Noor Amila Wan Abdullah Zawawi

The characteristics of coordination process in construction projects

Modern construction projects are no longer confined to a single discipline but are generally multidisciplinary. An independency relationship between a large number of stakeholders required to be managed in construction projects procurement and execution that need continuous coordination. Coordination function is to harmonize the different activities, so that the determined objectives can be reached effectively. However, the study of coordination characteristics are the way to assess the status of coordination in construction projects. Through the literatures, the most important characteristics of coordination process were identified. Quantitative approach was used to investigate them through questionnaire. The data were analyzed by means of statistical analysis and Chi-square test. The analysis showed that, 45.5 % of the respondents mentioned to a moderate level of knowledge about coordination, however 44.6 % were commonly applied coordination culture. Nevertheless, about 60% believed that, ability and willingness are the main obstacle of coordination application. At the same time, 75% considered coordination effect as significantly improve the project performance. In the future, 70 % of the respondents will always apply coordination consideration from their personal motivation. The results of Chi-square show a significant dependent relationship between the position and organization function variables and the eight coordination characteristics.

Communication, coordination and cooperation in construction projects: business environment and human behaviours

The accomplishment of construction projects is extremely dependent on the integration of several stakeholders; therefore none of them has the control or the ability to accomplish the project alone. Each of them may influence and be influenced by the project management approach. There is no comprehensive theoretical platform for defining Communication, Coordination and Cooperation (3Cs) in the management of construction project. This paper deliberates the function of the 3Cs different theoretical perceptions. Through an analysis of selected articles from reputable academic journals in construction management, the business environment and human behaviour were identified as two main parts. A little has been done so far about the 3Cs, and how they are correlated with construction projects performance. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to explain the definitions and the association between the 3Cs. There is a significant link between communication and coordination. Coordination alternatively, is trust-based a logic of mutual and exchange. Consequently, cooperation is much more sophisticated, which needing more time and attempts.

Delphi Technique Procedures: A New Perspective in Construction Management Research

The Delphi technique is a methodology seeks to achieve a consensus among panel of experts. The consensus is gained through a sequence of rounds. The feedback information passed to panelists by questionnaires. The technique applications being progressively involved in construction management (CM) researches and it has been applied widely in many disciplines. This popularity meant that reasonable and accurate results have been gained using Delphi technique. The aim of this study is to analysis monetary Delphi technique as a robust and systematic data collection tool in CM. Discussion and review focused on the procedures of application, cons and pros and the technique key aspects. These key aspects included experts’ selection, anonymity, rounds and feedback; have been investigated through ten published articles in CM. Delphi technique has significant opportunity to be used widely in gaining consensus within CM research. This article provides rigorous guidelines for the technique application in CM to ensure bias elimination and the outcomes validity and reliability.

A review of walking energy harvesting using piezoelectric materials

Harvesting kinetic energies is a sustainable method for generating electricity without depleting natural resources. The main mechanisms for kinetic energy harvesting are piezoelectric, electromagnetic, electrostatic or by using magnetostrictive materials. This study focuses on harvesting of walking energy and aims to compare different technologies used for converting of walking energy to electricity, and identify the most effective technology. Several types of harvester located on body of user to harvest kinetic energy of body during walking, while some pavement slabs are produced for harvesting energy. The paper concludes that the pavement equipped with the harvesters would be more reliable than the body located technologies since it is independent of the physiological parameters. Moreover, the piezoelectric transduction is more desirable due to its advantages such as simplicity and flexibility, while produce less current output than the electromagnetic transduction.

Private Finance Initiatives (PFI): Getting it Right

Recently, the UK government reformed the popular PFI into what is now referred to as PF2 after years of denying that the PFI was not delivering value for money. The reform is the result of many factors, principal of which was public sector PFI capacity deficiencies which has compromised the success of many projects. Therefore, this study set out to determine the most important PFI skills from the perspectives of public and private sector PFI practitioners and if there exists differences in opinion between the sectors. A survey of the most important PFI skills was conducted among practitioners during the course of 2 infrastructure conferences held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Factor analysis of 17 PFI skills produced 3 factor groupings that broadly explain the PFI skills requirements. These skills include Contract design skills, Contract Management skills, and Risk identification and Management skills. There was however no statistically significant difference in opinion between the public and private sector respondents.

An Artificial neural networks (ANN) model for evaluating construction project performance based on coordination factors

Abstract Construction projects are delivered in a multidisciplinary environment, which need continues coordination. The aim of this paper is to develop an ANN model to evaluate the influence of coordination factors on construction projects performance. For this purpose, the most effective 16 coordination factors impacting the construction projects performance have been identified. After that, through a questionnaire survey, the extent of coordination factors application and the corresponding project’s performance were collected. Three multilayer feed-forward networks with Back-Propagation and Elman-Propagation algorithms were adopted to train, validate, and test the cost, time and quality, as performance evaluation indicators. Consequently, the training process continues unit it reaches the pre-defined error or up to 1000 epochs. The results of Mean Square Error (MSE) confirmed the accuracy of the networks with an average value of 0.0231. Furthermore, the determination coefficient (R2) for the three networks of cost, time, and quality were obtained to be 0.77, 0.76 and 0.75, respectively.

Recent developments in machine learning applications in landslide susceptibility mapping

While the prediction of spatial distribution of potential landslide occurrences is a primary interest in landslide hazard mitigation, it remains a challenging task. To overcome the scarceness of complete, sufficiently detailed geomorphological attributes and environmental conditions, various machine-learning techniques are increasingly applied to effectively map landslide susceptibility for large regions. Nevertheless, limited review papers are devoted to this field, particularly on the various domain specific applications of machine learning techniques. Available literature often report relatively good predictive performance, however, papers discussing the limitations of each approaches are quite uncommon. The foremost aim of this paper is to narrow these gaps in literature and to review up-to-date machine learning and ensemble learning techniques applied in landslide susceptibility mapping. It provides new readers an introductory understanding on the subject matter and researchers a contemporary review ...

Heave motion prediction of a large barge in random seas by using artificial neural network

This paper describes the development of a multi-layer feed forward artificial neural network (ANN) to predict rigid heave body motions of a large catenary moored barge subjected to multi-directional irregular waves. The barge is idealized as a rigid plate of finite draft with planar dimensions 160m (length) and 100m (width) which is held on station using a six point chain catenary mooring in 50m water depth. Hydroelastic effects are neglected from the physical model as the chief intent of this study is focused on large plate rigid body hydrodynamics modelling using ANN. Even with this assumption, the computational requirements for time domain coupled hydrodynamic simulations of a moored floating body is considerably costly, particularly if a large number of simulations are required such as in the case of response based design (RBD) methods. As an alternative to time consuming numerical hydrodynamics, a regression-type ANN model has been developed for efficient prediction of the barge’s heave responses to random waves from various directions. It was determined that a network comprising of 3 input features, 2 hidden layers with 5 neurons each and 1 output was sufficient to produce acceptable predictions within 0.02 mean squared error. By benchmarking results from the ANN with those generated by a fully coupled dynamic model in OrcaFlex, it is demonstrated that the ANN is capable of predicting the barge’s heave responses with acceptable accuracy.This paper describes the development of a multi-layer feed forward artificial neural network (ANN) to predict rigid heave body motions of a large catenary moored barge subjected to multi-directional irregular waves. The barge is idealized as a rigid plate of finite draft with planar dimensions 160m (length) and 100m (width) which is held on station using a six point chain catenary mooring in 50m water depth. Hydroelastic effects are neglected from the physical model as the chief intent of this study is focused on large plate rigid body hydrodynamics modelling using ANN. Even with this assumption, the computational requirements for time domain coupled hydrodynamic simulations of a moored floating body is considerably costly, particularly if a large number of simulations are required such as in the case of response based design (RBD) methods. As an alternative to time consuming numerical hydrodynamics, a regression-type ANN model has been developed for efficient prediction of the barge’s heave responses to ...

Effect of Synthesized Biopolymer from Coconut Residue as Drag Reducing Agent in Water Injection Well

Over the past 20 years, commercial polymers have been utilized in oil and gas industries as drag reducing agent (DRA) to minimize the pressure drop and improve the injectivity in water flooding systems. Several studies have been carried out to find an alternative for commercial polymers as drag reducing agents (DRAs) from natural and biodegradable polymers such as carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) which are more environmental friendly, yet performing as good as the synthetic polymer. In this paper, a new eco-friendly DRA is extracted from organic materials (coconut residue) to replace the commercial polymer, due to its abundance and ability to perform as effective as commercial polymer in lowering pressure losses and accelerating the flow in oil and gas pipelines. The objective of this study was aimed to demonstrate the synthesizing process of biopolymer from coconut residue, then test biopolymer DRA impacts on formation permeability after injecting them into the reservoir, and finally studying the mechanical degradation of biopolymer DRA by exposing the solutions to a high mechanical stirring speed using viscometer device. An experimental study is conducted using a benchtop permeability system to justify if the DRAs have any impact on formation permeability. Three core samples were flooded with brine solution of 10000 ppm and DRA solution of 50 ppm at three different injection rates 1 ml/min, 3 ml/min, and 5 ml/min consecutively. The mechanical degradation of the DRA is examined by exposing 0.5–1.0% solutions of biopolymer to a high stirring speed ranged from 500 rpm to 1500 rpm for 60 min to perceive whether such influence is noticeable. The result showed the solution of 1.0% concentration has higher mechanical degradation compared to a lower molecular weight solution of 0.5% concentration.

Impacts of Implementation of IBS Score Regulations of CIDB on the Concrete Volumes Required for Building Projects in Malaysia

Improvement of construction industry will contribute to the economy of Malaysia because it is one of the five sectors used to calculate the national GDP. This fact is encouraging the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) of Malaysia to prepare many development plans like Roadmap 2003-2010, CIMP 2006-2015, and Roadmap 2011-2015. Adoption of the Industrialized Building System (IBS) is the step stone for all these plans. CIDB has created an indicator to assess the degree on industrialization for applied building system; IBS score. Furthermore, CIDB has specified the minimum values of this score for the building projects of government and private sector. This paper discusses the effects of adjusting these values on the structural design of an office building. The CIDB method of calculating the IBS score, the moment distribution method of structural analysis and BS8110 code of design will be used to analyze the selected case study.