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.
The general contractor‐subcontractor relationship has been a focus of interest in the literature and yet its impact on a general contractor's economic performance remains a virtually unexplored area in the construction management literature. This research presents the findings of a questionnaire survey administered to 500 large US general contractors to explore this issue. The findings reveal that maintaining a relationship of high quality with subcontractors is positively and strongly associated with the perceived performance of general contractors responding to the survey.
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.
Purpose In smaller projects with limited resources, schedule updates are often not performed. In these situations, traditional delay analysis methods cannot be used as they all require updated schedules. The objective of this study is to develop a model that performs delay analysis by using only an as-planned schedule and the expense records kept on site. Design/methodology/approach This study starts out by developing an approach that estimates activity duration ranges in a network schedule by using as-planned and as-built s-curves. Monte Carlo simulation is performed to generate candidate as-built schedules using these activity duration ranges. If necessary, the duration ranges are refined by a follow-up procedure that systematically relaxes the ranges and develops new as-built schedules. The candidate schedule that has the closest s-curve to the actual s-curve is considered to be the most realistic as-built schedule. Finally, the as-planned vs. as-built delay analysis method is performed to determine which activity(ies) caused project delay. This process is automated using Matlab. A test case is used to demonstrate that the proposed automated method can work well. Findings The automated process developed in this study has the capability to develop activity duration ranges, perform Monte Carlo simulation, generate a large number of candidate as-built schedules, build s-curves for each of the candidate schedules and identify the most realistic one that has an s-curve that is closest to the actual as-built s-curve. The test case confirmed that the proposed automated system works well as it resulted in an as-built schedule that has an s-curve that is identical to the actual as-built s-curve. To develop an as-built schedule using this method is a reasonable way to make a case in or out of a court of law. Research limitations/implications Practitioners specifying activity ranges to perform Monte Carlo simulation can be characterized as subjective and perhaps arbitrary. To minimize the effects of this limitation, this study proposes a method that determines duration ranges by comparing as-built and as-planned cash-flows, and then by systematically modifying the search space. Another limitation is the assumption that the precedence logic in the as-planned network remains the same throughout construction. Since updated schedules are not available in the scenario considered in this study, and since in small projects the logic relationships are fairly stable over the short project duration, the assumption of a stable logic throughout construction may be reasonable, but this issue needs to be explored further in future research. Practical implications Delays are common in construction projects regardless of the size of the project. The critical path method (CPM) schedules of many smaller projects, especially in developing countries, are not updated during construction. In case updated schedules are not available, the method presented in this paper represents an automated, practical and easy-to-use tool that allows parties to a contract to perform delay analysis with only an as-planned schedule and the expense logs kept on site. Originality/value Since an as-built schedule cannot be built without updated schedules, and since the absence of an as-built schedule precludes the use of any delay analysis method that is acceptable in courts of law, using the method presented in this paper may very well be the only solution to the problem.
This article describes a method of recognizing the presence of structural components in a digital picture taken at a construction site. The objective is to introduce image recognition into the construction management process in order to enhance the control of the performance at a construction site. The developed system can detect a component in a picture through its color and position. An algorithm capable of tracing the edges of a shape in a digital picture is introduced. A procedure to collect objects using this edge detector is presented. A complete description of procedures written in Delphi 5 to store a set of objects detected in a picture is included. The component‐recognition engine presented in this article is an important part of a system called PHOTO‐NET that was designed to monitor progress in a construction site and as such constitutes a unique application in the context of construction management.
Construction litigation has become commonplace in numerous construction projects, particularly in large contracts. Miscommunication, inadequate plans and specifications, rigid contracts, changes in site conditions, nonpayment, catch up profits, limitations on manpower, tools, and equipment, improper supervision, notice requirements, constructive changes not recognized as such by owner, delays, and acceleration measures provoke claims and often result in disputes. A boosted decision tree system was used to predict the outcome of construction litigation. The study was conducted by using the same 114 Illinois court cases that were used in earlier prediction studies conducted with artificial neural networks in 1998 and case-based reasoning in 1999, augmented by an additional 18 cases that were filed in 1990–2000. All cases were extracted from the Westlaw on-line service. The best prediction result obtained with boosted decision trees was 90%. The boosted decision tree model appears to be a promising tool to help create a dispute-free construction industry.
Recent research shows that construction of new houses takes the majority of the recovery time after a tornado. The rapid procurement of new houses depends largely on the existing construction capacity in the region affected. In this study, information about the construction industry in a tornado-prone region is extracted from U.S. economic Census data by using NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) categories. The present capacity of the construction industry is calculated by extracting (1) the inventories of materials and supplies, and (2) the value of new houses put in place in a targeted tornado-prone region, in this study, Oklahoma. A method is proposed to calculate the extra construction capacity in the targeted region using the information extracted from U.S. Census data. The extra construction capacity hence calculated is then compared to the anticipated need for new houses after a severe tornado, calculated by considering the historical records of damages caused by past tornados. The results of the study indicate that the existing construction capacity in the Oklahoma region is not enough to rapidly respond to the anticipated need for new houses after a tornado.
The objective of this research study was to identify and measure the effects of nighttime construction conditions on worker safety and to investigate the performance of different high-visibility garments worn by construction personnel on highway projects under different lighting and weather conditions. After a comprehensive review of the literature, an analysis of Illinois accident records was conducted to identify the type, frequency, severity, and share of accidents caused by worker visibility problems in construction work zones. Three surveys were administered to Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) operations personnel, resident engineers, and contractors involved in nighttime construction to identify safety concerns on the part of these participants and to compare the results. The questionnaire investigated issues associated with the risk of workers being involved in accidents with the driving public and with equipment operating in the work zone, the efficiency of high-visibility garments, the effects of visibility problems on various critical factors, sources of high-visibility garments, fabric/material preferences, local practices, and high-visibility garment selection criteria. A comprehensive list of manufacturers and distributors of high-visibility garments was compiled. A survey was administered to DOTs other than IDOT that make use of high-visibility garments in nighttime construction. Based on the findings of the surveys, a set of six high-visibility garments was selected for testing. The findings of a series of tests run on these six vests, conducted under different work, lighting, and weather conditions, indicated that the safety vest recently adopted for use by IDOT performs best.
The “Sell-Build” model in residential project transactions involves a home buyer agreeing to pay the developer in monthly installments starting very early in the design or construction phases of a project. It is hypothesized that the success of this transaction depends on (1) the home buyer’s knowledge about the transaction process and (2) the mutual trust between home buyer and developer. A survey was administered to 250 home buyers and 70 developers in Turkey to collect demographic information about the participants and about the participants’ perceptions of not only the success of the transactions they were involved in, but also of the impacts of how informed home buyers are about the transaction process and how much the two parties trust each other. The data collected was subjected to statistical analysis. The findings indicate that (1) the home buyer should make a special effort to study relevant materials and consult specialists before entering into an agreement with a developer, and (2) the trust between home buyer and developer depends largely on the buyer’s uninterrupted flow of monthly installment payments starting early in the project. The contribution of this study is that it provides a useful guideline to home buyers and developers.
The construction industry is vertically fragmented because of the inherent nature of construction projects, which require planning, design, letting, construction, and operation in distinct phases (Fellows and Liu, 2012; Fong and Lung, 2007). The construction industry is also horizontally fragmented \nbecause of the general tendency of participants to work independently in all phases of the project (Fellows and Liu, 2012; Saram and Ahmed, 2001). Given the increasing number of construction projects in the current global environment, geographical fragmentation is caused by project participants \nthat are frequently geographically separated. The construction industry is also temporally fragmented, as the phases of construction projects diverge over an estimated time period (Luck, 1996). According to Evbuomwan and Anumba (1998), the fragmentation in the industry results in costly engineering changes and design iterations, time and cost increases, poor communication between project participants, neglect of the application of sustainability principles throughout the life cycle of the building, and inadequate coordination and integration of the various participants. The root cause of much of these problems encountered in the management of building projects can be traced back to the design phase.
The objective of life-cycle costing (LCC) analysis is to optimize the total cost of ownership over the life span of an asset. A survey was conducted in the early months of 1995 of the largest municipalities in the U.S. to investigate the use of LCC analysis. The survey indicated that 40% of the municipalities use LCC analysis and that some had been using it for over 20 years. The reasons why 60% of the municipalities did not use LCC analysis include the lack of formal guidelines and the difficulty of estimating future costs and incomes. Other aspects of the survey included the typical profile of the LCC analysis process including project types, work categories, and project stages. The criteria used in selecting projects for LCC implementation appear to be arbitrary. Finally, most municipalities assessed their LCC analysis process as a successful or a somewhat successful operation.
