Challenges associated with project teams in managing variations on construction projects

Variations on construction projects are very common and managing them is very significant. Challenges to project teams in managing variations generally retard the progress of a construction project. Such challenges affect all parties involved including the client, consultant and contractors, the impact of how badly it affects the project as a whole depends on the degree of the challenges to the team characteristic in question. The aim is therefore to examine the challenges in managing variations in a team setting. A questionnaire survey was conducted to rate 20 challenges identif ied from literature with the members of some selected construction project teams. The study used purposive sampling in choosing construction teams and some selected projects. The data was subjected to principal component analysis to reduce the challenges into further groupings. The analysis generated six factor groupings namely ‘weak management skills’, ‘divergent motivating interest’, ‘problems with coordination’, ‘Inflexibility attributable to lack of trust’, ‘communication difficulties’ and ‘bureaucratic barriers’. The paper concludes with a discussion of the challenges from the results and draws implications for future research

Potential Use of Communications and Project Management Systems in Remote Construction Projects: The Case of Saudi Electric Company

Remote projects have their unique problems that are caused mainly by the remoteness of the project itself thus the loose control over management. This is due to a number of reasons such as lack of human resources and infrastructure. Research studies that were undertaken worldwide - regarding this issue- has highlighted few unique management problems. The aim of this paper is to investigate how far the IT tools would help in managing remote construction projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Due to the lack of previous research regarding remote projects within the Gulf region and the KSA, a pilot study was conducted in 2009 to define and test the wording of questions that are part of the main survey. The main survey was undertaken on Saudi Electric Company (SEC). The study found that IT systems and tools have the potential but this potential is hindered by a number of technical, managerial, staff factors. Therefore, successful application of IT systems would require changes to the present management settings at various levels. This would ensure that the SEC is capable of achieving the full benefit from using these advanced systems

Virtual collaboration: improving communication in the South African construction industry

A research report submitted to the School of Construction Economics and Management Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of Witwatersrand 15 February 2018This thesis aims to explore the impact of virtual communication among professionals within the South African construction industry by analysis of responses to a distributed questionnaire and interviews which will highlight trends and hindrances to effective communication. It hopes to answer the key question of key factors affecting virtual communication from a global perspective to that of the current South African state in order to improve future forms of ICT to maintain and enhance global competitiveness. To date, many construction organisations are autocratic and have a hierarchical organisational structure, which is often static and unable to change to current market needs. However, there is a growing trend for organisations to form specialised decentralised teams. These units are dynamic and are more flexible with knowledge transfer allowing their organisation to adapt to the ever changing global market. One particular adaptation in the construction industry is in information communication technology (ICT) which has resulted in organisations becoming more globally competitive. ICT is becoming more widely used in the construction project life cycle. While the development of virtual collaborations has allowed for companies to be globally competitive, there are areas in need of improvement such as communication and information processing. The use of current communication methods and processes are technologically driven and do not consider the individual’s psychological aspects. Social interaction within a workplace is important with a move away from autocratic information dissemination. These aspects have a direct effect on project delivery efficiency; productivity of labour force; as well as quality of the final product. There is a distinct shift in the use of different media for communication and effective those medium has proved to be. The reluctance to change and how quickly individuals adapt to technological advancements also impact on the efficiency of communication.MT 201

Knowledge Management, Information Technology and Learning in Construction Projects

ICT (Information and Communication Technology) usage in construction is limited when compared with other industries. This may be due to the unique characteristics of the construction industry and the tendency for late take-up of ICT solutions. The amount and diversity of information created and referenced during a typical construction project is considerable. Most people working in the construction business have been involved in projects where costs have enormously exceeded the budget, where timetables have caused problems, and where the end results have been useless or even unhealthy for people. The KM (Knowledge Management) in construction projects fails, and there is no commitment to improve the process even if productivity in the industry is very low compared to other industries. Construction professionals work in complex and heterogeneous networks of human beings and various artefacts. Productive participation in knowledge-intensive work requires that both individual professionals and their communities and organisations continuously transform their practices, develop new competencies, advance their knowledge and understanding, as well as produce innovations and create new knowledge. This present thesis is a case study conducted within the Prolab project in Vaasa University. This study deals with the issues and problems of knowledge management in construction projects. The focus is in construction ICT and solutions that have emerged in this field. There are five published articles that relate to these themes. The empirical part for this study comes from the Prolab project interviews in five demanding public construction projects. The informants were project stakeholders; end-users of the buildings, such as nurses and teachers; architects and special designers; as well as project managers and contractors. My conclusions are that the knowledge processing tools are in use but they are not used in as centralized or intelligent way as they could be. It seems that the solutions are not interoperable because of technical problems. In addition, I found problems related to inefficient information flow, lack of communication and project participants not being ready to utilize the modern technologies, as well as to the lack of centralised KM strategy. In order to improve the process, construction companies must integrate learning with dayto-day work processes in such a way that they not only share knowledge but also provide access to knowledge at any level. The knowledge portal systems that include BIM (Building Information Modelling) operations and perceive user and business requirements are one way to innovative project management systems. Continual discussion between customer and the application provider is necessary for the best results.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Aplicação de modelo de colaboração apoiada por tecnologia da informação para projetos de construção civil na Prefeitura de São José dos Pinhais

Orientador : Prof. Dr. Sergio ScheerCo-orientadora : Profa. Dra. Maria do Carmo Duarte FreitasDissertaçao (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Tecnologia, Programa de Pós-Graduaçao em Construção Civil. Defesa: Curitiba: 2012Bibliografia: fls. 143-153Area de concentração : GerenciamentoResumo: O desenvolvimento de um empreendimento de Construção Civil torna?se complexo devido à quantidade de participantes com interesses individuais e com diferentes formas de expressão e interpretação de informações. A abordagem da Colaboração auxilia a definição de objetivos comuns e o comprometimento entre as partes, e a Tecnologia da Informação (TI) atua como estrutura de suporte para os relacionamentos, devido a suas características de apoio à comunicação, representações gráficas e desenvolvimento de projetos. Essa dissertação tem por objetivo aplicar um modelo de Colaboração apoiada por TI no Processo de Projeto de Construção, relacionando os motivos que levam as partes a colaborar, a estrutura necessária e os aspectos da TI que podem servir de suporte. O método usado é a Modelagem, que é composta de uma pesquisa teórica, para definição do constructo adaptado inicial, e um estudo de campo para validação prática, que, para esta pesquisa, foi realizada junto aos Departamentos da Prefeitura Municipal de São José dos Pinhais. Os resultados obtidos apresentam oportunidades de reflexão quanto à gestão colaborativa de projetos públicos e confirmam que aspectos organizacionais e comportamentais são relevantes para entender melhorias geradas por uso de TI por equipes de projeto.Abstract: The development of Civil Construction projects became complex because of the amount of participants with individual interests and different ways of information expression and interpretation. The Collaboration approach helps the definition of common goals and the commitment between the parties, and the Information Technology (IT) acts like support structure for that relationships, because of IT features to strength communication, graphic representation and design development. This dissertation has the goal to apply an ITsupported Collaboration Model for the Construction Design Process, relating the reasons to parties' collaboration, the structure needed and the IT aspects for support. The method used is the Modeling, which consists of a theoretical research, for the initial framework adaptation, and a field study for practical validation, which, for this work, was realized in the Departments of São José dos Pinhais city council. The results show opportunities to reflect about collaborative management of public projects and confirm that organizational and comportamental issues are relevant to understand improves generated by TI usage by project teams

Comunicação e gestão de obras: a dinâmica textos/conversações baseado no estudo de dois empreendimentos habitacionais

Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia Civil, Florianópolis, 2010Nos últimos anos, tem ocorrido um intenso debate na literatura da área da construção, em relação a teorias que permitam compreender o que é e como se desenvolve a gestão de obras. Nesse debate, o tema comunicação tem se destacado. De forma a contribuir com essa discussão e considerada a importância dos programas habitacionais, a tese teve como objetivo elaborar uma estrutura teórica que descreve a relação entre a gestão de obras e o processo de comunicação, no contexto de empreendimentos residenciais financiados. Apesar de haver uma discussão recente que considera a comunicação na gestão de obras, o trabalho reconhece e apresenta uma concepção diferenciada para a relação entre esses dois fenômenos, considerada mais adequada, para explicar a inter-relação entre comunicação e gestão de obras. A partir de uma revisão na área de conhecimento da comunicação organizacional, verificaram-se concepções importantes que permitem ampliar e incluir elementos ainda não explorados nas abordagens e propostas recentes para a gestão de obras. Nessa perspectiva, se desenvolveu uma compreensão da relação entre gestão de obras e comunicação como um processo de organização das ações da obra, em que um conjunto de agentes representantes de diferentes níveis hierárquicos se coorientam em torno de um objeto comum, por meio da construção e trasmissão de significados e alinhamento das intenções, através da dinâmica contínua de tradução de textos em conversações e de conversações em textos. Essa concepção é empregada em um contexto da construção civil, a execução de empreendimentos habitacionais financiados, através de dois estudos de caso longitudinais. Nesses estudos são descritos os processos de comunicação, observados como um discurso, manifestado em textos e conversações, antes e durante a execução das obras. Como resultado final é apresentado um modelo específico, que no caso de obras habitacionais financiadas, demonstra a existência de particularidades dos programas de financiamento, que influenciam o processo de comunicação, através da criação e transferência de significados específicos na dinâmica textos/conversações, associados ao processo de formatação do empreendimento e à liberação dos recursos ao longo da execução da construção

Model for assessment of trust within virtual project teams of construction sector in the Middle East

The globalisation and changing customer needs in the Middle East required many construction companies to adopt virtual project teams for their business activities and is facing number of challenges. The Middle East is a multicultural region and hence, it’s very important to understand the phenomenon of these virtual project teams who relate across multiple cultures. A great deal of literature has pointed on the importance of trust as a facilitator of positive relationships among project stakeholders and affecting the performance of the virtual project teams. It has been found through comprehensive literature review that lack of trust among team members greatly affects the performance of the team. The studies also revealed that not much has been explored on trust building among virtual team members especially in the context of the Middle East. This research work aimed to identify key factors affecting trust in virtual project teams of construction sector and to develop a model to analyse the impact of these factors on trust of virtual teams in the context of Middle East. The comprehensive literature review of virtual project teams and existing models of trust, though not in context of the Middle East, helped in identifying various variables of trust. Both the quantitative and qualitative techniques are used in this research. The development of online questionnaire provided inputs from 403 professionals (team members and team leaders) from the virtual project teams of the Middle East. The analysis of this data through various statistical software such as IBM SPSS and AMOSv22 contributed to the identification of factors (drivers and barriers) of trust and testing of hypothesis. The model of trust evolved was validated through the semi-structured interviews of project managers and team members of virtual project teams of the construction sector of the Middle East. The ISM methodology was used to understand the relationships between various factors of trust. The IRP technique helped to identify four benefits of trust and helped to rank the various factors of trust according to the benefits of trust with respect to the construction projects of the Middle East. The key findings resulted from this research was that the degree of communication among virtual project teams, characteristics of team members, organizational culture of the company and cohesion among team members enhances the building of trust among virtual project teams and hence better performance of the team. Further especially in context of the Middle East, the research concluded that the diversity of the team members - functional or cultural- does not affect negatively in the development of trust. Further to this, the task- based and process based conflicts actually help the team to fulfil the organizational goals whereas the relationship based conflicts results in ego issues which creates distrust among the virtual project team members. It has been found that the leadership skills of superior and task- technology fit does not have any affect in the building of trust. Also the results showed that the teams should be mix of experienced and fresh team members. Therefore, this model of trust offered practical guidelines to senior management and project managers of Architectural/ Engineering / Construction Companies for managing the virtual project teams in construction sector and enhancing their performance in the virtual projects. This model definitely added value to the existing knowledge on virtual project teams