Hai Chen Tan

Live capture and reuse of project knowledge in construction organisations

It is important that the knowledge generated on construction projects is captured and shared between project team members for continuous improvement, to prevent the ‘re-invention of the wheel’ and to avoid repetition of previous mistakes. However, this is undermined mainly by the loss of important insights and knowledge due to time lapse in capturing the knowledge, staff turnover and peoples reluctance to share knowledge. To address this, it is crucial for knowledge to be captured ‘live’ in a collaborative environment while the project is being executed and presented in a format that will facilitate its reuse during and after the project. This paper uses a case study approach to investigate the end-users’ requirements for the ‘live’ capture and reuse of knowledge methodology, and shortcomings of current practice in meeting these requirements. A framework for the ‘live’ methodology that satisfies the requirements is then presented and discussed.

Case Study of Knowledge Management Implementation in a Medium-Sized Construction Sector Firm

AbstractThe transient nature of project teams and the competitive environment in which construction organizations operate require an effective mechanism to manage and reuse the knowledge created in the projects without straining its resources. A methodology for “live” capture and reuse of project knowledge was developed for the purpose and encapsulated into a software tool. A study was conducted of a medium-sized UK-based construction sector firm to investigate the use the software tool as the central strand of its knowledge management (KM) framework. The tool was subsequently designed to integrate with a staff profile system and an e-forum. The new system was intended to bridge the communication gap between the company’s geographically dispersed offices by connecting the people together and, hence, facilitating the timely sharing of both tacit and explicit knowledge. Top management’s commitment was found vital in the successful implementation of knowledge management and the nurturing of the desired suppo...

Exploring critical success factors for developing infrastructure projects in Malaysia : main contractors' perspective

Abstract The construction industry needs to develop methodologies and techniques to better promote quality engineering and minimize losses. This study aims to identify the Critical Success Factors (CFSs) that contribute to the successful development of infrastructure projects in Malaysia and examine their possible impact on project objectives in scope, time, cost and quality. Main contractors are usually intensively involved in the development of infrastructure projects. However, there is limited research touching on main contractors’ view on CSFs for infrastructure projects in Malaysia. Therefore, this study is carried out to explore this topic from the main contractors’ perspective. Based on an extensive literature review, 33 candidate CSFs were identified and examined. Practitioners in selected companies that had been intensively involved in infrastructure development in Malaysia were invited to participate in a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire survey was designed to elicit professional opinions of those practitioners on the significance level and the impact on project objectives of the identified candidate CSFs. A significance index (SI) was calculated to show the significance level of the candidate CSFs. This explorative study has found that the majority of the 33 identified candidate CSFs were perceived to be of critical significance by the respondents. Some of them hold particular importance to achieving project management objectives in terms of scope, time, cost, and quality. The findings may be used as a checklist so as to increase the quality and success rate of future infrastructure projects in Malaysia. Research limitations and future directions are also discussed.

Exploratory Study of Sustainability Knowledge Management in Capital Project Offices

Typical higher educational organizations like universities and colleges are long-lived institutions with large campuses. These organizations inevitably have significant impacts upon the environment and ought to take more responsibilities on sustainability for their communities and regions. This paper explores the means and methods to apply knowledge management (KM) to support Capital Project Offices (CPO) at higher education institutions in the course of sustainable construction. While knowledge is generally regarded as a necessary foundation for sustainability innovation, its capturing and reuses has not been fully materialized in CPO organizations. One of the challenges is to understand and describe the types of sustainability knowledge of importance to CPO organizations. To this end, the authors conducted an in-depth case study at the University of Washington to explore its CPO personnel’s perceptions on KM as it relates to sustainable construction. Survey questionnaire and interview were administered to collect data for the case study. In particular, a web-based KM system was used to help situate research participants in a pseudo knowledge capturing and sharing scenario to facilitate data collection. Research findings depict the status quo of KM in the case study CPO, point out barriers of the current practices, and based on the findings, a classification system tailored for CPO organizations to describe their sustainability knowledge is proposed.

Development of a web-based system for managing suppliers’ performance and knowledge sharing in construction project

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce a web-based system that provides an efficient means for managing suppliers’ performance which also facilitates the leveraging of suppliers’ knowledge for the benefit of the on-going projects. Design/methodology/approach Case study approach is adopted. In total, 12 semi-structured interviews are conducted with Malaysia-based public listed construction companies to study their current practice and the requirements for the development of an information and communication technology (ICT) aided system for the purpose. Subsequently, a web-based system for managing suppliers’ performance is developed using ASP.net and MSSQL database. Findings Most of the case study companies are found to have low levels of ICT adoption and still resort to handling the majority of the tasks involved in the selection and management of suppliers’ performance manually. An ICT-based system that can improve the recording of important information about the suppliers, provide a function for supplier selection and facilitate the capture of useful reusable knowledge of the suppliers is needed. Originality/value The paper has shown empirically that a web-based suppliers’ performance management system eases the supplier selection process and the monitoring of suppliers’ performance. In addition, it demonstrates how such systems can be designed to capture and facilitate the leveraging of suppliers’ knowledge, and how suppliers’ knowledge contribution can be recognised as part of their performance. The system adopts a novel two-way communication model which provides the suppliers the access to their own performance records to identify room for improvements.