Journal of Construction Engineering and Management

Nuclear technology has long been used as a nondestructive method to measure the density of hot-mix asphalt (HMA) during pavement construction. Due to nuclear technology’s high costs and intense regulations associated with safety and security, several researchers have introduced and evaluated nonnuclear technologies for measurement purposes. However, no proven evidence has emerged that nonnuclear gauges can replace nuclear gauges when quality assurance (QA) is considered. Thus, this study developed a framework for an empirical process to improve nonnuclear gauge performance for use in QA and for improving the current quality control (QC) process. Data were collected by coring using a nuclear gauge and using a nonnuclear gauge from 13 HMA paving construction sites over 2 years. A new calibration method was developed for nonnuclear density gauges. The research results reveal that the proposed framework can improve the accuracy of nonnuclear gauges, which can be used for QC and QA of HMA pavement during construction. In addition, nonnuclear gauges showed significant cost savings compared to nuclear gauges from a life-cycle cost analysis.

Although data warehouse is very practical for decision making, its application in contract administration is rather limited because of the complicated legal issues and the voluminous data involved. This research attempts to bridge this gap in two ways. First, conceptual models of data warehouse are developed to explain the contents and overall features of the system that were verified by 12 experts in Malaysia. Second, an electronic dispute resolution template, known as e-Dispute Resolution (e-DR), is prototyped by using a database tool based on the guidelines of contractual variations agreed by the experts. Subsequently, the prototype is evaluated by 16 professional quantity surveyors from an established consulting firm. The prototype was organized based on a systematic breakdown of issues and incorporated a Boolean keyword search feature. The results show that the concept of data warehouse is applicable to contract administration and is well received by practitioners. Overall, this article renders significant theoretical and practical contributions in which the resulting e-DR does not only lead toward more informed decision making but is also able to mitigate or prevent contractual disputes in the construction industry, where such a phenomenon seems to be inevitable.

The design-build (DB) system is a popular and effective delivery method of construction projects worldwide. After owners decide to procure their projects through the DB system, they may wish to determine the optimal proportion of design to be provided in the DB request for proposals (RFP), which serves as a solicitation for design-builders and describes the scope of work. However, this presents difficulties to DB owners and there is little, if any, systematic research in this area. This paper reports on an empirical study in the United States entailing both an online questionnaire survey and Delphi survey to identify and evaluate the factors influencing owners’ decisions in determining the proportion of design to include in DB RFPs. Eleven factors are identified, i.e., (1) clarity of project scope, (2) applicability of performance specifications, (3) desire for design innovation, (4) site constraints, (5) availability of competent design-builders, (6) project control requirements, (7) user group involvement level, (8) third-party requirements, (9) owner experience with DB, (10) project complexity, and (11) schedule constraints. A statistically significant agreement on the 11 factors was also obtained from the (mainly nonowner) Delphi experts. Although some of the experts hold different opinions on how these factors affect the proportion of design, these findings furnish various stakeholders with a better understanding of the delivery process of DB projects and the appropriate provision of project information in DB RFPs. Because the result is mainly industry opinion concerning the optimal proportion of design, in addition and for completeness future studies should be conducted to obtain a big picture of the optimal proportion of design by means of seeking owners’ inputs.

Because of the variety of construction works and jobsite environments, research on highway construction safety is lacking. The purpose of this study is to identify accident factors by work type for highway construction projects through analysis of accidents occurring in Korea from 1997–2008. Analysis of variance and cross-tabulation analysis were used to identify statistically significant differences among nine factors and 248 variables in six work types. This analysis shows that contributing factors and variables to injuries vary depending on time of accident, work, and accident environment. The results outline trends of construction injuries by highway work. The results can be used to identify high-risk types of accidents, measure potential risks, improve safety training, and develop prevention plans for each work type under various work environments. The study shows that most accidents in highway construction fell into six construction work types. Because the relationships among contributing environment classification factors to accidents are identified, the factors can be considered to reduce the possibility of accidents by controlling closely related factors. This research can be used to develop an effective safety plan for highway construction projects.

Contractors’ safety performance can vary widely in the construction industry. However, it has not been well recognized that variations in safety performance could exist in the same contractor’s regional offices. There is also a lack of understanding of the differences between regions and what causes these variations. This paper analyzes the safety performance of a general contractor’s six major regional branches across four states after implementation of a new safety management program. The research finds apparent differences in regional incident rates (IRs) and safety violation rates (SVRs), although the shared perceptions from workers and site management personnel about how the safety program is implemented (i.e., safety climate and culture) are generally consistent companywide. This research also discloses that regional IRs, SVRs, safety climate, and culture are uncorrelated in the long term (during the 17-month study period), but have some linear relationships over a short duration (during the 4-month survey period). The correlation analysis in this study does not find a significant influence of workers’ demographic characteristics and a few other potential influencing factors on regional safety performance. These findings will provide useful insights to industry practitioners who aim to achieve good, consistent safety management and performance across regions.

In this paper, the author provides observations on the state of engineering education and a blueprint for how to shape the future of the profession to meet the challenges of an increasingly complex world. The engineering profession is one rooted in history and accomplishment. Yet engineers—whether civil, electrical, mechanical, structural, or of other engineering subspecialties—share a problem of perception. Many people do not know what engineers do and are not familiar with their challenges or accomplishments. Some may regard an engineering career path with apathy. Engineers themselves can fail to see their work in its fuller social context, resulting in self-reinforcing limitations on the potential of technology. The challenges of a complex, increasingly connected world demand that the engineering profession renew itself continuously, highlight and promote its accomplishments, and cultivate a future generation of engineers. These engineers must be prepared to contribute to substantive deliberations, to lead and shape the issues, identify and solve problems, and find and pursue the opportunities of tomorrow.

Interior and finishing activities in building construction exhibit high degrees of variation as a result of uncertainty in supply chains, variations in work quantities, client changes, and lack of predictability of the production capacity of subcontracting trades. Decisions must constantly be made concerning effective utilization of available resources. Reentrant workflow patterns, where a trade crew returns multiple times to the same space, make production control particularly difficult. We present a method for pull flow control at the operational level through real-time prioritization of pending work packages and daily regulation of crew assignments and trades’ production capacities. Application of various heuristics was evaluated using discrete-event simulation of a representative construction project. The experimental results emphasize the importance of dynamic control of allocation of production resources to those mature activities that ensure subsequent (downstream) flow. The most successful policy was to use the second reentrant activity as a bottleneck and to regulate the capacity of the trade with reentrant flows to ensure sufficient feeding of new work to successive crews.

Unlike the traditional price-focused lowest bid (LB), the best value (BV) tendering process selects the contractor that offers a product or service that is most beneficial to the procurement entity in various aspects. Existing pricing models, including cost-based probabilistic models and market-based neoclassical microeconomic theory, were developed for LB. Very few operational models exist for BV tenders due to the difficulty of measuring the price differences with respect to the variance of product or service quality. This paper proposes a price elasticity of quality (PEQ) model that provides useful tools to measure the PEQ of a product or service offered by contractors in a tendering process. Based on the proposed model, a bidding zone is suggested for the contractor in light of competitiveness and profitability. Two working examples are used to show the applicability of the proposed method.

Over the last two decades, more than 100 water and sewer systems have been sold or leased to private entities in the United States due to shortages in government funding. While privatization has allowed governments to relieve their financial difficulties, users have taken on such risks in the form of high rates and poor service. When compared to other infrastructures, water and sewer systems generate somewhat stable revenue. However, water and sewer systems are also characterized by the hardly predictable operation and maintenance (O&M) expenses. Such characteristics make it difficult to devise a proper contract that satisfies the interested parties, such as governments, private operators, and users. By investigating the deficiencies of previous privatization contracts, this study presents a real option–based contract model to ensure appropriate risk sharing between private entities and governments. Simulation results based on three different O&M expense scenarios (best, moderate, and worst) indicate that the proposed contract model would provide a win-win situation for all related parties.

The performance of a fuzzy expert system (FES) is significantly affected by the accuracy of its knowledge base parameters (membership functions and rule bases). The main contribution of this paper is in presenting a methodology to integrate an FES with adaptation/optimization techniques and applying the data-based adaptive learning concept to increase the accuracy of an FES developed for contractor default prediction for surety bonding. In addition, this paper investigates two optimization approaches (genetic algorithms and neural network back-propagation) for adaptation of fuzzy membership function (MBF) and rules’ degree of support (DoS) to determine the most suitable technique to adapt the FES. The optimized FES, called SuretyQualification, was validated using 30 hypothetical contractor default prediction cases, and the highest accuracy of the system (adapted using neural networks) was found to be 91.83%. Another contribution of this paper is the development of a software tool called SuretyQualification that provides a comprehensive and systematic evaluation process to evaluate a contractor and their risk of default on a project. The presented optimization approaches address FES context adaptation using any changing information conveyed by the input-output data and provide a methodology for continuous adaptation of the FES parameters, using practical cases to adjust the FES according to any contexts changes.

This paper attempts to incorporate both leading and lagging KPIs and apply the reliability interval method (RIM) to formulate a benchmarking model to assess project success in Hong Kong. A list of leading and lagging KPIs was complied based on a comprehensive literature review. This list of KPIs was used to develop a survey questionnaire and RIM was subsequently used to analyze the survey results and determine the relative importance and rankings of various leading and lagging KPIs. The results reveal that the top 10 KPIs to evaluate the success of construction projects in Hong Kong (in descending order) were (1) safety performance, (2) cost performance, (3) time performance, (4) quality performance, (5) client’s satisfaction, (6) effectiveness of communication, (7) end user’s satisfaction, (8) effectiveness of planning, (9) functionality, and (10) environmental performance. Finally, a composite performance index (CPI) was derived by means of RIM to provide a comprehensive assessment of construction project success in Hong Kong. Different construction projects can now be assessed on the same basis for benchmarking and project monitoring purposes.

Studies on international construction activities tend to focus on project contracting or exporting of raw material (such as cement or steel). However, globalization and free-trade agreements are creating new opportunities for international trade in manufactured housing products (such as roofing systems and other components). The aim of this work is to understand the factors that impact the potential profitability of housing construction products in international markets and develop a process for profitability assessment. This was done in a test market (the Mexican market) through reviewing pertinent literature in conjunction with conducting interviews with experts in this domain. The analysis shows that six major processes have to be undertaken: (1) analysis of market conditions (preventure analysis); (2) assessing competencies; (3) evaluation of product and service; (4) analysis of proper distribution channels (supply chain); (5) evaluation of marketing strategies; and (6) analysis of cost-price-value relationship. A set of factors and best practices has been identified to support and guide the conduct of each process.

Infrastructure deficit is inextricably linked to funding availability, especially in developing countries. Innovative financing (IF) can be beneficial in helping combat such deficit. Strategic issues underpinning IF of Ghanaian infrastructure projects are identified and analyzed. The study’s empirical aspect employs structured interviews and a questionnaire survey to accrue data from project implementation agencies relating to infrastructure IF. Factor analysis establishes those variables from among the large number studied that measure similar underlying dimensions. Three strategic IF issues are identified and explained: (1) appropriateness of the financing method, (2) pricing and management of the financing method, and (3) sustainability of the financing method. Infrastructure development stakeholders in developing countries may benefit from the findings through greater appreciation of IF sources and techniques. Suggested future research includes detailed exploration of IF barriers and comparative critical appraisal of similar research studies at the international level.

The management of facility construction for hallmark events is critically important for their financial viability. However, little knowledge has been produced regarding the management of this type of construction. Based on the construction program for the Shanghai Expo 2010 and other cases reported in the literature, this paper provides an analysis of the common characteristics of construction for hallmark events, the challenges of financial management due to these characteristics, techniques to address these challenges, and lessons learned from the Expo construction. It is believed that one critical factor that contributes to the success of the Expo construction program is the integration of the financial management and contract management processes, assisted by a specifically designed computer program. The techniques used to integrate the two processes involve (1) mapping the program’s work breakdown structure, cost breakdown structure, and contract breakdown structure; (2) integrating the information flow between the two processes; and (3) automation in information generation, dissemination, and storage. Areas that may be further improved in managing construction programs of a similar nature are also discussed.

In recent decades, road inspections have increasingly relied on the use of nondestructive instrumentation for the evaluation of road conditions. This work aims to test a ground-penetrating radar system to provide insight into nonvisible subsurface engineering with respect to an underpass arch-shaped structure. One important structural parameter that affects the stability of the arch structure and must be monitored is the quantity and thickness of the backfill used to fill the structure until the road is level. Frequencies of 500 and 200 MHz were used to detect the different layers over an arch structure. However, the heterogeneity of the backfill over the arch hampered interpretation of the field data. Finite-difference time-domain modeling was used to understand the response of the radar wave and to assist in interpretation. More realistic models were created based on the accurate geometry provided by a mobile light detection and ranging (LiDAR) device. The methodology is not excessively time-consuming, with all of the procedures taking a total of approximately 7 h. With this system, the layers built and their thicknesses can be defined with a maximum error of 5%. Appropriate nondestructive testing of the subsurface structure is useful in facilitating structural analysis and the prediction of critical failures.