Place of technology management as a key process area within construction process improvement: A critical analysis

Process improvement has been identified as an important strategy to address the current unpredictability and under-achievements of the UK construction industry. Within the technological view of process improvement, information technology (IT) has been identified as a key enabler. Various studies about the information technology in construction have revealed that construction show a slow IT adoptability and IT has failed to convince the stakeholders of the construction industry. Within some of these researches, it has been argued that immature processes within the construction industry are responsible for this unsatisfactory level of performance of IT. On the other hand, it has also been argued that, Information Technology is a primary stimulant of process improvement, thus process maturity can be driven by the IT push. Leading to a dilemma, this indicates that new information technological innovations could use by immature organisations within their process improvement strategies. This dilemma triggered the necessity to evaluate the place of the Technology Change Management within the construction context. Thus, a literature survey was conducted to identify the construction process improvement initiatives and its relationship with the IT usage in construction with a special emphasis on the SPICE approach, which has provided the basis for this critical analysis. The SPICE is a five levelled framework based on the popular Software Capability Maturity Model (CMM), and presents an assessment tool for the maturity of construction process. However, within the CMM the Technology Change Management has been considered as a key process area within the fifth maturity level, indicating that this is a concern of matured organisations. However, the IT usage within construction shows that the immature construction organisations have successfully adopted IT in an ad-hoc manner with the aim of achieving short term benefits. On the other hand construction literature have criticised this ad-hoc IT usage and linked that to the relative slow IT adoptability in construction. This in effect challenges the allocation of a fixed place for Technology Change Management as a Key Process Area with the construction process improvement, from the organisation maturity point of view

Examination of Adoption Theory on the DevOps Practice of Continuous Delivery

Many organizations have difficulty adopting advanced software development practices. Some software development project managers in large organizations are not aligned with the relationship between performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions, as moderated by experience, with intent to adopt the DevOps practice of continuous delivery. The purpose of this study was to examine the statistical relationships between the independent variablesâperformance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions, as moderated by experienceâand the dependent variable of behavioral intent to adopt a continuous delivery system. Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, and Davis\u27s unified theory of acceptance and use of technology provided the theoretical framework. A stepwise multiple linear regression analysis was performed on survey data from 85 technical project managers affiliated with LinkedIn project management groups. The analysis reflected that only performance expectancy was significant in predicting intent to adopt continuous delivery. The findings may contribute to social change by providing project managers with the information they need to support organizational change, collaboration, and facilitation. The knowledge gained may additionally help organizations develop operational efficiency, competitive advantage, and generate higher value to their clients and society

A rework reduction model for construction projects

Rework is an endemic problem in building construction projects and is an area of research that has received limited attention. Recent research has shown that rework is the primary cause of time and schedule overruns in projects and that rework levels do not significantly differ between current procurement methods despite calls from government for the use of more integrated procurement approaches such as design-and-construct to improve project performance. To reduce the incidence of rework throughout the construction supply chain, data from 161 completed projects were gathered using a questionnaire survey. Stepwise multiple regression was used to determine the significant variables that contributed to rework in projects. In conjunction with previously reported research, these variables were used to develop an alternative procurement model for reducing rework in projects. It is suggested that the proposed model could be used to stimulate interorganizational relations and promote teambuilding during the formative stages of a project, which is essential for reducing design-related reworking

Investigating the Role of Critical Success Factors in Achieving the Success of Agile Projects in the Gaza Strip

Achieving project success is a critical element of project management, and identifying the critical success factors (CSFs) that contribute to it is imperative. Agile project management has gained significant attention due to its flexibility, adaptability, and iterative approach, but achieving project success in agile projects remains a challenge. In order to identify the CSFs that have a significant impact on project outcomes, this study examines the role of CSFs in achieving project success in agile projects. A structured online questionnaire was used to collect data from 109 project managers and team members working on agile projects, which was then analyzed using various statistical methods. According to the study\u27s findings, seven factors significantly influence the success of projects: scope and cost management, leadership, agile analytics techniques, customer involvement, teamwork, planning and scheduling, and effective communication, which account for 71.9% of the total variance explained by the CSFs components. The analysis of Pearson correlation coefficients between CSFs and agile project outcomes indicates a positive correlation between each CSF and the four project outcomes (timeliness, cost, quality, and customer satisfaction). The regression analysis includes two significant predictors: scope and cost management, and planning and scheduling, explaining 67.7% of the variation in project outcomes. The findings provide valuable insights for project managers in the Gaza Strip to enhance project success with agile methods by focusing on CSFs

UK construction processes and IT adoptability: Learning form other industries

Process improvement has been identified as a mechanism of achieving the desired performance improvements of the UK construction industry. During the recent past, researches within UK construction process improvement research paradigm have been influenced by the initiatives of other industries like manufacturing and software. Despite the success stories within such industries, the unique characteristics of the construction industry demand a careful consideration of the applicability of these approaches within a construction environment. Based on a literature review carried out by the authors, this paper discusses the nature of this applicability issue further. In addition to the above applicability issue, construction industry has suffered from a slow information technology (IT) adoptability issue, while IT has been considered as an effective enabler for process improvement in other industries. This has hindered the potential synergetic benefits of using IT within construction process improvement strategies. As such, it is important to understand the reasons behind this slow IT adoptability in order to ensure successful deployment of process improvement initiatives within the UK construction industry. This paper discusses this issue, by reviewing the literature to compare IT adoptability issues of the UK construction industry and other industries, with the aim of learning lessons from those to improve the UK construction industry

People driven productivity : Lean for small businesses

Lean as structured method to improve productivity has earned its undisputed place during the last 10 years. The combination of a people-oriented philosophy, combined with simple but effective methods, has led to considerable improvements in almost all industry sectors. However it becomes increasingly clear that introducing Lean requires knowledge and efforts that are outside the possibilities of small businesses. The paper reports on the preliminary results of a concerted research effort towards an effective method to introduce Lean in small production enterprises (SME‟s). Anticipated results are operational and practical findings for improving success rates of adoption. This should widen considerably the range of businesses that can benefit from this structured improvement process. It would also allow policymakers to better target support measures to small businesses

Research Towards High Speed Freeforming

Additive manufacturing (AM) methods are currently utilised for the manufacture of prototypes and low volume, high cost parts. This is because in most cases the high material costs and low volumetric deposition rates of AM parts result in higher per part cost than traditional manufacturing methods. This paper brings together recent research aimed at improving the economics of AM, in particular Extrusion Freeforming (EF). A new class of machine is described called High Speed Additive Manufacturing (HSAM) in which software, hardware and materials advances are aggregated. HSAM could be cost competitive with injection moulding for medium sized medium quantity parts. A general outline for a HSAM machine and supply chain is provided along with future required research

The OCareCloudS project: toward organizing care through trusted cloud services

The increasing elderly population and the shift from acute to chronic illness makes it difficult to care for people in hospitals and rest homes. Moreover, elderly people, if given a choice, want to stay at home as long as possible. In this article, the methodologies to develop a cloud-based semantic system, offering valuable information and knowledge-based services, are presented. The information and services are related to the different personal living hemispheres of the patient, namely the daily care-related needs, the social needs and the daily life assistance. Ontologies are used to facilitate the integration, analysis, aggregation and efficient use of all the available data in the cloud. By using an interdisciplinary research approach, where user researchers, (ontology) engineers, researchers and domain stakeholders are at the forefront, a platform can be developed of great added value for the patients that want to grow old in their own home and for their caregivers