Nerija Banaitienė

Identification and evaluation of the critical success factors for construction projects in Lithuania: AHP approach

This paper proposes the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) as a tool to rank different critical success factors (CSFs) for construction projects in Lithuania. Considering the current lack of understanding of CSFs within the local context, this study is one of the first attempts to gain an understanding of the CSFs in the local industry. Our study revealed that, for construction projects in Lithuania, clear and realistic project goals, project planning, the project managers competence, relevant past experience of the project management/team, the competence of the project management/team, clear and precise goals/objectives of the client, the projects value, the projects complexity and uniqueness, the project managers experience, and the clients ability to make timely decisions are the top-ranking CSFs. In view of these findings, the study highlighted the key areas for successful implementation of construction projects in Lithuania.

Risk management in projects: peculiarities of Lithuanian construction companies

Risk analysis and management is nowadays a critical factor to successful construction project management, as construction projects tend to be more complex, dynamic, always unique, and competition increasingly tougher. risk management helps the project participants—client, contractor or developer, consultant, and supplier—to meet their commitments and minimize negative impacts on construction project scope, cost, schedule (and quality, as a Result). The benefits of the risk management process include identifying and analyzing risks, and improvement of construction project management processes and effective use of resources. This paper reports the research that aims to discover how construction companies perceive the significance of the construction projects risks they face and the extent to which they employ potential risk responses.

Combination of fuzzy-AHP and DEMATEL-ANP with GIS in a new hybrid MCDM model used for the selection of the best space for leisure in a blighted urban site

AbstractUrban blight issues have transformed over time. Today, the focus is on the social context and such services as recreation and leisure. Considering that the insufficiency of leisure spaces in blighted urban neighbourhoods gives rise to social and cultural problems in Tehran, this research aims to identify the best leisure space in a blighted urban site. The selection process uses the combination of a new hybrid MCDM model and GIS. The integration of GIS and MCDM makes a powerful tool for the selection of the best leisure space in a site because GIS provides efficient manipulation, analysis and presentation of spatial data while MCDM supplies consistent weight of sub-criteria and criteria. The results show the interrelations between dimensions and criteria, also influential priorities and the most important sequences of those. Afterward, this study employs DANP to obtain the weight of each criterion and select a site for leisure using GIS, based on INRM from the DEMATEL method.

Residential Areas with Apartment Houses: Analysis of the Condition of Buildings, Planning Issues, Retrofit Strategies and Scenarios

Modernisation of apartment houses is a particularly relevant issue both in Lithuania and many other countries. To make it more efficient, the modernisation of apartment houses must be integrated--an entire block or residential area must be renovated and the principles of sustainable development must be followed. This article dwells on the issues related to retrofit planning in residential blocks/areas and analyses the condition of apartment houses and their environment. The article also proposes strategies for retrofit of residential areas with apartment houses. The strategies aim to improve the living standards and the quality of environment, to cut energy consumption and Co 2 emissions, to maintain mixed social structure, to integrate new buildings into the existing environment in a sustainable manner, to develop an urban centre of a residential area as a functioning part of the city, to develop democratic planning and to seek close cooperation of modernisation partners. The scenarios based on relevant strategies must define the measures of retrofit, their priority and their potential effect.

Risk assessment in tourism system using a fuzzy set and dominance-based rough set

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to identify risks, discover rule base structure and the impact of risks by knowledge base system design in one of the Iran tourism destination. Based on tourism system approach, the factors of risks are divided in two dimensions: internal risks and external risks and seven criteria: political, economic, cultural-social, technological, environmental-health, functional and safe-security. Data were analyzed by fuzzy inference system and Dominance-based Rough Set Approach (DRSA) synthesizing to construction of forecasting risk assessment system. Tourists’ perspectives towards the possibilities of risks were first assessed within seven risk factors and converted into a systematic structure within the structure of rough sets. Designing of a fuzzy expert system was dealt with using the created knowledge database. Then, the system’s sensitivity analysis was examined. The results indicate that the system can be a good way to estimate the risks and their fluctuation rates and im...

Framework for assessing technological innovation capability in research and technology organizations

This study aims to evaluate technology innovation capabilities (TICs) of research and technology organizations (RTOs) by applying Fuzzy-DEMATEL & ANP techniques, in order to provide a practical lookout for their firm’s requirement in this regard. Based on literature review, six main criteria and eighteen sub-criteria are extracted. Fuzzy-DEMATEL is applied to analyze the casual relationships among the criteria and subcriteria. After identifying the relations between the criteria a questionnaire is developed and distributed among sixteen experts to assess the validity of the questionnaire, then the relations are weighted by ANP. It is concluded that proposed model is a comprehensive model that integrates qualitative and quantitative approaches to develop a step by step model to reach to the main TICs criteria in RTOs. Although, there are many previous researches illustrating various models to evaluate TICs, there is no formidable one using these techniques combination. Based on the abilities of the techniques and the results emerged this paper has prepared a robust model available for other RTOs to adopt as a true reference to reach to their TICs.

Foreign direct investment and growth: analysis of the construction sector in the Baltic States

AbstractIn the construction industry of the Baltic States, the aftermath of the economic crisis poses new questions as to what occasioned the crisis. The paper analyses a causal relationship between foreign direct investment in construction (CFDI) and the contribution of the construction industry to gross domestic product (GDP) using data obtained in the Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) for the period from 2000 to 2011. The conducted research includes the initial econometric analysis of variables, which involves the verification of seasonality and stationarity with the help of time series plots, a unit root test and Granger causality test. The study has found that, in the case of Lithuania and Estonia, CFDI is not the Granger cause of the construction industrys contribution to GDP growth; conversely, value added by the construction sector is not the Granger cause of FDI into the sector, and there is one-way causality from value added by the construction sector to CFDI, and the construction i...