Journal of Construction Engineering and Management

Multiple prime is one type of construction delivery system and it is the subject of many discussions in the industry. Many general contractors, architects, and owners believe that this system inherently has coordination problems. On the other hand, specialty contractors believe that this system has several advantages because of the exclusion of the intermediate parties and the direct relationship of these contractors to the owner. The goal of this study is to objectively analyze the performance of construction delivery systems within public school districts. The school districts in the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Virginia form the population of this study. Quantitative and qualitative variables are used for comparison. ANOVA and two-sample $t$ tests are used as statistical tools for the quantitative, and the chi-square test is used for the qualitative analysis. Two groups of projects are examined. Set one includes all valid responses to a survey sent to school district superintendents. The second set is limited to the analysis of projects whose total cost is greater than $\$10\times {10}^6$ . Descriptive statistics on the incidence of litigation in these projects is also presented in the results. The conclusions from this study can guide owners, especially public entities with limited flexibility, in the selection of the delivery system appropriate for their project. It can guide contractors in identifying opportunities for improving services to their clients. This study has provided quantitative and qualitative measures of alternative project delivery systems in public projects that could lead to further research as well as the development of delivery systems that would satisfy the multiple stakeholders in construction projects.

The terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 and subsequent potential threats to the United States transportation systems have presented an urgent need to develop emergency response plans in order to quickly react to the possible consequences of an extreme event. Highway bridges, as critical components of the nation’s transportation network, have received increased attention. To respond to the potential threats on highway bridges, a research project was conducted to identify rapid bridge replacement processes, techniques, and needs for improvements. To achieve the research objectives, the research team studied three cases of previous bridge replacements following extreme events. By studying these cases, the research team first sought to identify and expand on lessons learned and then addressed which actions did and did not work effectively under the incident circumstances. Using the lessons learned government agencies and engineering and construction communities could enhance their emergency response plans for future incidents. Next, the research team identified needed improvements so that the research community could investigate new technologies to advance current practices.

A detailed case study conducted at a highway construction project demonstrated that missing and inaccurate data items result in nonvalue adding (NVA) communication loops among the construction personnel. The implications (in terms of time and cost) of extra work associated with deficiencies in manual data collection and transfer are not well quantified. In this paper, a simulation-based framework is used to model information flow processes from a job site to a field office to measure and highlight existing deficiencies, and to model and demonstrate the effect of using automated reality capture technologies (laser scanners and radio frequency identification), in streamlining the data collection process for the same project. The simulation results showed that the NVA times of each agent involved in the information flow can be reduced by utilizing data collection technologies. This framework can be used by researchers and construction practitioners to identify inefficiencies in the current information flow at sites quantitatively and understand the benefits of using automated reality capture technologies to reduce these inefficiencies.

The construction industry in the United States and other parts of the world has been facing several challenges, including a shortage of skilled workers. A review of the relevant body of knowledge indicates that one of the key reasons for this problem is the absence of human resource management strategies for construction workers at project, corporate, regional, or industry levels. This paper addresses the issues of workforce training and allocation on construction projects. It presents a framework to optimize the investment in, and to make the best use of, the available workforce with the intent to reduce project costs and improve schedule performance. A linear program model, entitled the Optimal Workforce Investment Model, is built to provide an optimization-based framework for matching supply and demand of construction labor most efficiently through training, recruitment, and allocation. Given a project schedule or demand profile and the available pool of workers, the suggested model provides human resource managers a combined strategy for training the available workers and hiring additional workers. The input data to the proposed model consists of a certain available labor pool, cost figures for training workers in different skills, the cost of hiring workers, hourly labor wages, and estimates of affinities between the different considered skills. The objective of the model is to minimize labor costs while satisfying project labor demands. Results from application of the model to typical situations are presented, and recommendations for future developments are made.

A study conducted in Israel, among ten excellent on-site construction project managers (PMs), examined the ways in which they cope with the dynamic project environment of the modern construction site (complex, uncertain, and fast). Empirical data gathered by means of structured observations led to the development of the Star Model, which offers a multidimensional description of the dynamic patterns of the managers’ activities, namely, their managerial dynamics. In addition, characterization of the level of environment dynamics with which managers were required to cope in their work, led to the identification of a tentative relationship between contextual conditions that characterize the project environment and the level of managerial dynamics practiced by the managers. This tentative relation, which basically suggests that managers should adapt their level of managerial dynamics to the level of dynamics they find on-site, apparently holds one of the keys to the managers’ excellent job performance.

Construction project briefing is a complex and dynamic process which involves identifying and conveying clients’ actual needs and requirements accurately to the project team. The briefing process is critical to the successful delivery of a construction project and there are many limitations inhibiting its effectiveness. A study of factors which could contribute to a successful briefing (in this study referred to as critical success factors) will enable special attention to be paid to those areas which could improve its performance. The objectives of this study are to identify, categorize, and prioritize a general set of critical success factors for construction project briefing. This study is intended to complement the existing but limited research into the identification of such factors and to serve as a stepping stone to the identification and establishment of yardsticks which could be used by construction practitioners on all projects in the future. A questionnaire was used to collect opinions from experienced construction practitioners. Thirty seven factors were identified and coded, and the content analysis yielded five major categories. They include project-related factors, human-related factors, process-related factors, input-related factors, and output-related factors. Thirty six percent of respondents identified “open and effective communication” as the most frequently mentioned factor critical to briefing. Other important factors, in descending order of importance, include such as “clear and precise briefing documents,” “clear intention and objectives of client,” and “clear project goal and objectives.” This set of critical success factors can serve as a checklist for practitioners when conducting a briefing in their construction projects. The results of the questionnaire survey are generally in line with the findings of a validation exercise by a focus group meeting.

Members of the construction project team (e.g., owner, designer, and contractor) have increasingly become more interested in and concerned about improving communications, coordination, and cooperation during the drawing and specification development process. The current use of black and white construction drawings is not the best tool to permit designers and contractors to communicate efficiently and accurately. This study examines methods to improve the quality of drawing clarity through the use of color drawings and other technologies. A survey was used to collect feedback from designers to better understand the current challenges faced and potential solutions. An analysis of the survey results revealed the best approaches in the construction industry to improve drawing readability, and includes: (1) Using colored drawings, (2) improving design details, (3) reviewing drawings and specifications for consistency, and (4) using more three-dimensional (3D) modeling techniques. An example is presented that compares the traditional two-dimensional black and white drawing of a bridge pier with a 3D gray-shaded drawing.

This paper describes a forecasting method for predicting potential cost overruns and schedule delays on construction projects. The output of the forecasting method is useful in evaluating the project status at different time horizons and in quantifying the impact of the performance indicators on the profitability of the job. The method is intended for use by members of project teams in performing integrated time and cost control of construction projects. The paper addresses the effects of a number of factors, referred to in the developed method as indicators, on project cost overruns and schedule delays using fuzzy logic. The proposed forecasting method has been implemented in a prototype that operates in the World Wide Web environment. It has an open architecture that allows users to actively interact and, accordingly, makes use of their own experience and knowledge in the forecasting process. An example project is analyzed to test the developed prototype, demonstrate the use of the proposed method, and to illustrate its capabilities.

An effective and efficient building facilities management system calls for a systematic performance-based methodology. This paper proposes an integer-programming model based on the Markov decision process: Markov chains are used to model the change of condition index, a consistent scale to measure building performance, and integer programming employed to optimize annual management actions and annual budget allocation, subject to various types of constraints. A wide scope of useful outputs can be obtained from this model. This includes: (1) annual management actions to take; (2) annual budget allocation; (3) the expected condition index (CI) values at the beginning of each year before and after management actions are taken; (4) the expected annual performance levels; and (5) sensitivity analysis and corresponding outputs to different budget scenarios, for all the elements, components, systems and buildings of a building network and for each year over a long time horizon. As a general model, it can be applied in any type of building network.

This research is focused on modeling waste-handling processes in construction, with particular emphasis on how to map out and simulate on-site waste sorting processes. The research proposes an application framework for (1) guiding the development of process mapping models and simulation models; and (2) further assessing the cost effectiveness of on-site waste sorting efforts under practical site constraints (such as labor resource availability, time control on refuse chute usage, and limited working area space in a building site). The connection has been established between the mapping and simulation techniques in the context of modeling waste handling processes in construction sites, such that the process flowchart resulting from the mapping technique can serve as convenient model input to facilitate the creation of a “dynamic” operations simulation model. A case study of the on-site waste sorting method with one refuse chute for waste classification is presented to demonstrate the complete application framework spanning (1) process mapping; (2) mapping-to-simulation model conversion; and (3) method optimization based on valid simulations.