Organizing Large Projects: How Managers Decide

Now tools will help managers design organization structures for large engineering and construction projects. An improved understanding of how managers decide in structuring project organizations is necessary to develop these tools and to assist managers in the systematic design of organizations tailored to meet project goals under unique situations. This paper reports a portion of results from research conducted to determine current practices in project organization design. The conclusion that adaptation dominates this process leads to several implications for industry professionals and researchers wishing to improve project performance. Recognizing the role of adaptation in current practices of organizational structuring will allow managers to avoid inertia and systematically design organizations. Researchers can assist by expanding variables in organization theory to better capture project situation and structure and by developing new tools to assist in systematic organization design.     

AHP-Based Equipment Selection Model for Construction Projects

Selection of equipment for construction projects, a key factor in the success of the project, is a complex process. Current models offered by the literature fail to provide adequate solutions for two major issues: the systematic evaluation of soft factors, and the weighting of soft benefits in comparison with costs. This paper presents a selection model based on analytic hierarchy process (AHP), a multiattribute decision analysis method, with a view to providing solutions for these two issues. The model has the capacity to handle a great number of different criteria in a way that truly reflects the complex reality, to incorporate the context and unique conditions of the project, and to allow for manifestation of user experience and subjective perception. The model was implemented in an in-house developed system that was improved and validated through testing by senior professionals. The main academic contribution of the study is in the modification of AHP to correspond with the nature of equipment selection and in its utilization as an effective means for the formalization of knowledge possessed by competent, experienced practitioners. On the practical side, the proposed model offers an efficient, convenient tool that forces the users into orderly, methodical thinking, guides them in making logical, consistent decisions, and provides a facility for all necessary computations.     

“Soft” Considerations in Equipment Selection for Building Construction Projects

This paper raises the issue of “soft” considerations in the selection of equipment for building construction projects. The paper aims at increasing the awareness: (1) to the nature, variety, and richness of soft factors; (2) to their significant role and potential impact on the outcome of decision making; and (3) to the inherent difficulty of evaluating them and integrating them within a comprehensive selection process. Existing state-of-the-art equipment selection models were analyzed and found to be inadequate in terms of both considering soft factors and providing mechanisms for their systematic evaluation. Six cases of large-size, complex construction projects were investigated to obtain an extensive list of typical soft factors. This investigation revealed that the consideration of soft factors in current practices is essentially unstructured and is not integrated within the selection process in a systematic manner. A desirable selection process is outlined that generally responds to the needs identified in the study. The proposition of a specific method for the quantitative treatment of soft factors and their tradeoff with cost factors is the subject of another paper.     

BOT Viability Model for Large-Scale Infrastructure Projects

The key to a successful implementation of a build-operate-transfer (BOT) infrastructure project is in-depth analysis of all aspects related to economic, environmental, social, political, legal, and financial feasibility of the project. For these reasons, the analysis of the project feasibility decision needs a technique to include the qualitative decision factors that have a strong impact on the project. This paper aims to introduce a decomposed evaluation model developed to assess the most common significant decision factors that strongly affect the feasibility of BOT projects. The paper describes the viability decision factors that were identified and screened with the assistance of a group of industry experts. This analysis yielded 21 significant factors that would have a certain impact on the feasibility of any BOT project. These factors were classified into three relative categories forming the structure of the suggested project viability model. This model presents a new approach, based on the analytical hierarchy process technique, to evaluate the relationships between decision factors related to project feasibility determination. The new approach has been validated by information obtained from three case studies of BOT projects. The proposed approach to project feasibility evaluation aims to increase the decision maker’s ability to determine the factors contributing the most to the viability to the BOT project at hand.     

Study on Development Patterns of Infrastructure Projects

From case studies, it was found that the practices of infrastructure development can be abstracted into development patterns. Based on the findings, this paper first investigated possible task allocations between the public and private sectors to build a development decision tree of infrastructure projects, and then constructed a development pattern matrix with five valid development patterns, according to the time frame and fund sources of payment to private firms. The five development patterns were systematically studied and the findings showed that various procurement models can be derived through changing task allocation and the way to pay private firms. Some key procurement models derived from the five development patterns were illustrated by examples. Moreover, the procurement method of build-transfer-lend was devised to demonstrate that new procurement models can be derived from the development pattern matrix. Finally, a case study showed that the five basic development patterns can be combined to form mixed procurement models. The development decision tree and the development pattern matrix provide a thinking tool in the formulation of procurement strategies.     

Contextual Information Requirements of Cost Estimators from Past Construction Projects

Past project data sources provide key information for construction cost estimators. Previous research studies show that relying only on one’s own experience during estimation results in estimators’ bias. Having and referring to historical databases, containing objective information on what happened in past projects, are essential for reducing estimators’ biases. The first step toward development of useful project history databases is to understand what information estimators require from past projects. The research described in this paper targets estimators’ information needs identified through interviews, brainstorming sessions, task analyses, and card games conducted with estimators with different experience levels and specialized in heavy/civil and commercial construction projects, and exploration of historical and standard databases available in companies to determine what is being currently represented. Findings show that estimators need contextual information, depicting the conditions under which specific production rates were achieved, so that they can identify which production rate would be more realistic to use during the production rate estimation of an activity in a new bid. Comparison of the contextual information needs identified in this research with information items available in historical data sources (such as company cost reports, RSMeans, previous studies) highlighted some gaps and important opportunities for improvements in those sources. The identified contextual information items are significant for practitioners in developing ways to augment their existing project history databases to make them more beneficial for estimators.     

CB-Contract: Case-Based Reasoning Approach to Construction Contract Strategy Formulation

The formulation of an appropriate contract strategy is a fundamental yet critical aspect of contractual arrangement for a project. This paper presents a decision support system (DSS) prototype for contract strategy formulation using the case-based reasoning (CBR) approach. The prototype is called CB-Contract. An overview on the scope and formulation process of contract strategy is provided. Contract strategy is regarded as comprising four main substrategies: (1) work packaging; (2) functional grouping; (3) contract type; and (4) award method. The significance of CBR in contract strategy formulation is examined. The overall architecture of CB-Contract is discussed, with particular emphasis on its knowledge component. A case structure for case representation has been suggested taking into account the important factors that need to be considered while formulating a contract strategy, in particular project characteristics, client’s objectives, and client’s comparative advantages. Issues pertaining to case indexing and similarity calculation for efficient retrieval of similar cases are explored. An illustrative example to obtain similar cases for a given set of project information is presented. Case adaptation that considers the robustness of each substrategy, the compatibility of the substrategies, and the expected effectiveness of the contract strategy is also included in the illustrative example.     

Decision Support System to Evaluate and Compare Concession Options

With the increased popularity of concession projects over the last three decades, there is a need for a decision support system (DSS) capable of evaluating and comparing several concession project investment (CPI) options in an effective and efficient manner. Hence, a novel DSS has been developed that takes into consideration both financial and nonfinancial aspects of the investment option, as well as the uncertainties commonly encountered during the feasibility stage of a project. The DSS is fully implemented as a standalone computer software package, ECCO (evaluate and compare concession options), in order to be of practical use. This paper outlines and validates ECCO’s design and structure through the demonstration of its capabilities in the evaluation and comparison of three real-life CPI case studies.     

Analytic Network Process Applied to Project Selection

Owing to the complexity of a construction project, the analytic network process (ANP) is helpful to deal with interdependent relationships within a multicriteria decision-making model. This paper demonstrates an example to illustrate how to empirically prioritize a set of projects by using a five-level project selection model. A questionnaire was filled by a group of construction professionals of a medium-sized local developer and scores were computed for prioritizing the potential projects. The paper is relevant to both industry practitioners and researchers. Industry practitioners may adopt the weighted criteria for direct project selection or apply the ANP method to prioritize their own set of selection criteria. Researchers may rely on this paper as a point of departure for exploring other uses of ANP.     

Safety Hazard Identification on Construction Projects

Hazard identification is fundamental to construction safety management; unidentified hazards present the most unmanageable risks. This paper presents an investigation indicating the current levels of hazard identification on three U.K. construction projects. A maximum of only 6.7% of the method statements analyzed on these projects managed to identify all of the hazards that should have been identified, based upon current knowledge. Maximum hazard identification levels were found to be 0.899 (89.9%) for a construction project within the nuclear industry, 0.728 (72.8%) for a project within the railway industry, and 0.665 (66.5%) for a project within both the railway and general construction industry sector. The results indicate that hazard identification levels are far from ideal. A discussion on the reasons for low hazard identification levels indicates key barriers. This leads to the presentation of an Information Technology (IT) tool for construction project safety management (Total-Safety) and, in particular, a module within Total-Safety designed to help construction personnel develop method statements with improved levels of hazard identification.     

Decision Tool for Selecting the Optimal Techniques for Cost and Schedule Reduction in Capital Projects

Projects must meet budget, schedule, safety, and quality goals to be regarded as a success. Many factors come into play, and many decisions are made that influence a project’s outcome. Today, owners are often faced with deciding between an execution strategy that emphasizes either project cost or project schedule. Such a decision may be made not once, but throughout the life of the project. Project teams, when required by the owner to make a cost-schedule trade-off, generate common sense ideas, best practices, and other means of achieving the desired trade-off through brainstorming sessions. This paper offers a tool for systematically identifying the techniques which are most effective in achieving the trade-off goal. Project teams can then use these techniques in a timely fashion to increase the likelihood of project success.     

Concepts for Lunar Outpost Development

This paper summarizes the results of a qualitative investigation to identify concepts for design and construction of near‐term lunar facilities. Accomplishing such construction will require an adaptation or transfer of current terrestrial technology and methods. Discussions on modularization, geosynthetic materials, aluminum materials, static load analysis, and dynamic load analysis provide illustrative examples of how terrestrial technologies can be adapted to lunar applications. These discussions provide support for the development of a phased lunar construction strategy. The initial stage of construction is characterized by small self‐supporting accomodation and laboratory modules. The assembly facility stage is characterized by the construction of a large pressurized module‐assembly facility. The module production stage is characterized by the fitting together of terrestrial or low earth‐orbit subassemblies into completed modules within the module assembly facility. The completed modules are also tested and moved to their final location in this stage. The lunar materials stage is characterized by the construction of facilities with maximum use of lunar materials.     

Using Global Positioning System to Improve Materials-Locating Processes on Industrial Projects

On-site materials-handling operations are error prone and the errors that occur significantly decrease construction productivity. New technologies and sensing devices can enhance materials-handling management practices on construction job sites. This paper describes a study that aimed to determine the potential benefits of the deployment of global positioning system (GPS) technology within the materials-locating processes on industrial projects. Its main goals were (1) to evaluate the technical feasibility and (2) to quantify the direct benefits in terms of process duration derived from the integration of GPS devices within pipe-locating processes. A field trial was conducted and its results indicated significant time savings. This study also analyzed additional potential benefits derived from the use of GPS in this scenario.     

Organizational Culture and Knowledge Management Success at Project and Organizational Levels in Contracting Firms

This research focuses on contracting firms within the construction sector. It characterizes and evaluates the composition of organizational culture using four culture types (clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy), the strategic approach for knowledge flow, and the success of knowledge management (KM) systems at different hierarchical levels of contracting organizations (project and parent organization level). Responses from managers of local or overseas contracting firms operating in Hong Kong were collected using a carefully constructed questionnaire survey that was distributed through electronic mail. The organizational value is analyzed in terms of the four cultural models. Clan culture is found to be the most popular at both project and organization levels, which means that the culture of contracting firms very much depends on honest communication, respect for people, trust, and cohesive relationships. On the other hand, hierarchy culture, which focuses on stability and continuity, and analysis and control, seems to be the least favored at both levels. Another significant finding was that the two main KM strategies for knowledge flow, codification and personalization, were employed at both project and organization levels in equal proportion. This indicates that successful KM efforts at both enterprise levels utilize a hybrid and balanced approach for their knowledge flow, and that they complement each other. The findings also revealed that knowledge management system success factors emphasize the support of the management level. The results show that KM is critical and beneficial as indicated by 64% at the project and 74% at the organization level. The expectation is higher for organizations as they are the organizational memories in which experiences of past projects are archived and connected. Understanding these factors and the relationships among them has been demonstrated to be critical in order to increase the chances of success or to help with making decisions when applying KM.     

Industrial Project Constructability Improvement

Constructability is defined as the ability of project conditions to enable the optimal utilization of construction resources. Constructability improvements may heighten the construction‐sensitivity of designs, render the communication of engineering information as more effective, optimize construction‐originated construction techniques, increase the effectiveness of construction management policies, improve vendor∕subcontractor services, or identify needs for designer‐constructor communication during the project. Constructability improvement ideas collected on a large refinery expansion project are analyzed for content, and classification frequencies are observed. Analysis of engineering rework exposes the causes and costs of rework that occurs as a result of constructability problems.     

Formulating Procurement Selection Criteria through Case-Based Reasoning Approach

An appropriate procurement system is a catalyst to the success of a construction project. In practice, the solutions and outcomes of previous procurement selection decisions could be extremely useful in supporting decision making. As a technique that captures and reuses experiential knowledge, case-based reasoning (CBR) has a high potential for modeling the procurement selection decision within a complex dynamic environment. This paper examines the suitability of CBR approaches for procurement selection. The process involved in procurement selection is examined first. A conceptual framework for case-based procurement selection is proposed. The structure of a prototype model on procurement selection criteria (PSC) formulation is presented in this paper. The model applies the CBR approach to procurement criteria selection irrespective of the variability in the characteristics of the client, project, and external environment.     

Nondominated Archiving Multicolony Ant Algorithm in Time–Cost Trade-Off Optimization

Time–cost trade-off analysis is addressed as an important aspect of any construction project planning and control. Nonexistence of a unique solution makes the time–cost trade-off problems very difficult to tackle. As a combinatorial optimization problem one may apply heuristics or mathematical programming techniques to solve time–cost trade-off problems. In this paper, a new multicolony ant algorithm is developed and used to solve the time–cost multiobjective optimization problem. Pareto archiving together with innovative solution exchange strategy are introduced which are highly efficient in developing the Pareto front and set of nondominated solutions in a time–cost optimization problem. An 18-activity time–cost problem is used to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm. Results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the well-known weighted method to develop the nondominated solutions in a combinatorial optimization problem. The paper is more relevant to researchers who are interested in developing new quantitative methods and/or algorithms for managing construction projects.     

Dynamic Knowledge-Based Process Integration Portal for Collaborative Construction

There is a need to support collaborative coordinated construction through the integration of work processes across various stakeholders, disciplines, and projects. Due to the fast-growing complexities of domain-wide coordination and collaboration, coupled with the emerging opportunities of knowledge sharing, a knowledge-based approach is believed to be the way to go. Knowledge-based process integration takes into account explicit and formal semantics (meaning) of processes. It aims at supporting seamless integration of knowledge-carrying processes. This paper presents a prototype collaborative portal for domain-wide process integration. The portal is ontology-based: semantic process representation is enabled through ontologies, and knowledge-based process integration is facilitated through an ontology merger. The portal aims at offering an efficient value-adding collaboration platform through multidimensional process integration for producing a common workflow that goes beyond listing of processes to a knowledge-enabled view. The prototype was evaluated through a focus group.     

Areas of Application for 3D and 4D Models on Construction Projects

In recent years more and more construction projects used three-dimensional/four-dimensional (3D/4D) models to support management tasks. However, project managers still struggle with evaluating how the 3D/4D model technology can be most efficiently applied on their specific project. One main reason for this struggle is that an account about how 3D/4D models have been used in the past is missing. This paper offers practitioners and researchers such an account of the application areas of 3D/4D model technologies including the purposes for which these technologies have been applied. The paper qualitatively aggregates the results of 26 case studies of 3D/4D model applications on construction projects to show researchers and practitioners how 3D/4D models have been applied to address project challenges. Using a “project challenge—3D/4D model application” matrix the paper explains each application area and describes why the application has been beneficial to the case study projects. The paper then analyzes the challenges that practitioners have faced with 3D/4D models on the test case projects. The main findings of this analysis are that practitioners on most of the test case projects have used the models for only one application area. The paper suggests that further research on the integration of 3D/4D model technologies into work and business processes of project teams is needed to address this opportunity for a more widespread use of 3D/4D models throughout the lifecycle of a project.     

Measuring Effectiveness of Materials Management for Industrial Projects

A measurement of the effectiveness of the material management process is needed in order to analyze problems, suggest solutions, and assess the impact of modifications to the process. Such measurement is also required for any benchmarking effort. Research was conducted to apply a set of key effectiveness measures on 17 ongoing industrial projects. This research showed that most of the measures were easily obtainable, but some were difficult to obtain. Research also showed that it was possible to obtain the highest score on all measures, indicating that best practice in industry is achieving highly successful results. Most of the projects appeared to have a highly effective materials management process, as indicated by the fact that median values of these measures were much closer to the best values than those of the mean values. A utilization plan for the measurement of the effectiveness of the material management process is presented.