A scientometric review of global BIM research: Analysis and visualization

In the recent years, building information modeling (BIM) has transformed the architecture, engineering, and construction industry, and attracted attentions from both researchers and practitioners. However, few studies have attempted to map the global research on BIM. This study conducts a scientometric review of global BIM research in 2005–2016, through co-author analysis, co-word analysis and co-citation analysis. A total of 614 bibliographic records from the Web of Science core collection database were analyzed. The results indicated that Charles M. Eastman received the most co-citations and that the most significant development in BIM research occurred primarily in the USA, South Korea and China. Additionally, BIM research has primarily focused on the subject categories of engineering, civil engineering and construction & building technology, and the keywords “visualization” and “industry foundation classes (IFC)” received citation bursts in the recent years. Furthermore, 10 co-citation clusters were identified, and the hot topics of BIM research were: mobile and cloud computing, laser scan, augmented reality, ontology, safety rule and code checking, semantic web technology, and automated generation. This study provides researchers and practitioners with an in-depth understanding of the status quo and trend of the BIM research in the world

Evolution of construction risk management research: historiography and keyword co-occurrence analysis

Purpose – This study collected the bibliographic data of 2034 journal articles published in 2000–2021 from Web of Science (WoS) core collection database and adopted two bibliometric analysis methods, namely historiography and keyword co-occurrence, to identify the evolution trend of construction risk management (CRM) research topics. Design/methodology/approach – CRM has been a key issue in construction management research, producing a big number of publications. This study aims to undertake a review of the global CRM research published from 2000 to 2021 and identify the evolution of the research topics relating to CRM. Findings – This study found that risk analysis methods have shifted from simply ranking risks in terms of their relative importance or significance toward examining the interrelationships among risks, and that the objects of CRM research have shifted from generic construction projects toward specified types of construction projects (e.g. small projects, underground construction projects, green buildings and prefabricated projects). In addition, researchers tend to pay more attention to an individual risk category (e.g. political risk, safety risk and social risk) and integrate CRM into cost, time, quality, safety and environment management functions with the increasing adoption of various information and communication technologies. Research limitations/implications – This study focused on the journal articles in English in WoS core collection database only, thus excluding the publications in other languages, not indexed by WoS and conference proceedings. In addition, the historiography focused on the top documents in terms of document strength and thus ignored the role of the documents whose strengths were a little lower than the threshold. Originality/value – This review study is more inclusive than any prior reviews on CRM and overcomes the drawbacks of mere reliance on either bibliometric analysis results or subjective opinions. Revealing the evolution process of the CRM knowledge domain, this study provides an in-depth understanding of the CRM research and benefits industry practitioners and researchers

Enterprise risk management in construction companies: Recent trend

Editorial for Journal of Steel Structures & Construction, volume 2, issue 2

Construction risk management research: Intellectual structure and emerging themes

This study aims to undertake a holistic review of global construction risk management (CRM) research published between 2000 and 2021 and identify the intellectual structure and emerging themes of the CRM research. A total of 2034 primary documents and 68727 secondary documents were collected from Web of Science core collection database. Document co-citation and bibliographic coupling techniques were adopted with qualitative discussion to show the intellectual structure of the CRM knowledge domain and emerging themes. The CRM knowledge domain consists of the key themes relating to CRM steps, RM in construction projects with specified characteristics, RM in international construction and management of particular risk categories. In addition, the emerging themes include advanced risk analysis techniques, information and communication technology-driven CRM, integration of CRM into other management functions, as well as human factors in CRM. This review study is more inclusive than any prior reviews on CRM and provides an in-depth understanding of the CRM research and benefits industry practitioners and researchers

Modelling risk paths for BIM adoption in Singapore

Building information modelling (BIM) adoption involves risks that inhibit users from obtaining its benefits. The objective of this study is to model the paths of risks associated with BIM adoption in the context of Sin-gapore. To achieve the objective, 16 risks categorized into nine groups were identified from a literature re-view, and a questionnaire survey was conducted with 42 professionals in Singapore. The hypothetical risk paths were tested using partial least square-structural equation modelling. The results confirmed the risk cate-gorization and supported seven significant risk paths, which further formed four chains of risk paths. “Data ownership issue” and “inadequate relevant knowledge and expertise” were the root risks in two chains of risk paths, suggesting that they were the primary source of all the other risk categories and should be emphasized. “Data ownership issue” can either directly result in “cost overrun with BIM”, or indirectly caused cost overrun through “poor information sharing and collaboration”, “low data quality”, and “liability for data input”. The findings of this study enable practitioners to understand the risks associated with BIM adoption, take measures to mitigate the root risks, and assure the potential benefits of BIM

Stakeholder-associated factors influencing construction and demolition waste management: A systematic review

Construction and demolition (C&D) activities generate a large amount of waste and have significant impacts on the environment. Thus, it is necessary to implement C&D waste management (WM), which requires the involvement of stakeholders and is influenced by a variety of factors. This study aims to undertake a systematic review of the stakeholder-associated factors influencing C&D WM. The Scopus search engine was used in a literature search, and two rounds of screening were performed. Only journal articles or reviews that were published in English after 2000 were used in this study. A total of 106 journal articles were reviewed. The review identified 35 stakeholder-associated factors influencing C&D WM and categorized them into six groups: regulatory environment, government and public supervision, advances in technologies, recycling market, knowledge, awareness, attitude, and behaviour of stakeholders, and project-specific factors. All the 35 factors are discussed in detail with considerations into relevant stakeholders. Although there have been studies focused on the factors influencing C&D WM, few have attempted to take stakeholders’ perspectives into consideration. This study expands the C&D WM literature by mapping the influential factors with relevant stakeholders and enables the practitioners to clearly understand their roles and responsibilities and make better informed decisions in the C&D WM proce

Applying a fuzzy consensus scheme to enhance the group decision making of a building envelope design team

This study applies a fuzzy consensus scheme integrated with a multicriteria decision making method and fuzzy set theory to mitigate groupthink and disagreements among members of a building envelope design team. This fuzzy consensus scheme consists of freezing conditions and a standardized procedure to govern group decision making. The study employs a case study as a research design to test effectiveness of the fuzzy consensus scheme in mitigating groupthink and disagreements among the building design team members. In the case study, the design team is engaged and then tasked to apply the fuzzy consensus scheme when assessing different building envelope designs of a representative building project. A semi-structured interview is conducted to collect perspectives of the design team members regarding the effectiveness of the fuzzy consensus scheme applied in the case study in relation to their previous experience in similar actual projects. Results from the case study suggest that the fuzzy consensus scheme is useful in promoting group cohesiveness and generation of a variety of decision solutions. The scheme also assists the team members to express their opinions, listen to each other voices, and seek the optimal solutions that everyone in the team agrees with. These as a whole help mitigate both groupthink and disagreements among the teammembers. The main contributions of this study lie in the achievement of more effective group decision making and agreed design solutions. Future studies can incorporate the fuzzy consensus scheme into decision support tools to promote integration among project team members in several project development phases

Factors influencing student progression in built environment and engineering programs: Case of Central Queensland University

In higher education, progression should be conceptualized in multiple dimensions, rather than just the institutional statistical view. The objectives of this research are to identify the multiple domains of progression and examine the effects of variables influencing progression. To achieve these objectives, a questionnaire survey was performed with 218 students in built environment and engineering programs at Central Queensland University. The majority of these students use distance learning. This research proposes a concept of progression with four domains: subject, qualification, career, and professional progression. Also, 17 variables that influence progression were identified and categorized into three factors: information technology (IT) adoption, interaction, and personal pressure. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data, and the results indicated that personal pressure negatively influenced progression, while interaction contributed to progression. Although IT adoption did not directly influence progression, it positively influenced interaction and thus indirectly influenced progression. Finally, a framework was developed to describe interrelationships among the influential variables and progression. The implications drawn from the analysis results allow academic staff and university management to take actions to enhance student progression, which contribute to the practice. In addition, the method adopted in this research can be employed in other research of a similar nature. This study can significantly contribute to the literature relating to progression in higher education by proposing a more holistic concept of progression and identifying the interrelationship among the variables influencing progression

Trust and the intent to cooperate in energy performance contracting for public buildings in China

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the key factors in generating trust, and the effects of trust on the intention to cooperate in energy performance contracting (EPC), from the perspective of energy saving companies (ESCOs). Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire survey was undertaken to collect the data from the experienced project managers in ESCOs. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses. Findings: The results revealed that competence, integrity, communication, reciprocity and contract had positive effects on calculative trust and relational trust. Both calculative trust and relational trust, in turn, were found to have positive effects on the intention to cooperate. Research limitations/implications: The conclusions are derived from the Chinese cultural background and may apply to a certain geographical scope. In addition, this study focused on the perspective of ESCOs but did not consider that of facility owners. Practical implications: This research would supply guidance for facility owners or users to cultivate trust from ESCOs and achieve cooperation in EPC. Originality/value: Most of the existing studies have focused on the perspective of facility owners while few have attempted to investigate the perspective of ESCOs. This study contributes to the knowledge body relating to EPC by investigating the relationship between trust and the intention to cooperate from the perspective of ESCOs. In addition, most EPC studies recognized trust as a condition for the successful execution of EPC projects but failed to consider the role of trust in setting up the cooperation relationship prior to project execution

Research on the life cycle design thinking for public construction projects

By and large, public construction projects require a host of investment and social resources, have long operation phases and a great number of users, and exert great influence on the environment, society and economy as well. Hence, in the design phase, it is necessary to pay great attention to the problems which are likely to take place in the construction and operation phases of public construction projects. Based on the review of the research on the Life Cycle Design for products in manufacturing industry, and taking the characteristics of public construction projects into consideration, this paper proposes the conception of the Life Cycle Design thinking for public construction projects, and enumerates nine strategies for the Life Cycle Design thinking, including design for reliability and safety, design for maintenance, design for human, and design for constructability, design for scale-enlarging, design for energy-efficiency, design for recycling, design for emergency and design for life cycle costs optimization. Moreover, this paper discusses the symbol of the final implementation of the Life Cycle Design thinking for public construction projects, and brings forward a process framework to carry out the Life Cycle Design thinking and fulfill the overall objective of the project. This process framework consists of the correspondence between the nine strategies above and the Objective Breakdown Structure of the construction project, the special requirements for the designers, the tendering strategies, the adoption of the constructive suggestion from constructors and even potential users, the effective and efficient communication, and the normal operation of public construction projects as well