Critical success factors for e-tendering implementation in construction collaborative environments : people and process issues

The construction industry is increasingly engulfed by globalisation where clients, business partners and customers are found in virtually every corner of the world. Communicating, reaching and supporting them are no longer optional but are imperative for continued business growth and success. A key component of enterprise communication reach is collaborative environments (for the construction industry) which allows customers, suppliers, partners and other project team members secure access to project information, products or services they need at any given moment. Implementation of the stated critical success factors of the project is essential to ensure optimal performance and benefits from the system to all parties involved. This paper presents critical success factors for the implementation of e-tendering in collaborative environments with particular considerations given to the people issues and process factors

Mapping the e-business profile and trends in cost management in the UK construction industry

The advancement of e-business applications and IT infrastructure has had massive impact on construction business processes over the last decade. The added effects of globalisation coupled with global economic recession have forced businesses to implement e-business applications within their organisations. It is clear in all industries, that e-business technologies have become a key strategic vehicle in improving performance. In Construction, e-business applications complement most of the business functions and have removed geographical boundaries resulting in a global construction market with increased competition, increased collaboration and have helped reducing the fragmentation of the industry. However, even though the successes are inevitable, it is scrutinized that the advancement is still constrained within the industry. Thus there is a need to undertake an analysis of current construction e-business usage and attitude of construction professionals towards e-business trends to ensure a productive and beneficial implementation of construction e-business tools within organisations. This study acknowledged the niche for research into current e-business usage in UK construction organisations and aimed to determine and map the use of ICT in construction cost management activities, and explore the attitudes of professionals towards e-business approaches. Initially a comprehensive literature review was carried out together with an online web search to identify what ICT and software packages are being used for construction cost management activities. Results from this review aided in developing the research questionnaire and a detailed an online structured survey was carried out using the chartered quantity surveying organisations within the UK. This paper presents the findings of the survey and discusses the ICT usage within construction organisations for cost management activities and the attitude of construction professionals towards BIM and construction e-business trends

Integrated Dynamic Facade Control with an Agent-based Architecture for Commercial Buildings

Dynamic façades have significant technical potential to minimize heating, cooling, and lighting energy use and peak electric demand in the perimeter zone of commercial buildings, but the performance of these systems is reliant on being able to balance complex trade-offs between solar control, daylight admission, comfort, and view over the life of the installation. As the context for controllable energy-efficiency technologies grows more complex with the increased use of intermittent renewable energy resources on the grid, it has become increasingly important to look ahead towards more advanced approaches to integrated systems control in order to achieve optimum life-cycle performance at a lower cost. This study examines the feasibility of a model predictive control system for low-cost autonomous dynamic façades. A system architecture designed around lightweight, simple agents is proposed. The architecture accommodates whole building and grid level demands through its modular, hierarchical approach. Automatically-generated models for computing window heat gains, daylight illuminance, and discomfort glare are described. The open source Modelica and JModelica software tools were used to determine the optimum state of control given inputs of window heat gains and lighting loads for a 24-hour optimization horizon. Penalty functions for glare and view/ daylight quality were implemented as constraints. The control system was tested on a low-power controller (1.4 GHz single core with 2 GB of RAM) to evaluate feasibility. The target platform is a low-cost ($35/unit) embedded controller with 1.2 GHz dual-core cpu and 1 GB of RAM. Configuration and commissioning of the curtainwall unit was designed to be largely plug and play with minimal inputs required by the manufacturer through a web-based user interface. An example application was used to demonstrate optimal control of a three-zone electrochromic window for a south-facing zone. The overall approach was deemed to be promising. Further engineering is required to enable scalable, turnkey solutions

Collaborative knowledge management - A construction case study

Due to the new threats and challenges faced by the construction industry today, construction companies must seek new solutions in order to remain ahead of the competition. Knowledge has been identified to be a significant organisational resource, which if used effectively can provide competitive advantage. A lot of emphasis is being put on how to identify, capture and share knowledge in today's organisations. It has been argued over the years that due to the fragmented nature of the construction industry and ad-hoc nature of the construction projects, capture and reuse of valuable knowledge gathered during a construction project pose a challenge. As a result critical mistakes are repeated on projects and construction professionals have to kee