Journal of Construction Engineering and Management

Infrastructure megaprojects have often failed to meet original stakeholder expectations in both “pure” free markets and totally central-planned economies. Such failures provide the rationale for public-private partnerships (PPPs) that synergize both public and private strengths. Build-operate-transfer (BOT) type schemes are a popular type of PPP. They improve project procurement environments by changing traditionally adversarial scenarios to partnerships that integrate finance, design, construction, and operation. Many countries are still inexperienced in the complexities and implications of PPPs. The growing body of multi-country experiences in this domain needs to be tapped through comparison and benchmarking. Various kinds of BOT-type infrastructure developments in both developed and developing countries are compared in this paper to identify strengths from successful approaches and to draw lessons from less successful or abortive projects. Particular examples include toll roads in the United States, the Private Finance Initiative in the United Kingdom, and BOT and its variants in China. The experiences derived and lessons drawn are expected to improve the procurement protocols of public clients in future partnered infrastructure projects.

The majority of Air Force construction is performed by two main contractual methods, design bid build (DBB) and simplified acquisition of base engineering requirements (SABER). DBB is the traditional contracting method in which each project is competitively bid. SABER uses one contractor to complete multiple projects using unit prices established in the original contract. This research performs a cost analysis between DBB and SABER construction projects. The research involved finding appropriate, comparable projects completed by the two contractual methods. Two diverse Air Force bases were used to gather project information, and a total of 46 interior renovation projects were used. Project comparability was demonstrated by evaluating the similarity of type and scope of work. Data from the projects was used to calculate unit cost per dimensional characteristic and time and cost growth for each project. The results indicated SABER contracting had a lower cost per square meter, although not at a statistical level of significance. SABER performed better in time growth. Cost growth was similar for both methods.

The problem of cost overrun, especially in the construction industry, is a worldwide phenomenon, and its ripples are normally a source of friction between clients and contractors on the issue of price variation. If this friction is not properly handled, this could stall the progress of work and may subsequently lead to project abandonment. Although the causes of project cost overrun are well known, the methodology used in handling its evaluation, especially on those aspects relating to price variation, is very inadequate. This research is aimed at developing a suitable model for the evaluation of cost overrun during project execution, focusing primarily on cost effect with respect to the extent of work done, payment schedule, and government fiscal/monetary policies. Based mainly on discounted cash flow of the expected income compared with the actual payment at various time periods with inflationary rate as the discounting factor, this model has been used successfully in evaluating price variations of two state-owned projects—the grain silo at Okigwe and the soybean milk factory at Ubakala in Umuahia, both in Nigeria. The model has also proved useful at conflict resolution (between the contractors and clients) arising from price variation claims by many Nigerian contracting firms and has the potential of adaptability in other parts of the world.

Due to an increasingly competitive environment, construction companies are becoming more sophisticated, narrowing their focus, and becoming specialists in certain types of construction. This specialization requires more focused scheduling tools that prove to be better for certain type of projects. The critical path method (CPM) is the most utilized scheduling tool in the construction industry. However, for certain types of projects, CPM's usefulness decreases, because it becomes complex and difficult to use and understand. Alternative scheduling tools designed to be used with specific types of projects can prove to be more practical than CPM solutions. This paper provides a comparison of the CPM and a specialized tool, the linear scheduling model, by identifying critical attributes needed by any scheduling tool both at the higher management level and at the project level. Two project examples are scheduled with each method, and differences are discussed. Conclusions support that specialization of scheduling tools could be beneficial for the project manager and the project.

This study attempts to develop a construction scheduling model using a conceptual approach to improve the efficiency of construction resources for a multiple, repetitive construction process (MRCP). It is important for a project manager to arrange the number of horizontal repetitive work areas by each crew group to reduce the work interruption period in MRCP. This study suggests some equations for estimating the optimal number of horizontal repetitive work areas for a crew group and pursued a conceptual model for MRCP, which can reduce the loss in manpower and use of construction equipment that is caused by work interruption periods. A computer program developed for the analysis of MRCP shows an appropriate performance through the application to a case study based on the proposed procedure model in this study. Supposing that there is time to spare in the project completion date, the result of the study shows that cost loss could be greatly reduced by the proposed methodology.

The effort required for the initial drafting of a plan is often a real barrier to developing a useful and high quality schedule for a construction project. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate how an expert system with an editable rule base can be combined with standard templates of modifiable, predefined knowledge within a project management system in order to generate draft schedules based on limited user input. The user can capitalize on past experience by creating a template for each recurring project type. The knowledge contained in the templates is broken down into a physical view (i.e., what is being built), a process view (i.e., how it will be built), and rules for scaling the templates and computing durations based on user input. The physical view is a hierarchical breakdown structure of components that describes (without quantifying) the physical and spatial characteristics of the project type. The process view contains a list of typical activities and the logic relationships that describe their sequencing. The rules serve to link and then expand the two views in order to generate a draft schedule for the project-at-hand once its scale is specified. The feasibility and capabilities of the proposed approach are demonstrated in the context of a full-sized project composed of three buildings.

Effective planning has considerable influence on the successful completion of a bridge project, particularly with respect to minimizing effects on traffic flow, safety, and adjacent business activity. The optimization of such plans is, hence, desirable. However, designers lack objective tools with which to evaluate the effectiveness of their plans. This paper presents a model for evaluating bridge construction plans during the design phase. The model includes five major factors: safety, accessibility, carrying capacity, schedule performance, and budget performance. An additional 22 subfactors were developed to assist in evaluating these major factors. The model was developed based on observation of actual construction sites and through input from industry experts. It was validated through input from another set of industry experts and application to an actual bridge construction planning case.

Recent research has shown that one of the keys to project success is effective communication. Today, project communication is becoming increasingly complex, and the rapid transmission of project information is vital to project performance. Unfortunately, our current information network is based on project “push”—where information is moved sequentially to and from each member of the project team. The alternative to push communication is “pull” communication, where individuals access project information from a single central source. Project-specific Web sites (PSWSs) give construction personnel new ways of pulling the information needed to design and build today's complex projects. This paper will describe information push and pull, and discuss its applications in project-specific Web sites. Additionally, the paper will outline a case study approach that uses a social network analysis to study push/pull on three major construction projects. The research found that PSWSs can speed information flows on construction projects, but can also generate information “overload” that limits its effectiveness. More important, the study found that the success of new Internet-based technologies depends on the participation of key members of the project team. When one of these key players refuses to participate, then Internet-based project management systems quickly lose their effectiveness.

A method for estimating CO₂ emissions given off over the entire life cycle of various types of residential buildings was examined. In the method for estimating CO₂ emissions, the life cycle of a residential building was divided into four stages (manufacturing, construction, operation, and demolition). The result showed that CO₂ emissions resulting from construction, including manufacturing building materials for residential building, were in the range of 381.1–620.1 kg-C/10 m² for each building type. However, most CO₂ emissions given off during the residential building life cycle were due to the building operation having 87.5–96.9% of total CO₂ emissions. And when comparing residential building types, single-family houses using liquefied petroleum gas as the main heating energy source had the lowest CO₂ emissions, with 5,260 kg-C/10 m² of floor area during their life cycles. On the other hand, single-family houses using briquette as the main heating energy source had the highest CO₂ emissions (15,100 kg-C/10 m²), with emissions being 2.9 times more than those of the (former) single-family house using liquefied petroleum gas.

Factors that affect time overrun in the Nigerian construction industry have been studied, and the rank agreement factor for the professionals are architects/engineers, 0.75; architects/builders, 0.83; quantity surveyors/engineers, 0.74; quantity surveyors/builders, 0.79; and engineers/builders, 0.69. Important findings are (1) the degree of occurrence of time overrun is high—between 80 and 90%; (2) relative contributions of the client, contractor, and others are 62, 32, and 6%, respectively; (3) time overrun is more pronounced in government/public sector projects (89%); and (4) time overrun occurs on all projects, irrespective of size.