Michael J. Horman

Piloting Evaluation Metrics for Sustainable High-Performance Building Project Delivery

Sustainable high-performance buildings are being more widely adopted around the world to reduce energy costs and improve the well being of occupants. To achieve the set goals for these building projects within realistic financial and time constraints, superior planning, design, and construction processes are needed. The available literature lacks the descriptive project delivery metrics identifying scientific methods for providing insight or feedback about the performance of project delivery processes for sustainable high-performance buildings. This paper describes an exploratory study examining more than 100 variables in green project delivery to scientifically identify important metrics. Limited by a rather small sample due to the relatively young market of green buildings, the outcome of this paper, nevertheless, provides important direction for the continued development of meaningful metrics to assist in the establishment of a decision making support tool for project teams to facilitate optimum project delivery processes for sustainable high-performance buildings.

The Impact of Process Mapping on Transparency

Purpose - Process mapping is used to articulate the activities and procedures of business entities in a graphical way as pictorial images readily convey considerable information. The objective of this research is to provide evidence and a methodology to assist organizations in evaluating the early stages of their process mapping efforts. Design/methodology/approach - A review of literature identifies key characteristics of transparency (process visibility) related to process mapping. Quizzes and surveys are used to study the impact of process mapping on transparency in an employee training session. Findings - The paper finds that process mapping increases transparency between 5 percent and 27 percent for the applications discussed in this paper. Research limitations/implications - The research presumes that better understanding and recall of the companys business processes equates to higher transparency. This research study is limited to one field test, organization, and process mapping methodology. These limitations should be considered when extrapolating the results to other organizations. Practical implications - The methodology outlined in this paper provides a way to measure the impact that formalizing (mapping) an organizations business processes and then using these maps to communicate the organizations business processes has on an individual employees understanding and recall of those business processes. This methodology may help other organizations evaluate the early stages of their process mapping efforts. Originality/value - A measurable definition of transparency is developed. A field study provides evidence that process mapping increases transparency and a methodology is shared for others to study the impacts of their process mapping efforts.

Ethnographic Theory-Building Research in Construction

Traditional construction research methods have enabled focused but narrow advances in our understanding of industry phenomena. While contributing new insight, these methods are often not adequate to enable understanding of the complex interactions that lead to many of the industrys pervasive social and technical problems. One means of addressing these limitations is for the construction research community to complement prevalent quantitative and case study methodologies with qualitative theory-building methodologies, specifically ethnographic studies or those based on detailed and long-term observation of project environments. This paper identifies the critical need for theory-building methods and their methodological conventions, challenges, and opportunities. Specifically, the paper focuses on data collection in ethnographic studies and analysis of that data through the use of grounded theory. Through better under- standing and more widespread use of theory-building methods, the construction research community can provide a needed complement to the current prevailing methods and greatly aid the maturation of our important field.

LEAN AND GREEN: THE ROLE OF DESIGN-BUILD MECHANICAL COMPETENCIES IN THE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF GREEN BUILDINGS

Building mechanical systems play a major role in both initial cost and life cycle energy use in buildings. This research examines the role of design-build mechanical contractors in meeting energy efficiency and first cost objectives on high performance “green” building projects. Specifically, synergies between lean principles which eliminate process and materials waste are evaluated for alignment with green goals in resource minimization and energy efficiency. The role of design-build mechanical contractors in achieving green buildings is explored through engineering, design detailing, fabrication, and construction processes. Three illustrative case studies are summarized to illustrate the unique abilities of design-build mechanical contractors as valuable contributors on green projects. The results of these case studies and interviews with design-build mechanical professionals are summarized in descriptive tables in which waste reducing lean principles are applied to achieve green results. Key results include the value of integrated design and detailing of mechanical systems, the ability of design-build mechanical contractors to take on more risk with innovative design solutions, and the benefits of early involvement of expertise in estimating and constructability of mechanical systems on building projects. Implications for the design process of green buildings and the role of energy and mechanical engineering are discussed.

Counterfactual Analysis of Sustainable Project Delivery Processes

Research is revealing that certain delivery process attributes influence the outcomes of sustainable construction projects. This preliminary research leads to follow-up questions such as which attributes are most influential? And how can the influence of these attributes be quantified? Answering questions like these is impractical using only traditional construction research methods. Delivery process attributes can have greater impact on one sustainable project and less on another, and controlling the numerous variables involved is nearly impossible. To answer questions facing similar constraints, economist Robert Fogel pioneered the counterfactual analysis research method, winning a Nobel Prize in the process. The objective of this article is to describe the adaptation and testing of counterfactual analysis to assist study of sustainable project delivery processes. Counterfactual analysis is especially well suited for sustainable projects, with their complex processes and stakeholder interactions. The adapted six-step method is informed by applications of counterfactual analysis in fields including economics, history, and political science. Descriptions of each step include specific examples from a pilot study of the method. A path forward is outlined for applying counterfactual analysis to examine key questions related to sustainable construction projects and to more broad areas of construction research.

Delivering Sustainability: Lean Principles for Green Projects

Corporate facility owners have developed an increased interest in high performance “sustainable” or “green” facilities. The superior long term performance of these facilities in energy efficiency and indoor environment quality makes them excellent investments for both public and private facility owners. However, project budget increases often result due to complex design processes requiring elevated levels of interaction between design and construction disciplines. Lean production principles are able to reduce waste and streamline processes in highly complex development and production environments. When utilized they can greatly shorten lead times, reduce costs, and show considerable promise for improving the delivery of high performance green facilities. This paper reports a research project between Penn State University and the Toyota Motor Corporation into the successful delivery processes for high performance green facilities. Guided by the principles of the Toyota Production System, the objective of this research is to map in detail the delivery processes for high performance green facilities at Toyota. The outcome of this research has revealed the critical factors that contribute to Toyota’s success at high performance green facility delivery, thereby providing corporate facility owners with much needed insight to achieve better delivered high performance green facilities.

Synergies between Sustainable Design and Constructability at the Pentagon

Sustainable design and constructability are two keys for efficient design and construction that are often addressed separately from each other in projects. This paper examines the integration of these two initiatives on the Pentagon renovation. The examination exposes a synergistic relationship between sustainable design and constructability. This relationship strives to efficiently utilize resources and reduce waste in the project. The integrated organizational structure and design-build performance based contracting strategies at the Pentagon have assisted in the implementation of sustainable design and constructability. Connections between the two initiatives were found at the conceptual level, system level, materials level and in the design implementation process. Importantly, the analysis of the Pentagon reveals that the potential to improve the sustainability and the constructability of a project is enhanced when the two initiatives are integrated and approached in a combined fashion.

Key Processes in the Building Delivery of Green Hospitals

The healthcare industry is one of the largest and most significant built environment markets today with over 120,000 buildings in the United States. Moreover, in the next 15 years, an estimated

EVALUATING DESIGN-BUILD-OPERATE-MAINTAIN DELIVERY AS A TOOL FOR SUSTAINABILITY

300 billion will be spent on hospital construction across the United States. Therefore, there is a great opportunity for research and improvements to be made in this area. The built environment has a great impact on healthcare, particularly on the health, safety and well-being of patients and staff. Green healthcare can enable improved clinical outcomes; lower operating costs, energy consumption and water use. Healthcare facilities are amongst the most complex types of facilities to design, construct and operate. This research study outlines the findings from four children’s hospitals with different levels of sustainability in regards to, the project delivery process, greening strategies and lean principles. The key processes investigated are: transparency in relation to green outcomes, owner commitment, early team selection, team experience, early adoption of green, the commissioning process, energy modeling and the role of the construction management team in the delivery of a green hospital. The findings provide a detailed description and analysis of the delivery process for each case study. The results show that certain delivery process attributes vary with the level of sustainability being sought by the hospitals, with the top three attributes being: owner commitment, expertise on sustainable delivery and early timing of sustainable objectives.

A Unified Process Approach to Healthcare Project Delivery: Synergies between Greening Strategies, Lean Principles and BIM

Building and other capital projects usually have a clear distinction between project development phases (i.e. design and construction), and the operations and maintenance phases of a facility. Over the life of the facility, operations and maintenance expenses often far exceed the initial cost of a facility. Importantly, the decisions made early in a proj ect have a strong affect on the life cycle costs of a building. Operation and maintenance knowledge needs to be incorporated early in design to make these critical decisions. High performance green building projects extensively use methods to evaluate the impact of design features over the life of the facility. Techniques such as life cycle cost analysis, energy modeling, and daylight simulation help to evaluate long term impacts of building features. Project delivery methods strongly affect the way project teams are brought together, thus impacting the quality of decisions made in a project. Design -Build has been shown to introduce often crucial and reliable construction input during design to improve the performance of a project. Likewise, the Design-Build-Operate-Maintain (DBOM) project delivery system brings critical operations and main tenance knowledge into design. With this knowledge, better decisions can be made resulting in a higher performing building. A s a result, a more efficient and sustainable fa cility will be turned over to the owner. A review of literature reveals that DBOM has not yet been widely adopted to achieve sustainable project goals. This paper defines the DBOM delivery system, explores the benefits of DBOM, investigates the ability of DBOM to achieve important sustainable initiatives and concludes that this is a promising development for the advancement of sustainable projects.