Journal of Construction Engineering and Management

This paper presents an overview of the most recent works on project delivery systems, with a particular interest in green buildings. The review focuses on current and prior studies that critiqued the intricacies, strengths, and weaknesses of project delivery systems as well as studies that addressed their performance, whether in green or nongreen built environments. Green buildings are vulnerable to cost overruns and delayed schedules as a result of the challenging complexities in their implementation. There is a greater need for building professionals to cooperate more cohesively in a nonsequential manner to achieve green building objectives, which necessitates exploring the different delivery systems that dictate how different project stakeholders are involved. The findings of this systematic review detected recent research trends in project delivery systems and synthesized a clearer elucidation of their intricacies and how they perform in a green building context. Most recently, integrated project delivery, design and build, and construction management at risk were the most frequent topics of study, with cost and time performance metrics dominating their quantitative comparisons. This review encourages future work to focus on quality and risk performance because these domains are more essential for green buildings owing to their organizational and technological complexities. This review’s contribution will set the groundwork for academic researchers to explore new avenues in evaluating project delivery systems as well as in supporting decision makers in proper judgements on which delivery system to choose to achieve project success.

In building construction, contractors are typically selected through competitive bidding or negotiated contracting, in which the project price is the major selection criterion. A contractor’s safety performance is still not a major selection criterion, despite the existence of numerous safety prequalification methods. The negative repercussions of such apathy create a critical need for systems that enable owners to evaluate contractor safety performance and facilitate the selection of safety-conscious contractors by virtue of their good safety practices. This study presents the development of a computerized platform for evaluating contractor safety performance that is capable of analyzing contractors’ safety performance data. The platform incorporates newly developed parameters that enable (1) including leading and lagging safety indicators that depict current and past contractor safety performance; (2) conducting analysis on both the organizational and project levels; and (3) satisfying the requirements of international safety standards. This research contributes to the existing body of knowledge by presenting a validated standard-compliant set of 10 indicators and 71 metrics that facilitate evaluating contractor safety performance and establishing their significance analytically. This should prove useful to decision makers and researchers alike and is a step forward to facilitate including contractor safety performance among major selection criteria, which can ultimately bring significant improvements to the building industry’s safety.

This paper seeks to identify improvements in the level of implementation of the Last Planner System (LPS) with the use of information technologies (IT) based on its methodology. In addition, we correlate the level of implementation of specific LPS components to the plan percent complete (PPC). The conjoint analysis of IT benefits in implementation and correlation to PPC allowed identification of two critical components: the standardization of the planning and control process, which can be quantitatively assessed by the PPC, and the systematic analysis and removal of constraints assessed through the percentage of constraints removed (PCR). A sample of 50 projects was used to corroborate that projects that have higher PPC and PCR also have better performance, measured by the schedule accomplishment and number of noncompliances. Consequently, results inferred that projects that use IT systems based on LPS have a more systematic planning and control and better constraint management that also correspond to better schedule accomplishment and less noncompliance.

Estimating the number of new bidders in construction auctions is relevant for both private companies and contracting authorities. For private companies, it allows the total number of competing bidders to be estimated, which may lead to better adjustments of future bids. For contracting authorities, it allows the population size of all potential bidders to be estimated and thus to implement better awarding criteria. Mathematical models for forecasting the number of new bidders and the population size of all potential bidders are, however, very scarce in the construction management literature. In this paper, we propose an exponential model for predicting the average number of new bidders based on an urn analogy. The model allows the number of new bidders to be estimated as a function of new versus total participating bidders observed in previous auctions. The parameter estimates obtained from the model also allow the statistical distribution of the number of potential new bidders to be modeled using a sum of binomial distributions. We validate the exponential model on three published construction auction data sets, showing that the proposed model significantly outperforms the multinomial model—the most advanced model for performing similar tasks found in the literature.

The adoption of international construction joint ventures (ICJVs) of late for more complex and large-scale construction projects across the globe has drawn an increasing broad range of research interest since the early 1990s. A number of studies on ICJVs focusing on diverse perspectives have been published by globally renowned construction management (CM) journals over the past two decades. However, a systematic review of research development in this domain is still lacking. Thus, it is critical to conduct a comprehensive review to detect current research priorities and future research directions for development. This study aims to fill this gap through a comprehensive and systematic analysis of selected ICJV research papers published in 17 selected CM journals from 1990 to 2018. Using Scopus search engine and keywords, a systematic desktop search was conducted, followed by the selection of journals and papers. It analyzed the trend of ICJV research in terms of annual publication, countries’ contributions, contributions by institutions and researchers, data collection and analysis methods adopted, and research interests. The results highlighted an increasing attention to ICJV research within the studied period. Also, the results indicated that while the largest contribution to ICJV research has come from developed countries like Singapore, the UK, and the US, developing countries like China and Turkey have also made enormous contributions. Key research topics covered include entry modes, formation decision strategies, and operation; risk assessment and management practices; performance evaluation; dispute resolution mechanisms; management issues in ICJVs; influential factors for ICJV practice; and technology transfer. This study also suggests useful directions for future research. The findings provide an in-depth understanding of ICJV research to practitioners and researchers and stimulate future research based on the identified gaps.

Friedman’s classic 1956 bidding model for the case in which a contractor is bidding against an unknown number of opponents applies Friedman’s multiplicative model for the probability to win, which applies only when bidding against at least one opponent, to the case in which the number of opponents is zero, to which it does not apply. Thus, both the resulting general equations and the examples for the probability to win, as well as those for expected profit, are incorrect. Moreover, the example graphs offered are not true representations of these incorrect equations. The causes and consequences of these errors are described in detail and new equations are offered as replacements. Exact graphs of the incorrect equations as well as of their replacements are presented. Four new bidding models are developed by which a contractor can find the optimum bid price that maximizes expected profit when the number of opponents is unknown and could be zero. These include the case of an owner with a reserve price that leads to a distinct and novel bidding strategy.

Globalization creates opportunities for contractors to enter lucrative international markets yet international projects are exposed to more diverse and complex risks than domestic projects. Owing to vast uncertainties and complexities, international construction entry decisions are intricate. Although conventional Probability-Impact (P-I) risk models are useful, the firm’s capabilities are missing in early assessments for project selection decision. Hence, this study aims to develop a capability-based risk assessment (CapRA) calculator for international contractors venturing overseas. The international construction firm’s capabilities are explored using resource-based views, dynamic capabilities, and Porter’s generic value chain theories to conceptualize an integrated framework for risk assessment. Additionally, a questionnaire was sent to international construction firms operating outside their home countries to appraise their firm’s capabilities and international construction project risk significance values. Then, a partial least squares approach was used to analyze the data. The findings are used to develop a novel CapRA model, which is then formulated into modified P-I risk model equations and computerized into a CapRA calculator to simplify the application. In essence, this study contributes to both knowledge and practice by developing and testing a model to improve the accuracy and facilitate project selection decisions for international construction firms.

Several data-based metrics have been developed to evaluate the quality of research output, including h-index, impact factor, and others. Considerable debates have focused on whether the aforementioned metrics represent effective and efficient indications of research impact or just provide an imperfect reflection. Because the academic community is witnessing a growing trend where most of the tangible rewards are related to publications and their quality, there is a dire necessity to obtain a more realistic and holistic understanding of such evaluation indicators. As such, the goal of this paper is to investigate the parameters associated with the citation metrics used to assess the quality and impact of research publications in the broad civil engineering (CE) domain with a focus on the construction engineering and management (CEM) specialty area and its subdisciplines. To this end, the authors (1) analyzed the different CE research areas—including CEM—with respect to the number of publications, community size, and potential ties with other interdisciplinary fields; (2) studied the citation metrics of the most-cited as well as award-winning peer-reviewed publications in both CE and CEM while examining the effect of the availability of research funds as well as the nature of the research—quantitative or qualitative—on the average number of citations for most-cited publications across the different CE specialty areas; and (3) investigated the impact of multiple factors on the citation metrics. Based on a thorough survey and analysis of 67,800 journal publications, it was found that both number of publications and citation metrics for the CEM specialty area is significantly lower compared with other CE specialty areas. Along the same vein, the citations across the various CEM subdisciplines are all different, where labor and personnel (306 average citations per paper) and contracting (266 average citations per paper) are the most cited, but cost and schedule (47 average citations per paper) and legal and contractual (23 average citations per paper) are the least cited. Also, with the exception of aerospace engineering as well as engineering education and practices, CEM was the least funded, had the highest percentage of qualitative research, and the least average number of citations for funded/unfunded projects as well as qualitative/quantitative research. Further, it was revealed that award-winning papers—which supposedly represent the highest quality—are not highly cited and in fact have way below average citation numbers. Ultimately, it was found that several factors such as research community size, trendiness of research field, amount of research output, connection with other interdisciplinary fields, characteristics and attributes of coauthors, timing of checking an h-index, publication access type, and the criteria adopted by the various archiving databases collectively affect the citation metrics for papers and authors. As such, citation metrics like h-index should not be used solely to assess the quality and impact of an author but rather be utilized as a single piece of information within a more holistic and broader context. This study furnishes various parameters and considerations that should be normalized before attempting to compare citations of papers and/or authors across the CE domain.

One critical antecedent to project success is team alignment. Industry professionals should focus on practices that can improve project team selection, team building, and identifying challenges to the team and project, hence improving alignment. This paper provides a summary of key findings of a national study of transportation projects, identifying current practices of industry professionals for the selection and alignment of project teams for transportation projects. Current team selection practices, the most beneficial team alignment practices, and the greatest challenges to team alignment are identified in the study. These practices are also analyzed and reported by project delivery method, and the results presented in this paper add to the body of knowledge by identifying current alignment practices, successful practices, and challenges specific to each delivery method. Among the findings are that overall project teams are selected primarily based on project experience and ability to meet schedule, regardless of the project delivery method chosen. Successful teams with good alignment were found to be characterized by having established expectations, team trust, honesty within the team, shared values, and good communication. No notable differences were found among delivery methods, demonstrating that the principles of team alignment are not dependent on the project delivery method. Challenges that cause adversarial relationships in the team include issues of constructability, schedule availability, and project complexity. The study also identified transportation-specific alignment challenges such as public involvement. The greatest challenges specific to each delivery method include team coordination for construction manager at risk (CMAR) projects, constructability procedures for design-bid-build projects, and environmental impacts for design-build projects.

Perceived benefits of the best-value strategy and the problems the lowest-price strategy have caused in the construction industry have led to an increase in the use of the best-value strategy for selecting contractors. Although some research has tried to establish a direct relationship between a contractor selection strategy and project outcomes, there is hardly any empirical research that tries to establish this relationship. This paper presents a quantifiable method of assessing the risk of selecting different contractor selection strategies using educational facilities projects in the United Kingdom. A Monte Carlo–simulation study was conducted to assess how the lowest-priced contractor would have fared against the best-value contractor had the former been awarded the contract instead. It was concluded that selecting the best-value contractor in educational facilities projects is not necessary in terms of cost. Furthermore, although the results are limited to educational facilities project, the method can be adapted to other sectors.