Ruoyu Jin

Multilevel Safety Culture and Climate Survey for Assessing New Safety Program

AbstractConstruction safety culture is becoming a typical proactive safety performance measurement and strategy for safety improvement. However, there is no accepted industry wide definition for safety culture. There is also no clear distinction between safety culture and safety climate. So far, little research has investigated how safety programs can be developed to improve safety culture and climate, which in turn can be used to assess the effectiveness of these programs. This paper presents a study that examined the multilevel safety culture and climate to assess a newly launched safety program. Specifically, three different questionnaires were used to survey 71 top executives, 229 site management personnel, and 350 field workers, respectively. This study found wide acceptance of the program across all three groups, strong management accountability in enforcing safety, and a positive general safety climate among workers. The results demonstrated the program’s overall effectiveness in building positive ...

Comparison of Data Mining Techniques for Predicting Compressive Strength of Environmentally Friendly Concrete

AbstractWith its growing emphasis on sustainability, the construction industry is increasingly interested in environmentally friendly concrete produced by using alternative and/or recycled waste materials. However, the wide application of such concrete is hindered by the lack of understanding of the impacts of these materials on concrete properties. This research investigates and compares the performance of nine data mining models in predicting the compressive strength of a new type of concrete containing three alternative materials as fly ash, Haydite lightweight aggregate, and portland limestone cement. These models include three advanced predictive models (multilayer perceptron, support vector machines, and Gaussian processes regression), four regression tree models (M5P, REPTree, M5-Rules, and decision stump), and two ensemble methods (additive regression and bagging) with each of the seven individual models used as the base classifier. The analytical results show that, with appropriate parameter sett...

Investigation into the current stage of BIM application in China's AEC industries

Building Information Modelling (BIM), the movement in the architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) industries worldwide, is pushing AEC firms to adopt BIM technologies in multiple engineering design fields and project management. China, the world’s largest AEC market, is currently undergoing a growing demand on BIM utilization along with recently published governmental policies to enhance the BIM adoption. Despite the general trend of BIM implementation, there are some challenges of implementing BIM in China’s local AEC industries. This paper is aimed at investigating the current stage of BIM practice in China. Through literature review of BIM application in China and overseas, followed by a questionnaire-based survey to an international engineering firm in China, both qualitative and quantitative information has been collected to analyse the local BIM practice, the benefits and barriers of implementing BIM, and the future of BIM in China. The findings of the investigation provide the vision of BIM development in the next five to ten years in China, and recommendations on future BIM implementation.

Empirical Study of BIM Implementation–Based Perceptions among Chinese Practitioners

The global movement of building information modeling (BIM) is spreading the implementation of BIM from developed countries to other developing countries. Practitioners’ perceptions of BIM implementation in these developing countries, such as China, a giant building market that is increasing the application of BIM in the industry, have not been thoroughly understood. This research used the questionnaire method to survey 94 randomly recruited Chinese BIM professionals to investigate BIM practice and its related perceptions. Reductions in design errors and resultant construction rework were considered the top benefits of using BIM. The most important factor in achieving BIM value was noted as interoperability among various BIM tools. A comprehensive evaluation of BIM at the company level was considered a major difficulty of implementing BIM. The owner was considered the party that received the most benefits from BIM. Subgroup differences based on two major categories (i.e., participants’ profession and BIM proficiency level) were analyzed in the survey sections related to BIM implementation. Statistical analysis revealed that, generally, neither the profession nor BIM proficiency level affected participants’ perceptions of the benefits, factors, challenges, or benefited parties in BIM implementation.

Study of the Relationship between Procurement Duration and Project Performance in Design-Build Projects: Comparison between Water/Wastewater and Transportation Sectors

Previous studies on building, industrial, and transportation projects found that projects delivered using design-build tend to perform better than projects delivered with the traditional design-bid-build method. However, performance of design-build projects is affected by various factors, with procurement-related factors being among the most influential. Whereas other aspects of procurement have been largely investigated, the effect of procurement duration on project performance has been studied only for design-build transportation projects. In addition, few studies have focused specifically on the delivery of water/wastewater projects. This paper includes the results of a study on the relationship between procurement duration and performance of water/wastewater design-build projects. The study methodology was based on regression analysis of data from a sample of water/wastewater design-build projects. The results show that unlike the transportation sector, procurement duration has little effect on either schedule or cost performance in the water/wastewater sector. Likely reasons for this difference were then explored through a content analysis of procurement documents.

BIM Investment, Returns, and Risks in China’s AEC Industries

Building Information Modeling, or BIM, the emerging digital technology, is undergoing increasing application in developing countries including China. Both the governmental policy and industry motivation have indicated that BIM is becoming the mainstream innovation in Chinas construction industry. Nevertheless, one major concern lies in the uncertainty of BIM investment for AEC firms. Specifically, AEC firms should have the knowledge of what areas BIM investment could focus on (e.g., BIM software), what are the expected returns from BIM investment, how to enhance the returns from BIM usage, and what are the risks in implementing BIM. This study adopts a questionnaire survey-based approach to address these BIM application and risk related concerns in China. BIM practitioners from multiple AEC fields and different experience levels were recruited as the survey sample. It was found from the questionnaire survey that both internal and external collaboration should be the BIM investment priority, together with the interoperability among multiple BIM software tools. Improved multiparty communication and understanding was the highest recognized return from BIM investment. Survey participants had a high expectation of BIM application in green building projects. Subgroup analysis conveyed the information that gaining BIM practical experience would provide professionals with more confidence on returns from BIM adoption in enhancing communication and understanding. Compared to survey participants from other professions, architects tended to have more conservative views on BIMs impact on marketing their work, project planning, and recruiting/retaining employees. The findings from this empirical study provide an overview of BIM investment, return, and implementation-related risks for AEC professionals at different stages or levels of BIM practice, as well as suggestions for relevant public authorities when developing BIM guidelines (e.g., BIM applications in prefabrication construction). As an extension of existing BIM implementation related studies in developed countries, this study provides insights of BIM practical experience and associated risks in China adopting a holistic approach by summarizing the perceptions from AEC professionals across disciplines and experience levels. The knowledge gained from this study could be further applied in other developing countries where the application of information technology is gaining the growth in AEC projects.

Launching the innovative BIM module for the architecture and built environment programme in China

Building Information Modelling (BIM), the booming digital technology in the global architectural, engineering, and co nstruction (AEC) industries, is changing the project management not only from the technological persp ective but also the way of team collaboration. As academia st aff in the AEC field, the authors have been working on exploring the implementation of BIM education in the university curriculum, equipping students with the initial BIM knowledge, and further training students to prepare themselves in the future AEC job market. The newly created BIM module in the university recruited final year students from multiple disciplines, including architecture, ci vil engineering, and architectural environmental engineering. A real-life project was used in the module to enable students from different backgrounds to work in a team by utilizing the BIM as the teamwork tool. Students’ group work of applying BIM is presented in this study. Discussion from student group presentations sparked insights on how to overcome potential barriers when replacing the trad itional 2D system with BIM. This study is developed to provide an example a nd initial thoughts of how the university education could be updated to meet the AEC industry need.