89 research outputs found
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The uptake of BIPV within a project environment: the practicalities of integrating solar technologies into the building projects
Whilst the technical challenges of incorporating new technologies into buildings are continually discussed, the managerial challenges are less well understood. The issue is acute as many of these complex technologies such as advanced building skins (ABS) are integrated with the building structure, rather than being bolt-on additions. Building integrated photovoltaic technologies (BIPV) are an example of ABS and pose challenges for construction professionals. Research has until now understood BIPV through idealised project management processes, but with little empirical research. Using a socio-technical approach, this research aims to understand the âreal worldâ of construction projects and to explore how practitioners make BIPV integration a reality. This research follows three building projects where BIPV was specified, following the negotiations, decision making and institutional logics, which play out. The implications of project management demands and conventions on the integration of the technology are explored, identifying institutional obstacles to integrating BIPV into the building. Findings include changing interests and requirements shaping the technology, friction interfaces between the technology and the other building elements and conflicting priorities of project management conventions and technical details. The importance of this research is to deconstruct the practicalities of incorporating BIPV into building projects so that construction professionals, technology developers and suppliers can understand the challenges and opportunities occurring as ABS are integrated into the building envelope
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Striving for inclusive design in the built environment: learning strategy adopted by policy implementers at local authorities in England
The research will explore views on inclusive design policy implementation and learning strategy used in practice by Local Authoritiesâ planning, building control and policy departments in England. It reports emerging research findings. The research aim was developed from an extensive literature review, and informed by a pilot study with relevant Local Authority departments. The pilot study highlighted gaps within the process of policy implementation, a lack of awareness of the process and flaws in the design guidance policy. This has helped inform the development of a robust research design using both a survey and semi-structured interviews. The questionnaire targeted key employees within Local Authorities designed to establish how employees learn about inclusive design policy and to determine their views on current approaches of inclusive design policy implementation adopted by their Local Authorities. The questionnaire produces 117 responses. Interestingly approximately 9 out of 129 Local Authorities approached claimed that they were unable to participate either because an inclusive design policy was not adopted or they were faced with a high workload and thus unable to take part. An emerging finding is a lack of understanding of inclusive design problems, which may lead to problem with inclusive design policy implementation, and thus adversely affect how the built environment can be experienced. There is a strong indication from the survey respondents indicating that they are most likely to learn about inclusive design from policy guides produced by their Local Authorities and from their colleagues
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The co-development of technology and new buildings: incorporating building integrated photovoltaics
Current approaches for the reduction of carbon emissions in buildings are often predicated on the integration of
renewable technologies into building projects. Building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) is one of these technologies and brings its own set of challenges and problems with a resulting mutual articulation of this technology and the building. A Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) approach explores how negotiations between informal groups of project actors with shared interests shape the ongoing specification of both BIPV and the building.
Six main groups with different interests were found to be involved in the introduction of BIPV (Cost Watchers,
Design Aesthetes, Green Guardians, Design Optimizers, Generation Maximizers and Users). Their involvement
around three sets of issues (design changes from lack of familiarity with the technology, misunderstandings from
unfamiliar interdependencies of trades and the effects of standard firm procedure) is followed. Findings underline
how BIPV requires a level of integration that typically spans different work packages and how standard contractual structures inhibit the smooth incorporation of BIPV. Successful implementation is marked by ongoing
(re-)design of both the building and the technology as informal fluid groups of project actors with shared interests address the succession of problems which arise in the process of implementation
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Perspectives on the specification of Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) technology in construction projects
Innovative, low carbon technologies are already available for use in the construction of buildings, but the impact of their specification on construction projects is unclear. This exploratory research identifies issues which arise following the specification of BIPV in non-residential construction projects. Rather than treating the inclusion of a new technology as a technical problem, the research explores the issue from a socio-technical perspective to understand the accommodations which the project team makes and their effect on the building and the technology. The paper is part of a larger research project which uses a Social Construction of Technology Approach (SCOT) to explore the accommodations made to working practices and design when Building Integrated PhotoVoltaic (BIPV) technology is introduced. The approach explores how the requirements of the technology from different groups of actors (Relevant Social Groups or RSG's) give rise to problems and create solutions. As such it rejects the notion of a rational linear view of innovation diffusion; instead it suggests that the variety and composition of the Relevant Social Groups set the agenda for problem solving and solutions as the project progresses. The research explores the experiences of three people who have extensive histories of involvement with BIPV in construction, looks at how SCOT can inform our understanding of the issues involved and identifies themes and issues in the specification of BIPV on construction projects. A key finding concerns the alignment of inflection points at which interviewees have found themselves changing from one RSG to another as new problems and solutions are identified. The points at which they change RSG often occurred at points which mirror conventional construction categories (in terms of project specification, tender, design and construction)
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Identifying energy savings opportunities for a multi-use venue building
Multi-use venue buildings are an extreme example of buildings with flexible use. Such buildings have high
occupant diversity factors and inconsistent occupant-building interaction leading to highly changeable
demands of the building services. Intensive monitoring of a case study multi-use venue building was carried
out in order to analyse its energy performance and identify energy saving opportunities. Results
are presented from three distinct uses of the building, with each analysed as a separate case study. The
analysis focused on exploring relationships between variables for each event; identifying multiple energy
savings opportunities. Poor building management system (BMS) scheduling led to 49% of total gas use
across all three events being estimated as waste, whereas inappropriate set points accounted for 7%.
Event organiser behaviour led to 6% of total electricity across all three events estimated as waste,
whereas inflexible controls accounted for 2%. Based on these results, venue building managers may find
that prior knowledge of building activity and more accurate occupancy hours could yield significant energy
savings through proactive energy management
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Duration and cost variability of construction activities: an empirical study
The unique nature of construction projects can mean that construction activities often suffer from duration and cost variability. Because this variability is unplanned, it can present a problem when attempting to complete a project on time and on budget. Various factors causing this variability have been identified in the literature, but they predominantly refer to the nature and/or context of the whole project rather than specific activities. In this paper, the order of magnitude of and correlation between activity duration and cost variability is analyzed in 101 construction projects with over 5,000 activities. To do this, the first four moments (mean, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis) of actual versus planned duration and cost (log) ratios are analyzed by project, phase of execution, and activity type. Results suggest that, contrary to common wisdom, construction activities do not end late on average. Instead, the large variability in the activity duration is the major factor causing significant project delays and cost overruns. The values of average activity duration and cost variability gathered in this study will also serve as a reference for construction managers to improve future construction planning and project simulation studies with more realistic data
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Competitive strategy and the role of narrative infrastructure: the case of Turkish contractors
This paper is about competitive strategy in the international construction sector. Drawing
on the ânarrative turnâ in organisation studies, it emphasises the temporal and discursively
constructed nature of competitive strategy. Competitive strategy narratives are seen to
provide a means of understanding the formation and enactment of strategy. The empirical
analysis focuses on the narrative infrastructure as produced by the Turkish Contractors
Association (TCA). The findings highlight the multi-actor and multi-level processes of
strategy making. They further illustrate the way in which narrative building blocks that
are continuously mobilized as part of the on-going progress of strategizing on the sectorial
level. The nuances of the identified narrative building blocks are seen to reflect the
complexity and diversity across individual accounts of strategy making
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Sustainable construction: exploring the capabilities of Nigerian construction firms
As the built environment accounts for much of the world's emissions, resource consumption and waste, concerns remain as to how sustainable the sector is. Understanding how such concerns can be better managed is complex, with a range of competing agendas and institutional forces at play. This is especially the case in Nigeria where there are often differing priorities, weak regulations and institutions to deal with this challenge. Construction firms are in competition with each other in a market that is growing in size and sophistication yearly. The business case for sustainability has been argued severally in literature. However, the capability of construction firms with respect to sustainability in Nigeria has not been studied. This paper presents the preliminary findings of an exploratory multi-case study carried out to understand the firm's views on sustainability as a source of competitive advantage. A international firm and a lower medium-sized indigenous firm were selected for this purpose. Qualitative interviews were conducted with top-level management of both firms, with key themes from the sustainable construction and dynamic capabilities literature informing the case study protocol. The interviews were transcribed and analysed with the use of NVivo software. The findings suggest that the multinational firm is better grounded in sustainability knowledge. Although the level of awareness and demand for sustainable construction is generally very poor, few international clients are beginning to stimulate interest in sustainable buildings. This has triggered both firms to build their capabilities in that regard, albeit in an unhurried manner. Both firms agree on the potentials of market-driven sustainability in the long term. Nonetheless, more drastic actions are required to accelerate the sustainable construction agenda in Nigeria
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Historical narratives as strategic resources: an analysis of the Turkish international contracting sector
The Turkish contracting sector has an enviable reputation for operating in high-risk international markets. The sectorâs ability to respond to market instability could meaningfully be construed as sectoral-level capability. We aim to demonstrate how history can be mobilised in a formalised âstrategy textâ to create a strategic narrative on the sectoral level. The Geography of Contractors as published by the Turkish Contractors Association (TCA) ostensively portrays the strategic development of Turkish international contractors over four decades. Such quasi-historical narratives are routinely mobilised for the purposes of creating a shared memory on the sectoral level. The chosen strategy text draws from multiple narrative fragments derived from past experience to generate a strategic agenda for the future. The representation given to multiple voices reflects the pluralistic nature of strategy making praxis. The overarching strategy narrative reflects a performative intent in legitimising some practices whilst discrediting others. Narrative analysis demonstrates the way in which actors, actions and events are positioned within a plot structure, with direct implications for the enactment of future strategic practices. The findings suggest that strategic actions can only ever be identified in retrospect, and that such arguments are always made with an eye on the future
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Do projects really end late? On the shortcomings of the classical scheduling techniques
Many engineering projects fail to meet their planned completion dates in real practice. This is a recurrent topic
in the project management literature, with poor planning and controlling practices frequently cited among the
most significant causes of delays. Unfortunately, hardly any attention has been paid to the fact that the classical
scheduling techniquesâGantt chart, Critical Path Method (CPM), and Program Evaluation and Review
Technique (PERT)âmay not be as fit for purpose as they seem. Arguably, because of their relative simplicity,
these techniques are still almost the only ones taught nowadays in most introductory courses to scheduling in
many engineering and management degrees. However, by utterly ignoring or inappropriately dealing with activity
duration variability, these techniques provide optimistic completion dates, while suffering from other
shortcomings. Through a series of simple case studies that can be developed with a few participants and
common dice, a systematic critique of the classical scheduling techniques is offered. Discussion of the case
studies results illustrate why limiting the contents of scheduling education and teaching can be detrimental, as the
aforementioned classical scheduling techniques cannot not provide project managers with sufficient resources to
effectively plan and control real projects
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