Digital Construction Strategies and BIM in Railway Tunnelling Engineering

Technology has been a strong driver for industrial efficiency in the twenty-first century. Rapid growth in infrastructure projects such as tunnels is synonymous with both disruptive and supportive technologies that automate operations. The sector has rapidly risen to the challenge from buyers demanding a more digitalised experience when looking to (re)design new tunnels. Currently there are projects in the United Kingdom, Greece and Italy investing in tunnels for their transport networks to help commuters to travel quicker. We could argue that construction has evolved because the tunnels developed nowadays are expected to last for several generations but such an argument is count intuitive. Think of having to spend billions of pounds for a tunnel that does not provide an enhanced travel experience and in a few years’ time requiring a major investment to remodel in order to operate it. This chapter discusses what, why and how digital construction can add value during the lifecycle of a tunnel

Smart Airport : Mobile Asset Information Modeling Management based on Gamificative VR Environment-A Case Study of Ningbo Lishe International Airport Staff Restaurant

Acknowledgments We would like to convey our gratitude to MIT Ningbo Supply Chain Innovation Institute and Ningbo Airport Group Co., LTD, for their full support for the research.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Identifying and assessing complexity emergent behaviour during mega infrastructure construction in Sub-Saharan Africa

Acknowledgements and Financial Disclosure The private PhD scholarship awarded to Iliyasu Abdullahi is declared as funding not resulting in any conflict of interest. All authors would like to thank the editor and anonymous referees for their useful comments, which increase this article’s value, and helped to position this study in relevant literature.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Building information modelling to support maintenance management of healthcare built assets

Purpose: This research investigated how digital capabilities associated with Building Information Modelling can integrate a wide range of information to improve built asset management decision making during the in-use phase of hospital buildings. Research methodology: A comprehensive document analysis and a participatory case study was undertaken with a regional NHS hospital to: review the type of information that can be used to better inform BAM decision making; to develop a conceptual framework to improve information use during the healthcare built asset management process; to test how the conceptual framework can be applied within a BAM division of a healthcare organisation; and to develop a cloud-based BIM application. Findings: BIM has the potential to facilitate better informed built asset management decision making by integrating: a wide range of information related to the physical condition of built assets; resources available for built asset management; and the built asset’s contribution to healthcare provision within an organisation. However, interdepartmental information sharing requires: a significant level of time and cost investment; and changes to information gathering and storing practices within the whole organisation. Originality/value: This research demonstrated that the implementation of BIM during the in-use phase of hospital buildings is different to that in the design and construction phases. At the in-use phase BIM needs to integrate and communicate information within and between the estates, facilities division and other departments of the organisation. This poses a significant change management task for the organisation’s information management systems. Thus, a strategically driven top-down organisational approach is needed to implement BIM for the in-use phase of hospital buildings

Impact of integrated collaborative technologies to form a collaborative culture in construction projects

Purpose – Research has shown that the lack of forming team collaboration works as a barrier in the use of collaborative technologies such as Building Information Modelling. So, there is a need to investigate whether and how integrated collaborative technologies have an impact on team collaboration between stakeholders, including clients, in the planning, design and construction stages. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – In order to investigate this interrelationship, researchers used a survey methodology involving gathering both quantitative and qualitative data, and used regression analysis to assess the strength of impact of integrated collaborative technologies on team collaboration. For the qualitative data researchers used content analysis. Findings – Findings show that integrated collaborative technologies impact on team collaboration by assisting the development of a collaborative culture throughout a project. This collaborative culture is deployed due to access to information by stakeholders from anywhere at any time. In this culture environment, stakeholders can share and access knowledge and awareness about the project and thus gain common ground and understanding about the project brief. In addition, integrated collaborative technologies give stakeholders the capacity to control the project process, to enhance the interaction and networking project processes as well as to pre-identify and promptly respond to project errors and uncertainties. Originality/value – The value of this paper is to contribute in the identification and impact of collaboration culture in the architecture, engineering and construction secto

Association of Researchers in Construction Management

Over the years, the UK construction industry through several reports and enquires has been admonished to change its business approaches. Research points to the industry's adversarial culture and disjointed relationships as the major hindrance in achieving collaboration and improved performance within construction supply chains. Common factors include the traditional construction procurement strategies driven by a winlose mentality, competitive buyer-supplier relationships -pitting one supplier against another in order to achieve the optimum buy, and most significantly, loosely disseminated nature of information applications and exchange among project participants. Within this adversarial context, engagement with Building Information Modelling (BIM) and its philosophy is showing potential positive outcomes with regards to information exchange and collaborative working practices. This paper is based on a larger ongoing research project which aims to design a BIM-driven conceptual model for advancing collaboration and improved supply chain performance in UK construction projects. The research suggests that full deployment of the BIM concept possibly will greatly diminish the adversarial culture in the industry through promotion of collaborative working ideals. In turn, this will result in enhanced project supply chain performance thus, aligning with the objectives of the UK Government's construction strategy for 2016. Following this proposition, this paper based on a critical review of literature presents the essential elements required for the design of the proposed conceptual model, and its contributions to the construction management discipline

Impact of proactive behaviour antecedents on construction project managers’ performance

Purpose Many aspects of social behaviour are manifested in project managers in interaction with team members in the construction sector. Proactive behaviour as a social behaviour impacts on project and organizational effectiveness. This paper aims to explore and explain how project managers’ proactive behaviour could be enhanced in a project by the use of integrated collaborative environments. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach To investigate this interrelationship, researchers used a survey methodology involving gathering both quantitative and qualitative data, and used regression analysis to assess the strength of impact of proactive behaviour antecedents on project manages’ performance on a construction project when using integrated collaborative technologies. For the qualitative data, researchers used content analysis. Findings The research showed that by developing a proactive personality, the construction project manager is more likely to pre-identify “accurately” project time and costs, and to identify project culture, collaboration strategy and project risks. Moreover, co-worker trust as a proactive behaviour antecedent has been shown to impact on raising quality issues in a project. Furthermore, project managers’ flexibility could assist them in designing procurement strategies as well as designing a project business plan and avoiding conflict. Nevertheless, flexibility, including self-efficacy, control appraisal, change orientation, job autonomy and supportive supervision, plays a significant role in the development of proactive behaviour in construction project managers and enhances project performance. Research limitations/implications The sample is limited, but the research methodology is acceptable because the authors use mixed approach to check the correlation. Practical implications How project managers can use integrated collaborative technologies on developing their proactive behaviour and thus impacting project performance is observed. Originality/value The value of this paper is to contribute understanding of the impact of the use of integrated collaborative technologies on developing project managers’ proactive behaviour and thus impacting project performance

MECCA offloading cloud model over wireless interfaces for optimal power reduction and processing time

In this paper, the power consumption and the processing time of smartphones are estimated locally and then compared with the power consumption and processing time when the smartphone executes heavy tasks by offloading on WLAN, 3G, and 4G mobile systems. Different scenarios were tested for different file sizes and wireless network interfaces. The main parameter of the quality of service is the time needed to process the file on the cloud versus the time needed to execute the file locally on the smartphone, as tested by the MECCA (Mobile Energy Cloud Computing algorithm) model. The optimal saving in energy consumption of the smartphone has reached around 90% over the 4G system, while maintaining an approximately similar range of time consumption for similar file sizes. The most important issue is to save time while serving the file. However, it is important, especially for the small nodes, to decrease the power consumption during serving big files, which is normally very high. The cost of the power consumption on smartphone, processing time, and file size for the core cloud and local node, are calculated to extract an immediate input to the processing decision. The Wi-Fi results showed very short processing times comparatively but resulted in very high energy consumption

Hospital resilience-informed decision making: uncertainties and interdependencies

Hospitals are at the heart of the healthcare service and emergency planning. Disruptions in hospitals may inflict large consequences to health and safety of a community, especially in emergencies. Since hospitals’ services are essential for effective emergency and disaster response, breakdowns (or outages/interruption) may cause direct and/or indirect impact in the form of delayed or hampered response. Therefore, hospital resilience is negatively affected by uncertainties and interdependencies-induced threats and/or failures. The dependency/interdependency and complexity of the infrastructures, which provide services to hospitals, are numerous. This increases the risk of interdependency-induced failures to hospital services and the impacts can get propagated to people and society that use the hospital services. In addition to that, hospital operational uncertainties are inevitable and might also cause failure/interruption to hospital services. Hence, there is a need to identify and map these uncertainties and interdependencies for more resilience-informed decisions on hospitals’ operation in case of emergencies. In response to this need, this paper aims to introduce an integrated resilience-based framework in which hospital decision-making process is improved through a collaborative environment to cope with uncertainties and interdependencies-induced failures. Methodologically, a comprehensive literature review has been adopted to identify the external and internal interdependencies of a typical hospital and map them through system dynamic approach. In addition to this, the authors have theoretically assessed whether different digital construction technologies, such as Building Information Modelling technologies, could be used in order to identify, visualise and map the operational uncertainties. The study concludes that the idea behind this integrated operational framework could provide resilience-based strategies which actively contributes improving current practices in hospital organizations and also to introduce protocols (Business Continuity Plans) that help stakeholders to produce effective strategies in the case of disasters