Factors Affecting the Performance of Labour in Nigerian Construction Sites

The paper identified some factors perceived to be negatively affecting the performance of construction labour and also examined how these factors vary from site to site in the Nigerian construction industry. To achieve this, structured questionnaires were administered on contractors and labour (operatives) on forty construction sites in the study area to sample their opinions. A Likert statistical technique was employed for the analysis in this perspective. The result indicated that unfair wages (RI = 0.89), negative influencing factors (RI = 0.85) and lack of motivation (RI = 0.79) were ranked high by the labour while the contractors ranked lack of training (RI = 0.84), poor communication (RI = 0.79) and inclement weather (RI = 0.71) as being affecting the performance labour in this respect. It was recommended, among other things, that contractors must study the peculiarities of their workers and identify their main motivator

Survey data on factors affecting negotiation of professional fees between Estate Valuers and their clients when the mortgage is financed by bank loan: A case study of mortgage. valuations in Ikeja,Lagos State,Nigeria

In this article,two sets of questionnaires were administered to professionals and clients(commercial banks)on their willingness to negotiate the professional fees charged by the Estate Valuers assuming that the mortgage in valuation was financed by bank loan. A range of fees options were provided.Other factors such as the business environment and mortgage valuation can influence the negotiated fees when the data obtained from the survey data is analyzed

Causes And Effect Of Delay On Project Construction Delivery Time

Delay is one of the biggest problems often experienced on construction project sites. Delays can instigates negative effects such as increased costs, loss of productivity and revenue many lawsuits between owners and contractors and contract termination. The aim of this project is to investigate the causes and effects of delay on building construction project delivery time. Random sampling technique was used in this study. Population sample of 150 was used in this work. A total sample of ninety three (93) was deployed. A structured questionnaire in Likert scale was used in data collection. There are many factors that induce delay on construction projects, however in some of identified factors includes: lack of funds to finance the project to completion, changes in drawings, lack of effective communication among the parties involved , lack of adequate information from consultants, slow decision making and contractor’s insolvency, variations among others. Also, project management problem, mistake and discrepancies in contract document, equipment availability and failure, mistakes during construction, bad weather, fluctuation in prices of building materials, inappropriate overall organizational structure linking to the project and labour. The factors above could be observed and could be a clue to preventing delay on construction sites

ASSESING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MAINTENANCE PRACTICES IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The Maintenance management sector in public section in Nigeria has suffered from lack of funds and negligence for a period of time. The education sector was not spare of the menace as well; huge amount of money is often invested in the provision of infrastructure in the sector while the aspect of maintenance is often neglected. Therefore in this study assessment of the effectiveness of maintenance practices in public schools was carried out using Kaduna state of Nigeria as case study. The sampling survey was limited to the existing institution. A total of eighty (80) questionnaires were administered. Eighty (80) copies of the drafted and approved questionnaires were administered with the aim of achieving the following: To assess the operational (physical-functional condition) of public schools in Kaduna state as carried out by the maintenance department. Mean item score and simple percentage was used to process the data. To examine the effectiveness of maintenance practices strategy used in maintaining the buildings. To determine the prevailing method of executing maintenance practices and study its efficiency either by direct labour or contract. To ascertain the factors that militates against. From data analysis. It was observed that lack of proper phasing of maintenance workload can give rise to uneconomical maintenance management practice. It was also observed from analysis, that some major variables lead to the inefficiency and in effectiveness of the maintenance projects includes: the occurrence of poor contract management, lack of availability of materials and the incidence of in accurate estimate. KEY WORDS: Maintenance, Practice, Effective, Assess

Neural Network-Ant Colony Optimization Model of Residential Building Project Cost: Exploratory Approach

Neural network and ant-colony are two important tools that could be used to provide solution in situation of multivariate environment that requires pareto optima solutions. In this study therefore, combination of neural network and ant colony method was used to generate an optimization cost model. Neural network is a conventional method currently being used in cost modeling, given its advantage over traditional regression method. It is based on this, that this study used the combination of neural network and regression method to model cost of residential building projects. One hundred and fifty (150) samples of residential building projects were selected at random and divided into two; one part is used in developing network algorithm for neural network and ant colony, while the second part is used for model validation. Neural network is used to generate which was divided into modules: the data optimization module, criteria selection with initializing and terminating modules. Regression analysis was carried out and model validated with Jackknife re-sampling technique and previously developed ant colony model (MOACO, MOTACO and MAWA). The co-linearity analysis indicates high level of tolerance and -0.0756 lowest variation prediction quotients to 0.8678 highest variation quotients. Also the Regression coefficient (R-square) value for determining the model fitness is 0.069 with standard error of 0.045. These results attests to the fitness of the model generated. The model is flexible in accommodating new data and variables, thus, it allows for continuous updating. Keywords: Expert system, Co-linearity, Informatics, Residential-Building

Recycling of some selected building materials in the construction industry: Prospect and challenges

The importance of recycling cannot be overemphasized, it decongests items in environment which tends to constitutes pollution nuisance while providing opportunity for reuse of such items, also items recycling returns environment to the state of its naturalness. It is against this background that the study attempt at studying recycling of some selected building materials within the context of their benefits, conceptualization, and awareness about concept of recycling and waste generated. Random sampling technique was used to select the respondents sample and research location. Lagos State, Nigeria, was chosen as research location construction companies and landfills within the state and sample procedure would be as stated above. Seventy (70) Structured questionnaire was used to harvest opinion of people on the subject matter. Also, field research was conducted, field research entails taking data from existing landfills in sites of established waste collection organizations, that is, existing organizations that run recycling operation. Mean Item Score and simple percentage were used to process harvested data. In summary It was discovered that the response to the economic effect of recycling where the purchase of product made from recycled material ranked 1st with a 0.862 index, the next was the participation in recycling for the creation of jobs which ranked 2nd with an index of 0.837, next was their opinion on the construction industries benefits from the recycling industry which ranked 3rd with an index of 0.81 and Participation in recycling for financial reward which was ranked 4th with an index of 0.735. Also discovered was the quantity of materials wasted on the various sites and even though the quantity was low in most of the cases, it still reiterated the need for recycling of construction and renovation waste. From the above stated finding it is important to state that the study was extremely important as it provides information on the method of recycling all the wasted materials instead of carting them away to landfills. Approach to recycling of waste has been presented in this study, it is a believe that this could serve as an awareness about concept of recycling household and environmental wast

Repositioning Technical Education a Panacea to Solving Globalization Challenges in Construction Sector

Globalization has created a wind of change that has eroded landscapes of economy of nations of the world. Globalization era has led to emergence of new engineering ideology, concepts, tools, machines as well as systems and procedure. In some places, private economy drive has been left to private sector while government provides policy and ideology formulation interphase. Technical education is one of the areas affected by this phenomenon and in turn, the construction sector, thus the need for its repositioning towards quality delivery. Technology education is at the forefront of providing landscape training towards individuals being produced by the sector having thorough understanding of their place in contributing to the economic growth of construction sector. Thus, technical education need to be repositioned further to enable more relevance of its products to their environment. Therefore, the study considered repositioning technical education towards solving globalization challenges in building sector. In order to achieve this, sampling technique was used in this study, 120 structured questionnaire, designed in Likert scale form, on scale 1 to 5, was used for the study. It was discovered that repositioning the technical education in developing economy like Nigeria would involve taking the following position; overviewing of the current curriculum, running technical-based education, introducing cutting edge equipment and tools, technology transfer, technical symbiotic relations among economic drivers, adjustment of government policy, training and retraining issue, preventing discriminatory tendencies between technical based vocations and non-technical based jobs, emphasizing technical competence and partnership between education institutions and industry. The study concluded by recommending the following as a solution: infrastructure, research, adequate funding, technology incubation center and training/retraining for the practitioner

STATISTICAL MODELING OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CITESCORE AND JOURNAL PERCENTILES OF BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION JOURNALS

Building and construction are one of the major subject categories in Scopus, Elsevier. Building and construction journals are journals that publish articles and review papers in all areas of building, construction, structures, construction materials, civil engineering, and building and construction management amongst others. This paper proposes a modified quartile model which can be used to predict the journal percentile using the CiteScore as the independent variable. The model evaluation metrics signal a good fit and the proposed model yielded journal percentile (JP) close to the original JP. The knowledge of the CiteScore can now be used to predict the percentile and by extension, the quartile of journals in building and construction in Scopus or Web of Science

Lean Thinking and Industrial 4.0 Approach to Achieving Construction 4.0 for Industrialization and Technological Development

The construction industry is responsible for the infrastructural and physical development of nations and plays a pivotal role in determining economic equilibrium of nations of the world; hence, there is a need for constant evolving of advanced ways of carrying out construction operations. The concept has led to the evolution of Construction 4.0, which entails harmonizing disruption in technological applications to enhance construction productivity. The study, therefore, provides an attempt at evolving an enhanced approach to improve construction processes and resource management through application of lean construction and Industry 4.0. The purposive sampling method was used in this study to collect data. The data collection instrument consists of a structured questionnaire designed in a Likert scale of 1 to 5 distributed to 100 construction professionals through an online method that is actively involved in construction operations. The following parameters were censored and profiled, while the results are in tables and charts. The parameters include areas of lean thinking that could enhance Construction 4.0, areas of disruption in Industry 4.0 that influence Construction 4.0 advancement and parameters for practical integrating of lean thinking approach and Industry 4.0. Additionally, the influence of Industry 4.0 in technological development for the construction industry, disruptive innovation of Industry 4.0 and gains towards Construction 4.0. Furthermore, the relevance of Construction 4.0 in construction productivity, the importance of Construction 4.0, industrial application drivers in achieving Construction 4.0, future of Construction 4.0, achieving automation goal in construction and performance expectation of lean thinking and Industry 4.0 in the construction industry are found necessary. Simple percentage, Spearman rankings, Chi-square test, Student-T test, Mann–Whitney-U test and Relative Agreement and Importance index are the tools used to process the data. The study discovered, among others, the veracity of contingency approach in harnessing attributes of the lean thinking concept and disruptive applications in achieving Construction 4.0. The study recommends the application of the hybrid model suggested in the study as a guide to deployment of an application that could help in industrial productivit

Neural Network and Econometric-Based Utility Parameter Model for Cost Management of Building Projects

The aim of the study is to develop a project cost centre utility parameter-based econometric model that incorporates econometric parameters using neural network. Construction cost of residential building projects was used in this study. Random sampling technique was used to select projects completed between 2009 and 2011 , and were examined for their cost centres validity. Final construction cost (As-built cost) of selected four hundred (400) projects were further modified with econometric factors like inflation index, cost entropy and entropy factor and were used to form and train neural network Back propagation neural network algorithm used. Probability technique was used to generate risk impact matrix and influence of entropy on the cost centres. In this study a parametric model similar hedonic models was generated using the utility parameters within the early and late elemental dichotomy. The developed model was validated through comparative analysis ofthe econometric loading attributes of the variables involved, using Monte Carlo technique of SPSS software by extracting the resultant contingency coefficient. This attribute would help client, project team and contractor manage cost of construction, also, it would enable a builder or contactor load cost implication of an unseen circumstance even on occasion of deferred cost reimbursement and hel