An Exploration Of Causes For Delay And Cost Overrun In Construction Projects: A Case Study Of Australia, Malaysia & Ghana

Delay and cost overrun are the key problems of any construction projects. These issues are causing the negative impact on the development of country economic growth and prosperity. To overcome these issues, the paper is aimed to ascertain the most impelling factors causing the project delay and cost overrun, and highlight the possible measures so that the impact on construction projects could be reduced. Each country’s quantitative data from past studies was selected to analyse and recommend the effective measures. A questionnaire survey was conducted in all three case studies adopting different data collection strategies. The main reason of selecting three case studies is to outline the comparative analysis of delay factors and to classify these factors into different priority level of influence in project delay from country to country. The findings from three case studies exposed that the most influential factors in Australia are (1) planning and scheduling deficiencies, (2) methods of construction, (3) effective monitoring and feedback process, whereas in Ghana, (1) delay in payment certificates (2) underestimating of project cost, (3) complexity and size of projects are the most influential factors. However, in Malaysia (1) Contractor’s improper planning, (2) poor site management and (3) inadequate contractor’s experience are the most impelling factors causing project delay and cost overrun. This paper has also analysed the average and least impact of the delay factors causing project delay and cost overrun in those countries. The paper concludes that there are diverse groups of delay factors from one country to another country that cause the project delay and cost overrun. It also concludes that there are diverse measures according to the nature of delay factor are necessary to reduce the impact on project delay and cost overrun in the construction industry in both developed and developing countries

Earthwork planning and visualisation of time-location information in road construction projects

Accurate information of locations from visual aspect is vital for efficient resource planning and managing the workspace conflict in earthworks, which are missing in the existing schedules. Hence, the construction managers have to depend on the subjective decisions and intangible imagining for resources allocation, workspace and progress monitoring in earthworks. This has caused uncertainties in planning and scheduling, and consequently delays and cost overruns of projects. To overcome these issues, a framework of prototype model was developed using the theory of location-based planning. This paper focuses on case study experiments to demonstrate the functions of the model, which includes automatic generation of location-based earthwork schedules and visualisation of cut-fill locations on a weekly basis. The experiment results confirmed the model’s capability in identifying precise weekly locations and visualising the time-space conflict at the earthwork operations. Hence, the paper concludes that the model is useful to improve site productivity and reduce production cost of earthworks in the projects like roads and railways

Investigation of health and safety impact from the ‘Site BIM’ tools in the live construction sites

Construction in the UK is the second most dangerous industry in terms of fatal and minor injuries according to the 2014 report of HSE. The use of mobile devices such as iPad, Tablets and Smart phones on the live construction projects is also on the increase in the UK due to the 2016 - Level 2 BIM (Building Information Modelling) implementation target, set by the UK Government. Hence, the use of such devices may become a distraction from work activities on the construction sites and will cause a major risk to the end users. The subject of improving safety of BIM use is widely researched, but there is a gap in knowledge about the actual use of the mobile devices and perception of ‘Site BIM’, on the construction site activities. The main gap identified in the ‘Site BIM’ is the health and safety aspect of using such devices on the construction sites. A safer way of working with such devices needs to be identified to avoid any potential site hazards and fatalities before the widespread use of the devices are found on the construction projects. In that context, the paper is aimed to highlight the safety issues that are required to address for the successful implementation of the mobile devices for safer use of the ‘Site BIM’. Questionnaire survey was used to collect the site information among construction professionals in the UK. The survey findings suggested that a proactive approach may be helpful to stop potential hazards and risks causing by the use of mobile devices and potential measures need to be identified before any injuries and incidents occur. The paper concludes that training, changing size of mobile devices and ensuring a separate induction training for ‘Site BIM’ tools will improve the health and safety of the end users of the mobile devices at the live construction sites

An Innovative Approach for Improvement of Communications through Visual Schedule Model in Road Construction

Innovative Visualisation Technologies applied to construction simulation and optimisation have the potential to improve communications and coordination amongst the construction team. In this context and in the drive for innovation in the construction management, a framework for automatic generation and visualisation of construction processes in road construction has been conceived, designed and developed. The framework is composed of road design data, quantities of cut and fill, productivity models, algorithms for modelling ground profiles and road profile visualiser. The paper details a Visual Schedule Model (VSM) that has been developed in the course of this research to realise the framework outlined above. The model is currently being evaluated using real life case study. Conclusions and future development have also been presented

A study of unethical practices in the construction industry and potential preventive measures

The conflict of interest amongst the professionals like client and contractor’s project managers, site engineers, quantity surveyors and designers/architects play crucial roles for the unethical practices, consequently these practices have adverse impact on the product quality, faith of clients and investors’ confidence in the construction industry. Hence, this research is aimed at examining the common forms of unethical practices among professionals in the construction industry as well as revealing the key factors that have encouraged these practices. This study depends on the questionnaire survey amongst professionals of the construction industry. The survey is conducted to recognise the view of key stakeholders from different perspectives of the affected parties on the concept of business ethics in the building and construction industry, which play key role in contributing to the national economic growth of the countries. The survey concludes that untimely legal action including changing project manager’s responsibility and delays in payment processes are key ethical practices from owner/client aspect, while contractor’s unethical practices are under bidding, bid cutting and shopping, bid rigging and over billing. But from the consultant aspect; lack of supervision, poor monitoring and taking bribes under different pretend are found to be the encouraging factors for unethical conducts in the construction industry. It is also found that accepting the bribes, gifts and conflicts of interest are the most common forms of unethical practices. The findings from the study is expected to help as an important eye opener to policy makers and regulatory agencies in detecting and preventing unethical practices. In conclusion, avoiding the conflict of interest and promoting the ethic codes to professionals will help to restore the investor and people confidence, faith of the clients and improve the quality of buildings and infrastructures. The study recommends that promoting awareness regarding the values of ethical behaviour at different forum and ensuring the effective punishment for unethical activities at different stages of project life cycle might reduce the unethical practices in the construction industry

Improving Communication of Scheduling Information of Earthworks using 4D Visualisation Model in Road Projects

Innovative visualization technology applied to construction simulation and optimization has the potential to improve communications and coordination amongst the project stakeholders. In this context and in the drive for innovation in construction management, this paper introduces a framework of a 4D prototype for the automatic generation of visual terrain surfaces during earthwork construction processes. The framework has been designed and developed by integrating road design data, quantities of cut and fill, productivity models, algorithms for modelling terrain profiles and a road profile visualiser. The paper details the prototype of 4D visualization model (4DVM) that has been designed and developed in this research using innovative methodology where 4D models of terrain surfaces are generated based on coordinate data and the productivity of earthwork. The model has been demonstrated with a case study that was used to validate the model. The 4DVM is intended to assist project planners/construction managers in logical decision making processes for construction scheduling and resource planning. It will also improve the communication gap amongst the construction team and consequently improve site coordination and operation

Automatic generation and visualisation of location-based scheduling

Accurate and visual information of working locations is vital for efficient resource planning and location-based scheduling of earthworks, which is missing in existing linear schedules. Thus, construction managers have to depend on subjective decisions for resources allocation and progress monitoring from location aspects. This has caused uncertainties in planning and scheduling, and consequently delays and cost overruns of projects. A framework of prototype model was developed using the theory of location-based planning to overcome the above issues. This paper focuses on a case study experiments to demonstrate the functions of the model, which includes automatic generation of location-based earthwork schedules and visualization of cut-fill locations on a weekly basis. An arithmetic algorithm was developed by incorporating road design data, sectional quantities, variable productivity rates, unit cost and haulage distance. The model provides weekly information of locations, directions and cut-fill quantities of earthwork under different selections: construction sequences of cut/fill sections, site access points and equipment sets. The paper concludes that the model assists in identifying the correct locations and visualizing the space congestion during earthwork operations. Hence, project resources including heavy equipment and construction materials should be allocated more effectively and correctly from the location viewpoints and ultimately to improve site productivity and reduce production cost in linear projects

Why do we observe significant differences between measured and ‘back-calculated’ properties of natural fibres?

The drive towards sustainability, even in materials technologies, has fuelled an increasing interest in bio-based composites. Cellulosic fibres, such as flax and jute, are being considered as alternatives to technical synthetic fibres, such as glass, as reinforcements in fibre reinforced polymer composites for a wide range of applications. A critical bottleneck in the advancement of plant fibre composites (PFRPs) is our current inability to predict PFRP properties from data on fibre properties. This is highly desirable in the cost- and time-effective development and design of optimised PFRP materials with reliable behaviour. This study, alongside limited other studies in literature, have found that the experimentally determined (through single fibre tests) fibre properties are significantly different from the predicted (‘back-calculated’ using the popular rule-of-mixtures) fibre properties for plant fibres. In this note, we explore potential sources of the observed discrepancy and identify the more likely origins relating to both measurement and errors in predictions based on the rule-of-mixtures. The explored content in this discussion facilitates the design of a future investigation to (1) identify the sensitivity of the discrepancy between measured and predicted fibre properties to the various potential origins, (2) form a unified hypothesis on the observed phenomenon, and (3) determine whether the rule-of-mixtures model (in specific cases) can be improved and may be able to predict properties precisely.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10570-016-0926-

Analysis of Cutaneous Adverse Drug Reactions at a Tertiary Care Hospital – a Prospective Study

Purpose: To analyze the clinical, pharmacological and economical aspects of the cutaneous adverse drug reactions (ADRs) reported at Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad, India.Methods: A prospective observational study over a period of one and half years (November 2006 to April 2008) was undertaken. Semi-spontaneous reporting along with a review of case record forms were used. The reports were analyzed for clinical pattern, causal drug groups, causality (WHO-UMC criteria), severity (Hartwig and Siegel scale) and preventability (modified Schumock and Thornton criteria). The cost of ADRs was calculated on the basis of hospital expenditure per patient and the amount spent by patients themselves.Results: Out of 143 reports, chemotherapeutic agents (39 %) were the most commonly suspected drugs followed by unknown medicines (29 %). Most of the ADRs were designated as possible or probable (69 %) and moderately severe (96.5 %) in nature. However, 14 – 16 % were definitely preventable. Cost incurred by the hospital was Indian national rupees (INR) 374,255, i.e.,USD 8241. While average cost incurred by outpatients was INR 99 (USD 2.18) and that of hospitalized patients was INR 264 (USD 5.81).Conclusion: A large number of cutaneous ADRs are due to unknown medicines. This calls for strict drug control mechanisms, patient education regarding self-medication and maintenance of prescription records. The cost associated with ADRs is high. ADR monitoring is essential to reduce patient suffering as well as to achieve the substantial savings in health care cost.Keywords: Cutaneous adverse drug reactions, Cost of ADRs, Preventability, Patient educatio

A Review of Customer Satisfaction Factors in Libyan Housing Projects

Customer satisfaction and customer relationship are crucial aspect in any enterprises including housing construction projects. In general, the housing developers are facing a number of new challenges in different countries including Libya. The construction industries/housing developers need to continuously improve their products and services to meet customers’ satisfaction desires and to remain in the current competitive market. This paper focuses on analysing the satisfaction factors of customers including quality aspects of products and services in the construction projects. A framework was developed to evaluate the dynamics relationship between customer satisfaction and quality products or services, aiming to help companies’ managers and policy makers to understand the needs and points of view of their customers. A pragmatic analysis was conducted to explore and analyse the customer satisfaction factors in construction industry considering different aspect of customer groups in Libya. Results indicate that there is a high demand of improvements in the contractor’s performance in terms of cost, time and quality of products. It was also found that Libyan construction companies have been forced to transform their policies after on Libyan war 2011 to focus on client and customer satisfactory policies, or say centric for the purpose of improving client requirements and turn the business into more advantageous for any company