The modern way of performing construction management responsibilities

Digital technologies are becoming increasingly wide-spread both in our personal and in our professional lives. This change has been evident also in the construction industry, although the industry has been identified as one of the least digitalised industry sectors. This research investigates how various digital technologies have become and are becoming part of construction management responsibilities. Construction management responsibilities have been identified through a document analysis as eight responsibility groups including management of time, cost, quality, health and safety, environmental factors, resources, and contracts, and development of human resources and processes. Construction management related digital technologies on the other hand have been identified through a document analysis and a systematic literature review and categorised under communication and other enabling technologies, technologies combining hardware and software in intelligent systems, and data technologies. The way how the construction management responsibilities and the digital technologies interlink forms a description of the modern way of performing construction management responsibilities. Some of the technologies are in everyday use across construction management professionals, however, many are at their pilot stage offering a perspective not just to the present but to the near future for the whole discipline.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

Collaborative multidisciplinary learning : quantity surveying students’ perspectives

The construction industry is highly fragmented and is known for its adversarial culture, culminating in poor quality projects not completed on time or within budget. The aim of this study is thus to guide the design of QS programme curricula in order to help students develop the requisite knowledge and skills to work more collaboratively in their multi-disciplinary future workplaces. A qualitative approach was considered appropriate as the authors were concerned with gathering an initial understanding of what students think of multi-disciplinary learning. The data collection method used was a questionnaire which was developed by the Behaviours4Collaboration (B4C) team. Knowledge gaps were still found across all the key areas where a future QS practitioner needs to be collaborative (either as a project contributor or as a project leader) despite the need for change instigated by the multi-disciplinary (BIM) education revolution. The study concludes that universities will need to be selective in teaching, and innovative in reorienting, QS education so that a collaborative BIM education can be effected in stages, increasing in complexity as the students’ technical knowledge grows. This will help students to build the competencies needed to make them future leaders. It will also support programme currency and delivery

Practical challenges of BIM education

© 2016, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Purpose: Building Information Modelling (BIM) is becoming the new norm in the AEC industry and also part of many construction project management (CPM) programmes. The purpose of this paper is to address the difficulty and challenges in walking the narrow line between an industry-ready BIM and a BIM that is good for student learning and offers a realistic and practical, but simultaneously achievable, learning environment. Design/methodology/approach: An action research was conducted in an undergraduate CPM education setting. Findings: Key challenges encountered were availability of appropriate teaching and learning resources for BIM; finding the balance between theory and practice, technology and process, and traditional and emerging CPM methods; and facilitating staff’s professional development. Closer look was given to the teaching and learning resources for BIM. Theoretical resources that are available for education in the form of books, articles and websites are easy and straightforward to locate. Likewise, a good share of various tools are available for educational purposes. On the other hand, actual building models represent a challenge in terms of preparing and optimising usage of the model for high-quality educational purposes. Several different approaches for obtaining BIM resources were identified with various challenges and benefits. Originality/value: The results and recommendations will assist educators to better understand and overcome the practical challenges related to BIM education, especially those related to teaching and learning resources

Challenges facing BIM education: development of appropriate teaching and learning resources

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is becoming the new norm in the AEC industry and also part of many construction project management (CPM) programmes. In terms of teaching BIM there is the need for specific resources in explaining the theoretical principles of BIM, BIM tools (authoring, audit and analysis) and building models themselves. Theoretical resources that are available for education in the form of books, articles and websites are easy and straightforward to locate. Likewise a good share of various tools are available for educational purposes. On the other hand, actual building models represent a challenge in terms of preparing and optimising usage of the model for high quality educational purposes. This paper addresses the difficulty in walking the narrow line between an industry ready BIM versus a BIM that is good for student learning and offers a realistic and practical, but simultaneously achievable learning environment. Conducting a case study in an undergraduate CPM education setting, three approaches for obtaining BIM resources were identified with various challenges and benefits. A combination of internally developed models for early exposure and industry models for later courses is proposed

BIM education : case New Zealand

This article is a first step in a longitudinal research in New Zealand context to identify what impact national education approaches have on uptake of BIM education in individual tertiary institutes. Although BIM and BIM education as research topics are on rise, there is limited research on national approaches and their impact on width and depth of BIM education and through that graduate capabilities and BIM adoption by the industry. Case study approach has been selected to investigate first the challenges encountered by the tertiary institutes, how these can be addressed at national level and in later stages what the impact has been to the width and depth of BIM education and graduate outcomes. Only a limited number of countries such as United Kingdom have introduced national approaches to BIM education. In New Zealand National BIM Education Working Group (NBEWG) was established in December 2014. The group has representatives from eight tertiary institutes who have strong interest in including BIM as part of their programmes. NBEWG promotes integration of BIM into all architectural, engineering and construction programmes in New Zealand by providing national curriculum guidelines and guidance in adopting BIM curriculum. A survey was conducted among the institutes to identify the key challenges encountered in BIM integration. Among these were knowledge and skill gaps among faculty, crowded curricula, and limited time for development wor

Development of a collaborative training partnership in the NZ construction industry

In 2015 a first tier New Zealand commercial construction company approached the Department of Construction at Unitec regarding the company’s professional development training. The primary aim was to focus on introducing a more collaborative best practice approach in a competitive construction environment to some 300 middle management onsite construction staff over a 4 - 5 year period. The company was seeking a partnership with an innovative tertiary provider to offer specific professional development expertise, and give effect to the company’s strategy for ongoing and accelerated growth. The delivery approach needed to have the greatest possible impact on staff in terms of engagement and knowledge transfer. How was this academic - industry partnership built? In this first part of the research, the philosophical and practical approaches, timelines applied by both parties, the steps of how the partnership was developed from the initial interviews through to the developed successful partnership are described. The preparation and delivery of this practically based, real - time bespoke programme alongside the learnings will be described in later stages of the research in a series of publications

Health behaviours associated with video gaming in adolescent men:a cross-sectional population-based MOPO study

Abstract Background: Playing video games, a form of sedentary behaviour, is associated with poor well-being and increased risk of morbidity due to chronic disease. However, the association between health behaviours and video gaming is poorly understood. The purpose of this population-based study was to reveal the differences in dietary habits and physical activity for adolescent men with high amount of video games on weekdays, as compared to their peers who play less often. Methods: Seven hundred ninety-six adolescent men (age: mean = 17.8, SD = 0.6) attended compulsory conscription for military service in 2013 and completed a questionnaire regarding the amount and frequency of their video gaming. They also participated in a medical examination and underwent physiological measurements. The participants who played video games more than 3 h/d on weekdays were compared with those who played 3h/d or less. The association between health behaviours and the amount of playing video gaming was analysed using multivariable logistic regression analysis. Results: 24.1% (n = 192) of the participants reported video gaming in excess of 3 h/d. This group had higher incidence of having low physical fitness, having poor eating habits, and being obese. No differences were found in smoking or alcohol drinking habits. Other factors, including low leisure-time physical activity (OR = 1.94; 95% CI, 1.29–2.91), low consumption of vegetables and fruits (OR = 0.83; 95% CI, 0.72–0.97), high consumption of sweetened soft drinks (OR = 1.28; 95% CI, 1.06–1.55) and high amount of sitting time (OR = 1.40; 95% CI, 1.28–1.52), explained one-fourth of the difference. Conclusion: In this population-based study, adolescent men who played video games a lot on weekdays had lower physical fitness, were more often obese, and had poorer dietary habits, as compared to their peers who played less often. Because playing video games typically adds to a person’s total sedentary time, this activity may be associated with adverse health outcomes at a very young age— especially in combination with poor health behaviours. The results of this study can be utilized to promote health interventions targeted at adolescent men so as to raise their awareness of the disadvantages of excessive video gaming