the rates obtained by using artificial neural networks (ANN), case-based reasoning (CBR), and boosted decision trees (BDTs) in earlier studies. These studies were conducted by using the same 132 Illinois circuit court cases (with slight variations in the case of the BDT and IPM studies) filed between 1992 and 2000. A prediction rate of 91.15% was obtained, higher than the 66.67% in the ANN study, 83.33% in the CBR study, and 89.59% in the BDT study. IPM involves four processes, namely, data consolidation, attribute selection, prediction using hybrid classifiers, and assessment. The performance of IPM is compared with the performance of ANN, CBR, and BDT. If the outcome of construction litigation can be predicted with reasonable accuracy and reliability, all parties involved in the construction process could save considerable money and time.
Every bridge component has a different deterioration rate, rehabilitation cost and cost-effective treatment time. The cost-effectiveness of the timings of bridge component rehabilitation is investigated both for individual components and for combinations of components, with the objective of finding optimum bridge life and the most cost-effective rehabilitation schedule. The optimization model makes use of: (1) deterioration curves to predict the condition of bridge components with respect to bridge age; (2) benefit/cost analysis to identify the most cost-effective rehabilitation schedule. The study was conducted using Illinois data for steel bridges covering the period 1976 – 1998. The results show that the most cost-effective timings of rehabilitating individual bridge components are significantly different if the rehabilitations of different components are combined and treated as parts of a system. The results of the analysis indicate that optimum bridge life is 74 years with a best time of combined rehabilitation of both the deck and superstructure in year 44. The study is an attempt to improve current methods of scheduling bridge maintenance, repair and rehabilitation.
