Causes of delay in construction projects: The case of oil and gas projects

Successful implementation of construction projects is one of the key factors for economic development of every country. Every year, a major part of the countries’ capital is allocated to civil and infrastructure projects, most of which are implemented with delay. Construction projects are often criticized for overrunning time and budgets. Analyzing the factors causing delay is essential with the aim of omitting them and timely implementation of these projects. Research to identify the reasons and causes of delays have been conducted in different countries and by various researches. In this paper, various research has studied different factors affecting construction projects delays have been studied. These factors have been identified in four groups consisted of owner, consultant, conductor, and other factors. Moreover, on account of the importance of oil and gas projects, the mentioned factors for these kinds of projects are taken into consideration. The results showed that change orders and changes in scope of work by owner, delay in reviewing of documents by consultant, inadequate experience and knowledge and errors during construction by contractor, and low productivity of laborer have been indicated as key factors comparing with the other as crucial factors causing delay in the oil and gas construction projects

An application of Soft System Methodology

AbstractThe typical course timetabling problem is assigning Classes of students to appropriate faculty members, suitable classrooms and available timeslots. Hence, it involves a large number of stakeholders including students, teachers and institutional administrators. Different kinds of Hard Operational Research techniques have been employed over the years to address such problems. Due to the computational difficulties of this NP complete problem as well as the size and the complexity of the real world instances, an efficient optimal solution cannot be found easily.As an alternative strategy, this paper investigates the application of Checkland‘s Soft System Methodology (SSM) to the course timetabling problem. Besides giving an ideal course timetable, even to large and complex real problems, application of SSM, generates debate, learning, and understanding; enables key changes; facilitates negotiating the actions to be taken and makes possible the meaningful collaboration among concerned stakeholders. This paper also provides an appropriate course timetable for the management faculty at University of Tehran to show the potential of this application to real problems

Evaluation model of project complexity for large-scale construction projects in Iran - A Fuzzy ANP approach

Construction projects have always been complex. By growing trend of this complexity, implementations of large-scale constructions become harder. Hence, evaluating and understanding these complexities are critical. Correct evaluation of a project complication can provide executives and managers with good source to use. Fuzzy analytic network process (ANP) is a logical and systematic approach toward defining, evaluation, and grading. This method allows for analyzing complex systems, and determining complexity of them. In this study, by taking advantage of fuzzy ANP, effective indexes for development of complications in large-scale construction projects in Iran have been determined and prioritized. The results show socio-political, project system interdependencies, and technological complexity indexes ranked top to three. Furthermore, in comparison of three main huge projects: commercial-administrative, hospital, and skyscrapers, the hospital project had been evaluated as the most complicated. This model is beneficial for professionals in managing large-scale projects

Talent management in government organizations: identification of challenges and ranking the solutions to address them

Purpose: The main aim of this research is to rank and prioritize the solutions to address the challenges for the successful implementation of talent management (TM) in government banks in Iran. Design/methodology/approach: This paper has identified the challenges of TM implementation in government banks and proposed the solutions to address these challenges through a review of the extant literature. The identified challenges and solutions were ranked using two multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods called PROMETHEE and VIKOR based on the insights from 20 senior managers of government banks in Iran. Findings: The challenges and solutions were categorized into cultural, managerial, human resources and environmental-related factors. “Building culture of TM in organizations”, “making TM as an ongoing process in organizations”, “commitment of senior managers to TM process”, “managing TM pipeline” and “focusing on meritocracy in recruitment and selections” were ranked as the top solutions to address cultural, managerial, human resources and environmental challenges, respectively. Research limitations/implications: The findings can provide a comprehensive view of different types of challenges and solutions in the TM process for government organizations and institutions. It also provides helpful insights for top managers to define their organizations' strategies effectively and to implement the TM process by ranking and prioritizing the solutions to address their challenges. Originality/value: The main contribution of this study is to develop a comprehensive framework in which, identification of different types of challenges in the implementation of TM processes can be addressed and the approaches to remove or mitigate the effects of these challenges are ranked by using two well-established MCDM techniques.</p

Performance Assessment of Iranian Gas Transmission Company’s Operational Zones through a Hybrid Method of DEA – WASPAS – SWARA

One of the most known subjects in management literature is performance assessment. In this paper, we have tried to provide a hybrid model in order to evaluate the performance of Iranian gas Transmission Company's operational zones. After an initial screening, due to the low number of Decision making units, different combination of two input and one output are defined. 6 inputs and 4 output criteria have been chosen in initial screening. Based on the experts' judgments, weights or importance of different combinations of input and output extracted using SWARA technique. Then, based on the 22 different combinations, we calculated operational zones efficiency using DEA in the form of CCR and BCC models. In fact for each combination of two input and one output, efficiency for each operational zone has been calculated. Finally, there has been a decision matrix which its’ criteria were equal to different combinations of input and output criteria and their weights gained by SWARA and scores within the matrix were equal to taken efficiency from DEA. In order to calculate final efficiency and prioritizing each operational zone WASPAS technique is used. We use Cohen's kappa coefficient in order to prioritizing validation. The results show that zones 10, 7 and 6 with the highest efficiencies can be appropriate pattern for other zones in resource savin