Mehdi Nourbakhsh

Mobile application prototype for on‐site information management in construction industry

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a study aimed at investigating the information requirements for broad use mobile applications for construction projects. It also presents the results of usability testing of a mobile application prototype for improving information management in construction projects.Design/methodology/approach – To achieve the research objectives, the information required to properly design the mobile application was collected by distributing an online questionnaire among construction professionals. Then a server‐based application prototype was developed based on enterprise content management concepts. The mobile application was tested in a laboratory by setting a group of construction management postgraduate students who had experience of working in the construction industry.Findings – This study determines and ranks the critical on‐site information artifacts, considered highly important from the perspective of clients, consultants, and contractors. The stu...

Environmental Impacts Assessment on Construction Sites

Since construction is considered as one of the main sources of environmental pollution in the world, the level of knowledge and awareness of project participants, especially project managers, with regards to environmental impacts of construction processes needs to be enhanced. This paper aims to assess the most common environmental impacts due to the construction process in Malaysia. To achieve this aim, a structured interview was conducted with an expert panel group in Malaysia. Experts were invited to identify the frequency and severity of environmental impacts caused by construction processes in residential buildings. It was found that ‘Transportation Resource’, ‘Noise Pollution’, and ‘Dust Generation with Construction Machinery’ are the greatest environmental impacts in Malaysia respectively. The results of this study are useful for construction managers and other participants in construction sites to become aware of construction processes impacts on the environment.

A Conceptual Method of Constructability Improvement

Constructability is the optimum use of construction knowledge and experience in the conceptual planning. This paper aims to illustrate the application of constructability concepts during the design stage by providing a relevant case study which is a three story residential building. The buildability score of this building is accurately calculated and then by comparing to current standard of buildability, it was found that the buildability of the building needs to be improved. Thus, the constructability concepts were implemented and it was found that if the concepts being implemented in design stage, the constructability of the building will be improved. This paper concluded by a guideline which shows relevant suggestions for improving constructability concept.

Developing an Executive Information Site Monitoring System

Progress monitoring and control is one of the most important tasks of management project. Basically, construction works produce a lot of information that were required by top managements of construction organizations to track the work progress on site. A recent issue highlighted by top managements is inefficiency in obtaining information from project site on time. Hence, the focus of this research is to establish a computerized information system that can be utilized by top management in order to evaluate the construction progress. The aim of this research is to develop a computerized project progress monitoring entitled Executive Information Site Monitoring System (EISMS). In order to develop EISMS, Classic Waterfall Model has been considered as a basis for system development. The development process started by identifying system requirements, followed by EISMS proposal, EISMS design, EISMS implementation, and ended up with system validation and verification. In conclusion, EISMS was successfully developed and implemented during construction phase which allows top management of construction organization to monitor the construction site progress more efficiently and helps them in the decision making and taking timely appropriate action.

Comparing information technology adoption between developing and developed countries

Information technology adoption is critically important because it is a fundamental element of successful project management. Although some studies have been carried out to investigate the use of information technology in the construction industry, there is no comprehensive literature to compare the information technology adoption among different countries. This research aims at investigating the current extent of information technology use between developing and developed countries. To achieve this aim, a questionnaire was sent to 800 construction professionals from 20 countries. From those, 151 completed and reliable responses were selected to be analyzed. The result of the research reveals that there is no significant difference between developing and developed countries in information technology adoption; however, developed countries are more advanced in information technology use compared to developing countries. The results of this study are useful to provide directions in research, training, and development of strategies that will respond to the needs of the construction industry in the area of information technology selection.

An Integrated Model to Design Earthquake Resistant Structures

Selection of the material and design of earthquake resistance structures are an important issue today. Many people die every year due to inappropriate design and selection of the materials. There are several software to be used for structural design of buildings, however they just design the structure based on some limited standards. There is a need to develop a computer-based earthquake resistant design model to integrate the current market’s software with different design standards of different countries. The objective of this study is to propose a model to integrate the local structural design standards/codes with available market’s programs. To achieve this objective, Microsoft Excel was used as the core of the model to be integrated with one of the market’s program. Then, the model was developed in three phases. To test the model, the Iranian design standard (Code 2800) was used to design a 7-story apartment. The results show that the model can be fully integrated with those market’s programs which support Microsoft Excel. The result of Phase 1 of the model is useful to select the optimum selection of the material while Phase 2 and 3 contribute to design of the earthquake resistant structure.

A conceptual model to assess the buildability of building structure at design stage in Malaysia

Buildability is increasingly becoming a major requirement in building construction practice. The aim of buildability is to improve efficiency of the overall building process by developing construction sensitive designs. The objective of this study is to develop a model to assess the buildability of the buildings within Malaysian construction projects. To achieve the objective of this study, a structured interview with an expert panel, including 30 construction professionals, was conducted to compare the common buildability attributes with common construction systems for building structure in Malaysia using analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The proposed model to assess the buildability of the construction buildings was evaluated and the model was amended to fulfill the requirements of the construction industry in Malaysia. Results of this study are useful to evaluate the design of the buildings within Malaysian construction projects, thus saving time, cost, and enhancing quality.

Factors affecting construction equipment acquisition methods in Malaysia

Purchasing with cash, financing through a loan, renting and leasing are four most common ways for Construction Equipment Acquiring (CEA). For having the best result in profit for a construction industry choosing the best alternative for obtaining equipment is one of the most important issues. The optimum acquisition strategy comes from accurate estimates of revenues and cost and also some non-financial factors that affect the choosing specific acquisition mode. The purpose of this report is to identify these factors. To achieve the research objective, a wide literature review has conducted. As mentioned before, two categories of factors participate in construction equipment acquisition. Financial factors are identified through different literatures. Non-financial factors are mostly experimental and cannot be identified using literatures. For recognizing these factors a semi structured interview has conducted with construction professionals. The result of this study can be used for construction manager to make a better decision in CEA.

Generalizable surrogate model features to approximate stress in 3D trusses

Abstract Existing neural network (NN) models that predict finite element analysis (FEA) of 3D trusses are not generalizable. For example, if a model is designed for a ten-bar truss, it cannot accurately predict the analysis results of a 12-bar truss. Such changes require new sample data and model retraining, reducing the time-saving value of the approach. This paper introduces Generalizable Surrogate Models (GSMs) that use a set of feature descriptors of physical structures to aggregate analysis data from various structures, enabling a more general model that predicts performance for a variety of geometric class, topology and boundary conditions. The paper presents training of generalizable models on parametric dome, wall, and slab structures, and demonstrates the accuracy and generalizability of these GSMs compared to traditional NNs. Results demonstrate first how to combine and use analysis data from various structures to predict the performance of the members of structures of the same class with different topology and boundary conditions. The results further demonstrate how these GSMs more closely predict FEA results than NN models exclusively created for a specific structure. The methodology of this study can be adopted by researchers and engineers to create predictive models for approximation of FEA.

A Motion Sensor-based User Interface for Construction Drawings Navigation

Today, most viewing of electronic drawings on construction sites takes place on mobile devices with limited screen size. Most of the current software interfaces still use a static display method, scaling drawings to fit the screen. Even though there are limitations because of small screen size on mobile devices, they have the benefit of being equipped with a variety of sensors, such as magnetometers, accelerometers, and gyroscopes. Some studies have looked at the use of these sensors to enhance further user interaction in areas such as gaming and texting. However, no study has considered the design of a user interface for construction drawing navigation using these sensors. To this end, the objective of this study is to develop a touch-free interface to navigate construction drawings using motion sensing. The interface was developed on Apple Inc.s iOS platform and tested on an iPad tablet device. Motion sensor data, from the accelerometer and gyroscope, were used to pan and zoom the document with spatial movements. This study provides an innovative means to navigate large, layered drawings on small tablet devices. The algorithm used to develop the interface can be embedded in different applications for better navigation of layered construction drawings.