Assessment of design change sub-factors using AHP relative importance for construction projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Author(s):  
Ahmed Fouad M. Salman
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-110
Author(s):  
Mohammed A. Al-Hammadi ◽  
Wei Tian

Background: The Building Information Modeling (BIM) revolution can provide a solution for problems in the Saudi Arabian construction industry and improve its outcomes. Though this technology is increasingly and rapidly adopted in advanced countries, developing countries such as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCC) are still in the early stages of BIM adoption. Objective: This study investigates the current state of BIM technology adoption by exploring and analyzing the critical challenges and barriers to BIM technology utilization in the construction sectors. Methods: The quantitative approach is adopted via a survey questionnaire distributed to participants in the field of construction projects in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. A total of 228 questionnaires are collected and analyzed using the statistical packaging for social science software. Results: Findings show that several significant barriers negatively affect the utilization of BIM. The major barriers to BIM adoption are related to the lack of demand, lack of experts, and poor awareness of BIM benefits, which have relative importance indexes of (RII = 89.910), (RII = 88.475), and (RII = 87.130), respectively. Meanwhile, unspecified data responsibilities, difficulty of learning BIM, lack of data sharing, and sufficient current technology constitute the lowest-ranking barriers with their relative importance indexes of (RII = 71.704), (RII = 70.807), (RII = 66.413), and (RII = 65.874), respectively. Conclusion: The findings of this study are highly significant and can become more helpful and interesting if further research can measure the methodologies to implement BIM technology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.


Author(s):  
Ban Ali Hussein Al Mahanadi

The transport sector in its various forms, has an important weight in tourist activity, it is a direct producer that deserves direct planning. It is coordinated with the objectives of the comprehensive tourism plan. Also, it is an important factor in the tourism industry where depend on it to transport tourists from outside their places of residence to the tourist destination. An analysis of the reality of transport and tourism activity in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia shows the relative importance of the transport and communications sector, the relative importance of the retail sector, restaurants and hotels, the highest level of passenger services, In addition, there is the presence of religious tourism as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia benefits from the influx of millions of Muslim pilgrims from all over the world to perform Hajj rituals annually and Umrah every day. And to see the archaeological sites and the holiest Bekaa in the Holy Haram area where in 2017 religious tourism attracted more than 8 million Muslim visitors, around 3 million came to perform Hajj. According to the National Transition Program, the Ministry of Hajj is committed to achieving the goal of providing the greatest possible number of Muslims to perform Hajj and Umrah. The end of this ministry is to increase the number of pilgrims from outside Saudi Arabia to 15 million by 2020 compared to 2017 (6.8 million) And according to Vision 2030, this number will double to 30 million by 2030, This is due to major growth in the fields of living accommodations, wellness maintenance, advanced shipping, retail and infrastructure. Equally part of its vision for growing the tourism sector and diversifying the sources of income, it intends to implement the first two projects, the Red Sea project and the second project of the city of Neum.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1755 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Alotaibi ◽  
Francis Edum-Fotwe ◽  
Andrew D.F. Price

Even though social responsibility (SR) has been widely discussed as a business concept, it is still not being effectively implemented within mega-construction projects due to a range of barriers. Overcoming these barriers requires detailed information, however, there is a lack of research on the barriers to SR implementation within mega-construction projects, particularly in developing countries like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). This study thus aims to investigate the critical barriers to SR implementation with reference to mega-construction projects in the KSA. Eleven barriers were identified from a comprehensive literature review and interviews with experts. These barriers were examined in more detail using a questionnaire survey on two current mega-construction projects in the KSA. There were no differences in the ranking of barriers between the two projects with the 136 respondents identifying the top seven SR barriers as being: (i) additional costs; (ii) lack of awareness and knowledge; (iii) lack of guidelines and coherent strategy; (iv) lack of stakeholder communication; (v) lack of law enforcement; (vi) lack of training; and (vii) unclear project requirements. The findings of this study not only contribute to deeper understanding of the critical SR implementation barriers, but could also encourage industry practitioners and stakeholders to improve SR activities for more effective SR implementation. Moreover, identification and ranking of the critical barriers allows decision-makers to prioritize and develop effective strategies to tackle them at both project and sector scale. Future studies should investigate the interrelationship between the critical barriers and their impact on SR implementation


Author(s):  
Mohammad Abazid ◽  
Hüseyin Gökçekuş ◽  
Tahir Celik

This research is aimed at evaluating two different scenarios, firstly, appraising the impacts of employing the concepts of Total Quality Management (TQM) to the construction projects in Saudi Arabia. The results of the study were obtained through utilization of a descriptive analytical approach, where 300 questionnaires were distributed to engineering firms and companies with a response rate of 200 questionnaires, hence achieving the study sample for this research. The data gathered was analyzed by applying the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) program and calculating the Relative importance index (RII) and the mean values. From the research conducted, the outcomes showed that the management’s ability to commit using TQM while applying BIM obtained a relative importance of (0.717), while the relative importance for the management’s ability to commit using TQM without the application of BIM is (0.552). The results showed that construction projects in Saudi Arabia still sustain setbacks from applying TQM concepts and suffer from the lack of administrative, scientific and technical applications. In a second scenario, a hybridized support vector regression (SVR) Harris-hawks optimization (HHO) (i.e., SVR-HHO) were used to predict the TQM. The performance accuracy of the models was checked through three different evaluation metrics namely; mean square error (MSE), correlation co-efficient (CC) and Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE). the hybridized emerging SVR-HHO outperformed the other two data driven approaches in both the training and testing stages based on the employed evaluation metrics. Overall, the obtained results showed that both the machine learning and metaheuristic approaches were capable of predicting TQM.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Mohammad Abazid ◽  
Hüseyin Gökçekuş ◽  
Tahir Çelik

Total Quality Management (TQM) is based on the conceptions of managing and enhancing the success of construction projects. When applied, TQM improves execution of time management of project, satisfies clients’ needs, minimizes the expenses and increases the profit of contractor, and fulfils safety regulations on the construction site. This research is aimed at evaluating the impacts of employing the concepts of TQM to the construction projects in Saudi Arabia. The results of the study were obtained through utilization of a descriptive analytical approach, where 300 questionnaires were distributed to engineering firms and companies with a response rate of 200 questionnaires, hence achieving the study sample for this research. The data gathered was analyzed by applying the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) program and calculating the relative importance index (RII) and the mean values. From the research conducted, the outcomes showed that the management’s ability to commit using TQM while applying BIM obtained a relative importance of (0.717), while the relative importance for the management’s ability to commit using TQM without the application of BIM is (0.552). The results showed that construction projects in Saudi Arabia still sustain setbacks from applying TQM concepts and suffer from the lack of administrative, scientific, and technical applications.


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