Success evaluation factors in construction project management : some evidence from medium and large portuguese companies

The construction industry plays a very important role in the Portuguese economy. In 2009, it was among the top five economic sectors, representing 13% of total employment. Nevertheless, project failures are still frequent mainly due to inadequate management practices and to the intrinsic characteristics of projects of the construction industry. Even though Portuguese construction has improved in recent years, cost and schedule overruns, low productivity and final product quality problems are still common. In this context, project management is a crucial tool for improving construction operations and for the overall success of projects. The aim of this article is to contribute to the discussion on success evaluation factors in a field where little has been written – the construction industry. Through a survey of 40 medium and large Portuguese companies several factors were identified which are currently considered in the evaluation of project success, as found in the literature review. The results show that the traditional factors, often referred to as the “Atkinson elements triangle” (cost, time and quality), are still the most relevant for evaluating the success of a project, but others, such as customer involvement and acceptance, have gained importance in recent years

Latent provisions for building information modeling (BIM) contracts: a social network analysis approach

The effective adoption and use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) require appropriate contract design to fairly allocate the contracting parties’ rights and responsibilities. Several standards for BIM protocols and contracts have been developed for the industry. However, the awareness and the use of these are rather limited, leading to unclear provisions in BIM contracts. Therefore, the research aims to identify the influential legal aspects that serve as the latent contract provisions in BIM contracts. A questionnaire survey was conducted to survey experts and active BIM users in construction projects. The data were analyzed using social network analysis (SNA) by assuming interdependent relationships among various the legal aspects in BIM contacts. The key legal aspects associated with BIM contracts pertain to the roles and responsibilities of the project participants. The results also reveal that data security is the center of all latent legal aspects in the contracts. The study provides significant new insights into clarifying the required contract provisions in BIM contracts

Causes of delay and cost overrun in Malaysian construction industry

The construction industry in Malaysia drives the economic growth and development of the country. However, the industry is plagued with delays and cost overrun which transforms what should have been successful projects to projects incurring additional costs, disagreements, litigation and in some cases abandonment of projects. This research studied the causes of delays and cost overrun in the industry and ranked them according to their perceived importance to the contractors, with a view to establishing those to be addressed by the contractors. Online questionnaires were used for data collection for this research. A total of 69 responses were analysed using principal component analysis (PCA) (factor analysis) to identify the main causes. The result of the analysis showed that delay in preparation of design document, poor schedule and control of time, delay in delivery of material to site, lack of knowledge about the different defined execution methods, shortage of labour and material in market, and changes in scope of work were the main causes of delay and cost overrun. The identified causes if properly addressed would reduce the rate of delays and cost overrun in construction projects, thus enhancing the economic growth and development of the country

A framework for supporting planning and development of infrastructure projects from a societal perspective

Abstract Capital projects are the backbones of our society and they must go through an evolutionary process of repeated planning and analysis cycles. Ensuring a building is structurally sound, or that a tallest building will add a new image to a city is not enough: new infrastructure and urban development must be rationalised in their planning, design and operations ensuring fitness-for-purpose and adequate societal value contributions (e.g. local resource utilisation, community wealth creation etc.) within the community. In order to ensure value creation and complete social acceptance, projects must be planned and developed by aligning the needs and requirements of the wider community proactively. This research develops an experimental framework aiming to facilitate holistic decision making on capital projects. Adopting the Social Network Analysis (SNA) based innovative methodology, a framework for quantifying social value in infrastructure projects has been demonstrated. Based on an Australia case study, the process of integration of representative community views of extended stakeholders over planning, development and operation phases in capital projects has been highlighted. Social Network Analysis (SNA) is considered to be one of the highly appropriate research methods for enquiring the complex patterns of interactions between stakeholders associated with the capital projects. The new framework will potentially assist in replacing the traditional top-down planning processes and promoting sophistication in developing socially responsive infrastructure within built environment

Rural construction management for developing economies: Implications for professional education - the case of Assam

The authors are engaged in a three-year project, funded by the State of Assam, India, to develop new postgraduate qualification in construction management for Assam, and to research housing and infrastructure strategies aimed at improving rural life. This inter-cultural collaboration mirrors a common arrangement in international development assistance in which an institution from the Global North is invited to assist an institution from the Global South. However, the historical relationships between the North and South, and the way in which they play out in such arrangements has been critiqued from multiple perspectives. The North-South divide is rooted in colonial history, is based on a privileging of the North over/against the South, and works to place the South at a perpetual disadvantage. These privileges are often replicated in the historical-given curricula of post-colonial universities. It is important in undertaking this work for Assam that these historical influences be analysed and critiqued, in order to decolonise the curriculum. This paper outlines the process by which the Project seeks to identify Assamese problems and interests, source useful examples globally, and collect and synthesise them to create products that are tailored to Assam. The key findings: standard professional education is Eurocentric and does not relate to the construction needs of Assam's population, helps drive rural-urban and South-North brain drain. Nascent models are available to counter these tendencies, and can be studied to inform Assam-centric construction management education

BOT application in China: Driving and impeding factors

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Towards a smart decision support framework for sustainable planning and operation of critical infrastructure for climate change

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The Practice of Stakeholder Engagement in Infrastructure Projects: A comparative study of two major projects in Australia and the UK

The soaring interests of the community in public infrastructure projects demand rigorous scrutiny of the performance of projects in a social context. While planning of capital intensive infrastructure projects usually undergo numerous iterations before being considered as a viable project, how such projects are perceived by the wider public depends on the efficiency in community participations and communication of relevant information in the planning and development phase of the project. There are numerous examples of some of the otherwise important infrastructure projects being considered a ‘failure’ due to lack of appropriate public support. Thus, objective integration of the wider community and effective information communication across the issues associated with the project development are highly crucial. There is currently no single approach for rationalising the planning and development policies of the infrastructure projects by ensuring complete integration of community and management of their expectations in the societal context. This study attends to this gap in knowledge by investigating the practice of stakeholder integration in the planning and development of infrastructure projects. Adopting Social Network Analysis (SNA) as the research method, we examined two large infrastructure tunnelling projects, one from Melbourne, Australia and another from London, UK. Based on a questionnaire survey and semistructured interviews, responses have been gathered from the representative groups and organisations on the frequency of their communication and their satisfaction with the information exchange with other stakeholders. The analysis highlighted the position of various stakeholders within the communication and satisfaction networks across six main project issues. The concept of centrality was particularly helpful in locating stakeholders who are well connected in the network, brokered across disconnected groups, and formed ties with other influential stakeholders. The analysis also underlined ‘peripheral’ and ‘isolated’ stakeholders. The analysis of the communication and satisfaction networks of the case project from Melbourne, known as East West Link project, reveals that the key actors nodes namely the promoter, sponsor and local authority are located in the periphery with respect to the six broad issues being considered in the project. This is due to an inefficient communication network between the project authorities and the wider community which resulted in a significant mismatch of the project’s strategic intents with the public needs and expectations. Given that the project was halted by failures in stakeholder consultations, this serves to emphasise the importance of evaluating societal issues more thoroughly. In contrast, the network analysis on the Paddington station of the Crossrail project in the UK reveals that the key project actors, namely local authority, sponsor, delivery agents, industry partners and utility company, took the central positions in the respective network across all six project issues. This finding clearly asserts that Crossrail project enjoys a relatively higher degree of public support by aligning the strategic intents of the project with the public needs and expectations. Outcomes of this network study have resulted in a reference model that highlights the processes of mapping the stakeholders’ information exchanges on the project issues. Thus, the reference model depicts the processes of building social network models based on the capturing of the project’s data in relation to the stakeholders’ communication and satisfaction across the key project issues. The model is applicable on most public projects with a diverse stakeholder base and the underlying complexity associated with the community participation and consultation processes. The model aims to assist policy-makers, practitioners and stakeholders in understanding and managing consultation activities in the planning of capital projects. The network information will enable a better understanding of how the overall network is functioning which is crucial for infrastructure planning initiatives that aim to influence stakeholder behaviour through the identification and mobilisation of key actors. It will also support wider stakeholder engagement in the planning of large infrastructure projects with optimal operationalisation and service delivery from a community perspective. It is worthwhile to note that the relative comparison of one project with another in relation to winning the public support in a social context has been based on the network measures of the participating actors in two key networks, communication frequency and satisfaction in the communication exchanges. These two networks were assessed on six broad project issues. Further enquiries could be made by extending the scope of the research with more project issues and numerous other network dimensions such as risks and impact networks, information received versus information sent networks, stakeholders’ interest networks etc

Defining Domestic Environmental Experience for Occupants’ Mental Health and Wellbeing

This study was stipulated by today’s limited living conditions of middle income households in Bangladesh who have economic constraints that contribute to hindering improvement of their existing domestic settings that may affect occupants’ mental health and wellbeing. The design of domestic living environments tend to influence occupants’ emotions, feelings and moods. Thus, domestic environmental experiences need to be examined and incorporated into architectural design decisions. To understand the notion of such experiences, this study reviewed literatures concerning the related domains extensively. This study found the significant impact of domestic environments on human perceptions. Each design of domestic settings affects occupants’ emotional responses positively or negatively. Through this study, the term domestic environmental experience was defined as users’ experiences of cognitive perceptions and physical responses to their domestic built environment. In addition, it led to proposing the composition of domestic environmental experiences that need to be correlated with architectural design solutions. Nonetheless, this study did not examine the correlation where the emerging notion of Environmental Experience Design (EXD) may serve as the mediator. Accordingly, this new horizon of EXD research needs to be explored further with the aim to improve domestic built environments in Bangladesh which were the original driver of this research