Towards the sustainable construction through minimizing site waste in Sri Lanka

The term ‘Sustainability’ is one of the critical issues that caused multiple repercussions in the global arena. The concept focuses economic, social and environment well being of a whole nation and there is an identical link between construction activities and the environment. Construction products and processes create considerable impact on the environment and it is significant to protect the environment for our future generations too. Construction site waste is one of the big issues that diminishes the environment soundness. Therefore minimization of site waste is becoming extremely attractive to management as a strategy to save costs while improving overall sustainability. The success in site waste reduction usually depends upon worker awareness and the commitment of the management. Most of the construction firms are not aware of waste minimization strategies at all. Therefore it is inevitable to suggest some ways or strategies for construction firms to reduce construction site waste. Identification of types and sources of waste would lead to suggesting ways and strategies to reduce construction site waste. Further, it was identified that poor performance of workers directly contributes to the generation of waste in construction. This paper is focused on how environment sustainability could be achieved through minimizing site waste and the factors that affected the generation of site waste in the Sri Lankan context. A comprehensive literature survey and a structured questionnaire survey were carried out to achieve the research aim of this study. Keywords - Construction Materials, Labour, Site Waste, Sri Lanka, Sustainable Construction

Construction work and the worker : a comparative study of craft & mass scale technologies in building construction

During the twentieth century the construction industry, its products and technology have changed drastically. Studies carried out on the same or equivalent products of construction have showed clear differences in the nature of technology used in the production process. The construction industry is inherently labour intensive and many challenges arise through a need to maintain a skilled and competitive workforce. Two distinct forms of construction, the ancient craft-oriented form and modern mass scale form are commonly deployed within the construction industry. This comparative study, in respect of these two technologies, upon the nature of work and the worker, has revealed some differences in number of parameters such as skills, experience, supervision, rules and regulations, autonomy, deference and aggression. For these parameters there is a close relationship between the nature of work and the worker personality. Craft workers have more autonomy, which result in more skill, experience and responsibility in the work process. The dominating personality traits of deference and aggression in Mass Scale technology facilitate more management influence through supervision and rules and regulations

BIM adoption within Australian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) : an innovation diffusion model

Despite the envisaged benefits of BIM adoption for SMEs, BIM in SMEs has remained an underrepresented area within the available academic literature. This study proposes and draws upon a framework grounded on innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to provide an illuminating insight into the current state of BIM and the main barriers to BIM adoption within Australian SMEs. Based on analyses of 135 questionnaires completed by SMEs through partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and grounded on the proposed framework, the current state of BIM adoption and barriers to BIM adoption for SMEs are discussed. The findings show that currently around 42% of Australian SMEs use BIM in Level 1 and Level 2 with only around 5% have tried Level 3. It comes to light that lack of knowledge within SMEs and across the construction supply chain is not a major barrier for Australian SMEs. In essence, the main barriers stem from the risks associated with an uncertain return on investment (ROI) for BIM as perceived by key players in SMEs. The findings also show the validity of the framework proposed for explaining BIM adoption in Australian SMEs