A Proposed Framework for Changing the Safety Culture within the UK Construction Industry

In recent years, the importance of a positive safety culture has been emphasized as a key factor in improving safety performance. The term ‘safety culture’ first emerged in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and has since been regarded as having a significant impact on safety. This paper reviews the literature on safety culture within the UK construction industry in an attempt to develop a conceptual framework that can help change people’s attitude towards safety. It first identifies the existing research into the causation of accidents on construction sites and then discusses the three dimensions of the research framework, namely, the social, technical and the managerial safety culture

A new framework for determining productivity factors in construction sites

The productivity level within the construction industry is of direct interest to site managers and project management teams. Different researchers have tried to determine the factors that influence productivity but no general agreement could be made. The aim of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework on site productivity. Five major groups of independent variables, namely, project characteristics, labour characteristics, management system, resource management and the external environment are identified as crucial to site productivity. Based on these groupings, a conceptual model is to be developed to represent causal relationships. Once identified, this relationship is believed to be a useful piece of information to implement a project more productively

Critical success factors of project management

Although project management has proven its success in construction as a procurement method, there are problems associated with the manner in which the system has been selected and/or implemented that have led to project delays and cost overruns with low client satisfaction. The objective of the study was to identify the factors that contribute to the success and failure in project management system, particularly in the case of large projects. 159 questionnaires from experienced personnel in construction engineering companies were statistically analysed to establish a theoretical framework, which was validated by referencing to 32 detailed case studies obtained from the interviews of the key personnel involved. The results suggested that the overall performance of project management as a procurement system is high, although the analysis revealed that it performed better in cost and quality than in time. The study also identified the factors that have significant impact on the success and failure of large projects, with results indicating that a project can be viewed as a combination of four interdependent sub-systems that relate to the strategic, structural, technical, and managerial aspects driven by the project management team

A guide for selecting the appropriate procurement method for a project based on client's criteria

It is an axiom of construction management that a project may be regarded as successful if the building is delivered at the right time, at the appropriate price and quality standard, and achieving a high level of client satisfaction. Increasingly, the achievement of these criteria has been associated with the problem of procurement methods. In short the selection of the appropriate method can shape the success of the project. Procurement method is a mechanism for linking members of the building team together in a special communicating relational network throughout the building process from design right through to construction and completion. This relationship is both functional and contractual: functional via roles, authority and power; contractual via responsibilities and risks. This paper is based on an MSc dissertation by Pour (2010). It presents and analyses data obtained from a questionnaire-based survey carried out amongst professionals working in the UK construction industry regarding the selection of building procurement methods. 11 utility factors were established from 33 professional practitioners and a multi-attribute decision-making model was developed using Microsoft Excel. This model provides a mechanism that allows procurement methods to be assessed against a set of possible client requirements, by rating how well the procurement method can satisfy those needs. Clients and consultants can use this model to decide which procurement method is the most suitable for their projects