Islam H. El-adaway

Integrated Project Delivery Case Study: Guidelines for Drafting Partnering Contract

This paper presents a case study through which a multinational contracting firm aimed to introduce integrated project delivery through strategic partnering into its industry operations. The study reports on a research carried out by the author on behalf of the firm to set out series of principles and guidelines to consider when drafting a standard partnering contract whereby the owner, contractor, suppliers, and manufacturers collaboratively work together under the same terms and conditions. A partnering contract would never, on its own, change the culture and environment of the construction process and thus, strategic partnering should be promoted not only at project specific activities but at all organizational activities. Based on this project, the paper presents a list of ten managerial and contractual issues to promote strategic partnering. The author hopes that the results of this case study would foster legal professionals toward drafting a modern partnering contract, which should help in developing a more effective and efficient contracting environment.

Evolutionary Stable Strategy for Postdisaster Insurance: Game Theory Approach

AbstractMitigation of the financial impacts associated with natural disasters is becoming an urgent objective at both the national and international levels, as the rate and magnitude of natural disasters are continuing to increase. Using an evolutionary game theory approach, this paper aims to find an equilibrium profile of postdisaster insurance plans purchased by resident families and sold by insurance companies, as well as ex-postdisaster relief implemented by a government agency. This dynamic integrated assessment minimizes the total losses for the three aforementioned associated stakeholders, thus maximizing welfare within natural disaster host community systems. To this end, the authors determined a plausible set of actions and utility functions for the associated stakeholders. Also, they created a hypothetical sample of 1,000 resident families accounting for heterogeneous income levels, three insurance companies offering three unique insurance plans per company—each with different premium and cover...

Creating a Holistic Systems Framework for Sustainability Assessment of Civil Infrastructure Projects

AbstractThe available sustainability tools and rating systems need to better incorporate the broader socioeconomic settings associated with the built environment. This paper develops, and contributes to the current body of knowledge, two innovative system-based benchmarks for sustainability assessment. On one hand, the “work” benchmark defines the behavioral relationships between the construction products and actors to study technical, social and cultural, and economic sustainability. On the other hand, the “nature” benchmark defines the interactions between construction processes and the surrounding ecosystems to study environmental, individual, and economic sustainability. The authors developed and distributed an expert survey to validate these two benchmarks. Consequently, to test these two novel concepts, the authors analyzed three different civil infrastructure projects. To this end, the authors evaluated the actors, products, and dynamics within the construction processes and their interactions. The...

Social Network Analysis Approach for Improved Transportation Planning

AbstractSocial network analysis (SNA) is a well-established methodology for investigating networks through the use of mathematical formulations abstracted from graph theory. It has been successfully used in social sciences to evaluate how individuals and institutions are affected by societal or professional networks, and it has been applied to some civil and construction engineering applications where a network’s main actors are people or organizations controlled by people. Current transportation analysis tools are expensive and time consuming, and require rigorous data for reliable results. Accordingly, a quick and inexpensive methodology to preliminarily analyze traffic networks is beneficial to better direct more detailed transportation analyses. Because of its ability to grasp the full complexity and connectivity of networks in a timely and cost effective manner, SNA can fulfill this requirement. Mathematically speaking, social networks are very close to transportation networks because they share fund...

Construction Bidding and the Winner’s Curse: Game Theory Approach

AbstractIn the construction industry, competitive bidding has long been used as a method for contractor selection. Because the true cost of construction is not known until the completion of the project, adverse selection is a major concern. Adverse selection is when the winner of the contract has underestimated the project’s true cost. Thus, the winning contractor will most likely earn negative or at least below normal profits. The winner’s curse is when the winning bidder submits an underestimated bid and is thus cursed by being selected to undertake the project. In the multistage bidding environment, where subcontractors are hired by a general contractor, the winner’s curse may be compounded. In general, contractors suffer from the winner’s curse for a variety of reasons including inaccurate estimates of project cost; new contractors entering the construction market; minimizing losses in case of recession of the construction industry; strong competition within the construction market; differential oppor...

Promoting the Sustainability of Relational Contracting through Addressing Third Party Insurance Obstacles

AbstractDespite the recent development of various integrated project-delivery (IPD) contracts in the United States, relational contracting is still in its infancy. This is attributed to various cultural and organizational paradigms that have been governing the industry for many years and will not change easily. Another significant obstacle as of right now, though, is that no insurance policies or products cover multiparty agreements. In other words, the contracting team as a whole is not yet covered from third party claims. Meanwhile, the no-blame or no-suit culture extends among the core associated stakeholders to relational contracts—the very same parties that are not collectively insured against third party claims. To this end, there is an explicit lack of consistency among relational contract agreements in treating risk and insurance issues. This paper proposes, studies, and analyzes how risk-retention groups (RRGs) can be used to provide the required insurance coverage against third party claims unde...

Administering Extension of Time under National and International Standard Forms of Contracts: A Contractor’s Perspective

AbstractTime management is one of the most important factors contributing to the success of construction projects. It is not uncommon that many construction projects fail to meet their deadline and finish late for a variety of reasons that have been already studied extensively in the literature. To this end, it is imperative to know the different contractual procedures associated with extension of time. In spite of the fact that these provisions are usually expressly stated in each contract, they are sometimes misunderstood and/or misapplied. This can result in incurring lots of short- and long-term losses. The objective of this paper is to present contract administration guidelines for appropriate utilization and administration of the extension of time clauses under the most widely used construction contracts both nationally and internationally. The authors studied the extension of time provisions under traditional standard construction contracts and/or general conditions of the construction contracts in...

Contract Administration Guidelines for Effectively and Efficiently Applying Different Delay Analysis Techniques under World Bank-Funded Projects

AbstractBecause of the current unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, it is expected that the World Bank will fund many projects in the region to restore and build the affected and aged infrastructure systems. One of the main characteristics of construction projects, in general, and under the current circumstances in the Middle East and North Africa, in specific, is that they are subject to a wide range of risks causing delays beyond the planned completion dates. Because the World Bank Contract (WB Contract) has its own procedures that cover the submission of schedules, updating programs, and submission of claims for extension of time; some delay analysis techniques would fit to be applied to such contracts, whereas others would not. Under these interrelated conditions, it is crucial for U.S. contractors to appropriately utilize delay analysis techniques that will enable them to study and assess the associated impact to the project schedules and consequently submit well-substantiated claims for exten...

Sustainable Disaster Recovery: Multiagent-Based Model for Integrating Environmental Vulnerability into Decision-Making Processes of the Associated Stakeholders

AbstractThe goal of sustainable disaster recovery is to regain the built environment’s functionality while decreasing the vulnerability of the society to future perturbations. This requires a new generation of decision support tools that integrate the host community’s vulnerability assessment while taking into account the stakeholders’ interactions, needs, and preferences. The available disaster recovery research focuses on the optimization and reconstruction of isolated projects rather than taking into account the host community’s overall vulnerability and welfare. Moreover, the available research did not simultaneously take into account the stakeholders’ preferences and needs. To this effect, this paper presents an agent-based model that integrates an environmental vulnerability indicator to better guide the decision-making process of the associated stakeholders. Such an approach will aid urban planners to redevelop societies into a more resilient status. This paper implements a five-step research metho...

Integrating the Social Vulnerability of Host Communities and the Objective Functions of Associated Stakeholders during Disaster Recovery Processes Using Agent-Based Modeling

AbstractDisaster recovery requires the participation of the stakeholders to repair the impacted community. Nevertheless, disaster recovery remains understudied within the context of emergency manag...