Delay and Cost Overrun Risks in Sudanese Construction Projects: QuantitativeApproach

It is quite observed and frequently iterated in the risk literature that construction projects are prone to various and interrelated risks. Risks that span over a wide spectrum such as delays, cost overrun, safety, design, construction, environmental, weathering, legal and operational risks. Delays and cost overruns are considered among the leading threat risks that a project can experience and suffer. Quantifying those risks is intricate due to the complex and interrelated nature of construction projects and risks encountered over them. Isolating and quantifying the effect of those risks (delays and cost overruns), apart from the overall interacted effect of other risks, is an important performance indicator. Moreover, it can serve as a useful predictive and proactive tool for Sudanese construction project management professionals in formulating risk response plans. In order to achieve such a goal, special circumstances and conditions shall hold valid. Conditions as holding still the key other risks that are expected to affect the overall project risk interaction. The aim of this paper is to develop predictive models in order to quantify the magnitude of delays and cost overruns. This is sought by incorporating non-probabilityreadily accessible sample (n=19) of solely-steady funding, defined scope, contractual time frame and cost projects. This is meant to isolate (as much as practical) other than delays and cost over runs risk factors. To achieve the stated goal, regression statistical techniques and Monte Carlo simulation are utilized using Minitab, SPSS and @risk softwares. Comparison between the results obtained by the Monte Carlo simulation and the actual finish durations and costs was conducted. It was found that the uniform distribution is the best fit for the actual project durations and Pareto distribution for the actual cost. It was also found that there is a significant difference between the actual and contractual durations, which resulted in significantly large delays. In the author opinion this is can be attributed to one or collateral of the scenarios of owner imposed contractual time frame, non-compensable time extensions, changes and variations, contract miss -management and lack of accurate project scope definition

2018-02-15 Faculty Senate Newsletter

Faculty Senate newsletter for February 15, 2018

Regime building in the Levant:The feasibility of cooperation in the Levant Basin

The Levant Basin has become an increasingly hot political issue in the Middle East and Southern Europe. Many countries like Greece, Lebanon, and Cyprus see the basin’s new energy possibilities as an important economic tool to guide their struggling economies. Others like Turkey, Syria and Egypt see it as a threat. Israel, the most advanced country in exploration, has begun the search for the best political and economic partners to develop the country’s energy sector. Due to the geopolitical implications of natural resources, the possible changes in the balance of power that may arise, or the increased potential importance of the region to great powers, this thesis attempts to cover the likely political outcomes of the energy resources by exploring the different possible cooperation schemes among regional powers. This thesis explores cooperation scenarios between Israel and the other regional powers in the Eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, Greece, and Turkey. Using the liberal theories of international regimes and cooperation, this thesis investigates the possibilities of partnerships between the Levant powers and the feasibility of regime formation. We find that the most prominent candidates for fostering natural gas regimes are Israeli-Egyptian and Israeli-Turkish partnerships. To explore their potential, I model regime building, as expressed in Robert Keohane’s theory of international regimes, by applying David Axelrod’s iterated prisoner’s dilemma (IPD) to envision the conditions of cooperation or defection from the proposed partnership

Embracing a modern contract – progression since Latham?

Sir Michael Latham and Sir John Egan in their reports “Constructing the Team”, “Rethinking Construction” and “Accelerating Change” identified substantial changes in the culture and structure of UK construction being required. These also included changes in the relationships between companies. The choice and form of contract can play a significant role in the governance of such relationships. Sir Michael Latham suggested that contract writing bodies could amend existing standard forms to meet some of the concerns further urging the industry to embrace a Modern Contract. The forms of contract, and the changes to them over time, can influence culture change. This paper compares and contrasts the principal provisions of the contracts published by the Joint Contracts Tribunal (“JCT”), Institution of Civil Engineers (“ICE”) and the New Engineering Contract (“NEC”) against Sir Michael Latham’s 13 requirements for a Modern Contract. Where relevant, subcontract and consultant forms are also considered within the contractual matrix. The JCT and ICE forms of contract were found to have retained the principle features more conducive to promoting an adversarial relationship as opposed to the modern requirements for a collaborative and trusting relationship. Some attempts have been made by the JCT and ICE to promote collaborative working and to incorporate the features of a Modern Contract but this relies heavily on overarching documents which, in the main, are non binding on the parties and simply exhort collaborative behaviour. The single, most notable, exception to this was the JCT Constructing Excellence Contract. On the other hand. the NEC family of contracts were found to have embraced virtually all the requirements for a Modern Contract in an integrated way and, could be argued, were the most conducive to assisting with implementation of the various drivers for change

Analysis of responses to the Children and Young People Bill consultation

The Children and Young People Bill will be introduced to Parliament in 2013 and will set out fundamental reforms to the way services for children and young people are designed, delivered and reviewed. The Scottish Government conducted a large-scale series of national engagement events to discuss the proposals for reforms with a wide range of stakeholders. In addition, it published a consultation document on 4 July 2012 which invited views on key areas of proposed reform: children’s rights; early learning and childcare; getting it right for every child; and the care system

FINDING HUMAN RIGHTS CONSENSUS: INDONESIA AS CONSTRUCTIVE FORCE IN AICHR

Finding consensus has been argued as a stumbling block for actions in ASEAN, including in ASEAN’s Human Rights Body: the AICHR (ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights). While past studies discussed the limits of consensus making in ASEAN, there is lacunae of research on the institutional performance pressure to get things done in an intergovernmental setting and the impacts of diverse mandates among AICHR Representatives to finding human rights consensus. There are at least four types of approaches that has been employed by AICHR Representatives to find consensus where the constructivist and pragmatist collided, but it becomes clear that the challenge is cross-sectoral rather than merely internal AICHR, which makes it imperative to assess the direction for ASEAN’s institutional performance when evaluating consensus building.  &nbsp

Paperless Philosophy as a Philosophical Method

I discuss the prospects for novel communication methods in academic research. I describe communication tools which could enhance the practice of conceptual analysis