Constructability: Owners, Designers, and Contractors Practices in Industrial Projects

The constructability theory is built on the premise that designated experts review and analyse a plan collectively to iron out obstacles that may cause failure to the plan and make the execution efficient and cost-effective. This paper aims to reveal constructability practices among stakeholders (owners, designers, and contractors) who are executing industrial projects in Saudi Arabia. The research commenced with an intensive review of related literature. The literature review enabled the researchers to develop a questionnaire (data collection tool) which was distributed among the stakeholders via E-mail. The received data were analysed using simple statistical tools such as means, frequency, etc. The Relative Importance Index (RII) was used to measure the level of benefits from the constructability implementation. The stakeholders were found to implement constructability at the project and, to some extent, at corporate levels. Besides, they use many Construction Industry Institute (CII) concepts emerging from well-constructability CII principles in industrial projects. They form teams consisting of personnel from their organizations and facilitators either from their organization or from constructability consulting organizations. They use effective constructability review techniques such as the log/file, brainstorming, and the design review checklist. The constructability implementation yields considerable benefits, including “Reduce engineering cost,” “Reduce construction cost,” “Reduce the amount of rework,” “Improve project safety,” “Reduce schedule duration,” and several others. The study contributes to the book of knowledge and provides practitioners with guidance in implementing constructability. Designers and contractors are advised to implement constructability at the corporate level.

Leading Indicators—A Conceptual IoT-Based Framework to Produce Active Leading Indicators for Construction Safety

Active leading indicators (ALIs) have the potential to identify safety hazards and prompt immediate actions to prevent incidents. Currently, there is a major gap in research that incorporates a fully automated ALI system because implementation has been hindered by a lack of established industry thresholds of measurable performance that would trigger an actionable response. Therefore, this paper addresses this gap by presenting a new method that utilizes the Internet of Things (IoT) to collect quantifiable data which can trigger an actionable response in real time based on established thresholds. This novel method integrates the Construction Industry Institute (CII) active leading indicator framework with a prototype IoT-based system. Significantly, the ALI provides the physical–virtual feedback loop, which is an essential aspect of the IoT system because it provides real-time feedback to both the users and systems. This paper also identifies potential inputs to the ALI framework from emerging IoT-enabled systems. A case study was presented to initially validate the IoT-based ALI framework. Bluetooth-enabled heart rate monitors were issued to workers in a hazardous and critical mining construction site. The ALIs that were recorded included heart rate and body temperature. Thresholds were established that alerted the monitoring safety staff when a worker exhibited potentially unsafe conditions. The results of the study demonstrated the feasibility of the system. Additionally, other results included worker resistance; non-disclosing of medical conditions, and limitations for IoT connectivity.

A framework to assess the costs and benefits of advanced work packaging in industrial construction

The term advanced work packaging (AWP), coined by the Construction Industry Institute (CII), refers to a disciplined process for project planning and execution; it was developed to address challenges such as cost and schedule overruns in the industrial construction sector. Case studies conducted on AWP report a number of benefits in the areas of productivity, cost, safety, and schedule. However, since there is no clear method to assess the costs and benefits of AWP implementation, a significant challenge in AWP adoption is the lack of quantitative evidence to support these reported benefits. This paper presents a structured framework to assess multiple aspects of AWP implementation, which will enable the quantification of both its costs and benefits. The framework will enable the future comparison of AWP and non-AWP projects. This paper contributes to the industrial construction sector by providing a framework to assess AWP implementation in practice.

Retrospective look on front-end planning in the construction industry: Aliterature review of 30 years of research

Academics and practitioners have paid close attention to front-end planning research, especially in the construction industry. It is known with many acronyms including pre-project planning and front-end loading. Since 1994, Construction Industry Institute (CII) has set front-end planning as one of themain research topicareas in their knowledge structure. A lot of research related to front-end planning and project scope definition has been conductedsince then. However, there lacks a comprehensive review of the currentstudies on the topic. Thus, the objective of this research was to undertake a comprehensive literature review of papers related to front-end planning. Reviewing 83 selected papers, this research raises several important issues regarding front-end planning such as the position of front-end planning in project life cycle, the differentiation between front-end planning and project planning, the significance of front-end planning, the front-end planning organization management, the front-end planning phases, the challenges in front-end planning implementation, and the identification of research gaps in front-end planning. The findings of this research contribute to furtherunderstanding of front-end planning andwould be useful for practitioners and academics to conduct further empirical studies on the subject matter.

Seleção de metodologia de mensuração de retrabalho através da utilização do método AHP

Resumo A construção civil apresenta altos índices de retrabalho, o que acarreta em custos adicionais e atrasos nos prazos dos projetos. Deste modo, diversos autores e entidades têm estudado o problema e buscado soluções para tentar quantificar e minimizar as consequências do retrabalho, tendo sido desenvolvidas diversas metodologias para mensuração de retrabalho: Reduction Rework Program do Construction Industry Institute; Best Productivity Practices Implementation Index do Construction Industry Institute; Metodologia do Construction Owners Association of Alberta; e Measuring and Classifying Construction Field Rework . Neste contexto, o presente artigo tem como objetivo propor um procedimento, com base no método de análise multicritério Analytic Hierarchy Process – AHP, para auxiliar no processo de seleção da metodologia de mensuração de retrabalho mais indicada a ser adotada em subsetores da indústria da construção civil. O procedimento proposto foi aplicado no segmento de montagem industrial, e a metodologia Rework Reduction Program apresentou os melhores resultados em relação à medição de retrabalho conforme cinco critérios selecionados para análise (abrangência, implantação, custos, entrada de dados e operação do sistema), sendo assim a mais indicada a ser adotada.

Road Construction Project Environmental Impact Assessment Scope Definition Using Project Definition Rating Index (PDRI)

This research focuses on the study of Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) for the new engineering development project of Suao-Hualian Section along the Eastern Freeway. The Project Definition Rating Index (PDRI) Mode is the quantitative assessment method developed by Americas Construction Industry Institute (CII), which is the EIA operation by incorporating PDRI in the road construction. The EIA-PDRI mode is mainly established according to the EIA related laws currently practiced in Taiwan and relevant expert questionnaires. Under such configuration, the Vector Weighing Method is based for setting up the weight between the Section, Category and Element. The verification result of this Research supports that the EIA-PDRI Assessment Mode can help set the preliminary scope of the project development while enhancing the EIA performance.

MEASURING INFORMATION DEPENDENCY FOR CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING PROJECTS

Information dependency may be the most important key for managing information exchange to reduce project risks. Studies to date have not successfully discovered objective and quantitative surrogate to measure information dependency. This paper suggests an approach to measure information dependency with the productivity relationships among various disciplines for heavy industrial engineering projects. As part of a Construction Industry Institute (CII) study, the authors identified the information exchange pattern of engineering disciplines. Based on the patterns, the authors discovered the information dependency that various engineering disciplines had with their productivity relationships and conducted a survey afterwards for validation. Both results show significant and consistent evidence suggesting that: 1) information of equipment and piping disciplines is statistically dependent rather than the other paired disciplines; and 2) productivity relationship can be a legitimate surrogate to measure information dependency between equipment and piping disciplines. As such, this study enlightens a research trajectory for improvement of engineering productivity.

BENCHMARKING PROJECT LEVEL ENGINEERING PRODUCTIVITY / INŽINERINĖS VEIKLOS NAŠUMO LYGINIMAS PROJEKTŲ LYGMENIU

The benchmarking of engineering productivity can assist in the identification of inefficiencies and thus can be critical to cost control. Recognizing the importance of engineering productivity measurement, the Construction Industry Institute (CII) developed the Engineering Productivity Metric System (EPMS) composed of a series of hierarchical metrics with standard definitions suitable for measuring engineering productivity at various levels. While the EPMS can be used to assess engineering productivity at multiple levels within a discipline, it cannot produce an overall project level productivity measurement due to the underlying method of defining productivity. Previous studies have attempted to develop other metrics to assess engineering productivity at the project level; however, these methods did not create metrics suitable for benchmarking. To overcome these limitations, this study developed a standardization approach using “z-scores” to aggregate engineering productivity measurement from actual data collected from 112 projects provided by CII member companies. This method produces a metric with a project level view of engineering productivity. It allows owners and engineering firms to summarize engineering productivity at both the discipline level and at the project level. The method illustrates a comprehensive and innovative procedure to develop a metric for summary of productivity metrics with different underlying outputs, thus laying the foundation for future analyses and studies. Santrauka Lyginant inžinerinės veiklos našumą, galima nustatyti efektyvumo trūkumus, taigi toks lyginimas gali būti itin svarbus sąnaudų kontrolei. Suprasdamas inžinerinės veiklos našumo matavimo svarbą, Statybų pramonės institutas (CII) sukūrė inžinerinės veiklos našumo matų sistemą (angl. Engineering Productivity Metric System, EPMS), kurią sudaro hierarchinė matavimo vienetų su standartinėmis apibrėžtimis serija, leidžianti inžinerinės veiklos našumą matuoti įvairiais lygmenimis. Naudojant EPMS, inžinerinės veiklos našumą galima įvertinti keliais vienos srities lygmenimis, tačiau dėl sistemoje taikomo našumo apibrėžimo metodo bendro projekto našumo įvertinti neįmanoma. Ankstesniuose tyrimuose bandyta kurti kitas matų sistemas bendram projekto inžinerinės veiklos našumui vertinti, tačiau pasirinkti metodai neleido sukurti lyginimui tinkamos matų sistemos. Siekiant įveikti suvaržymus, šiame tyrime buvo sukurtas standartizacijos būdas; jame naudojami zbalai ir jis leidžia išmatuoti bendrą inžinerinės veiklos našumą pagal faktinius duomenis iš 112 projektų, kuriuos pateikė Statybų pramonės institutui priklausančios imonės. Taikant šį metodą gaunama matų sistema, kurioje inžinerinio darbo našumas vertinamas projekto lygmeniu. Savininkams ir inžinerijos bendrovėms tai leidžia susumuoti inžinerinės veiklos našumą ir tam tikros srities, ir projekto lygmeniu. Metodas pristato visapusišką ir novatorišką procedūrą, kaip sudaryti matų sistemą, leidžiančią susumuoti našumo matus, kai pagrindiniai veiklos produktai skiriasi, ir tai pagrindas, kuriuo remiantis ateityje bus galima analizuoti bei atlikti tyrimus.

Managing Interorganizational Networks

This chapter introduces the challenges facing interorganizational knowledge management networks. Examples from DuPont, the knowledge management working group of the federal government, as well as the Construction Industry Institute give concrete examples of how these challenges were faced and overcome. The authors hope that their industry experience and years of working in these networks help the readers to apply these principles to their own networks.

Implementation of project change management best practice in different project environments

Change orders are ubiquitous in construction projects, and effective and efficient control of changes is critical to project success. There have been many empirical suggestions as to how to manage changes for best project outcomes, but this research is specifically aimed at exploring the relationship between project characteristics and the implementation of project change management best practices (PCMBP). Construction project data for this research are derived from the Construction Industry Institute (CII) benchmarking and metrics (BM&M) database. Binary logistic regressions and factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) are performed to find out the differences among diverse types of projects in terms of the extents to which the PCMBP elements have been implemented. The findings can assist construction industry practitioners with using PCMBP more purposefully in accordance with specific project characteristics so that they will be better able to develop and administer their project execution plans.