Tariq S. Abdelhamid

Suitability of life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) as asset management tools for institutional buildings

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the accuracy of life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) for institutional (higher education) buildings as a predictor of actual realised facility costs.Design/methodology/approach – Research methodology includes a comprehensive literature review to identify issues, best practices and implementation of LCCA in the construction industry. A case study was conducted to evaluate the accuracy of LCCA in predicting facility costs.Findings – Notwithstanding the benefits of LCCA, its adoption has been relatively slow for institutional buildings. The case study revealed that the average difference between estimated and actual construction cost is 37 per cent, whereas the average difference between the actual and estimated maintenance cost is 48 per cent. There is an average difference of 85 per cent in the actual and estimated administration cost.Research limitations/implications – While limited to a few buildings, the case study underscores that LCCA methods should not be...

Rethinking Safety: Learning To Work Near The Edge

Construction safety has substantially improved, but has reached a plateau. A breakthrough transcending “Best Practice” is required. This paper considers current “Best Practice” to reveal its underlying theoretical assumptions. An alternative theory is proposed, based on the work of Jens Rasmussen, a leading thinker on risk management in dynamic environments. A research program is put forward to test and develop a new approach to safety management.

ACCIDENT PREVENTION STRATEGIES: CAUSATION MODEL AND RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

This paper presents an accident causation model that identifies the production system factors affecting the accident process, and proposes accident prevention strategies. The model builds on descriptive rather than prescriptive theories of work behavior and acknowledges the inevitability of exposures and errors. It also focuses on the operation as the level of analysis—that is, it focuses on the factors that influence the number of accidents during a construction operation. The model first identifies the production factors that affect the frequency of hazards during a construction activity, and emphasizes the importance of task unpredictability. Then we examine how the production pressures and the tendency to minimize effort increase the workers’ efficient behaviors and their exposure to hazards, while safety efforts try to prevent such exposures. Finally, the model acknowledges that exposure to hazards only leads to accidents, if errors or changes in the situation “release” the hazard. Based on this conceptualization of the accident process, the paper proposes accident prevention strategies that do not focus on compliance with safety rules: (1) reduce task unpredictability to reduce the frequency of hazards; (2) improve the work conditions to enable more productive behaviors without increasing the safety risk, and (3) develop error management strategies to prevent, trap and mitigate the consequences of errors. These strategies provide direction for safety research.

Investigation of Contemporary Performance Measurement Systems for Production Management of Renovation Projects

Renovation projects exhibit complex characteristics due to the presence of constraints that lead to cost and schedule overruns. Numerous researchers have concluded that the performance of renovation projects is typically lower than that of new construction projects. This paper discusses the initial phases of a research conducted at Michigan State University, which focused on developing a framework for production management of renovation projects. The emphasis of this paper is on the findings from literature review and interviews, pertinent to performance measurement in renovation projects that led to the framework development. However, the framework development and the framework itself have not been discussed. This paper primarily addresses two questions: (1) what are the complexities of renovation projects that lead to underperformance in cost, time, and quality? and (2) what are the limitations of state-of-the-art construction performance measurement systems for managing production in renovation projects? Interviews of 10 construction companies were conducted to identify current practices of production management in renovation projects. This research observed a lack of a formal production management process in renovation projects, with a limited use of performance measurement systems. The research identified essential attributes for avoiding schedule and cost overruns on renovation projects.

Selection of roof casting formwork systems for the bird island project: Case study

Formwork is a major contributor to profitability—or the lack of it—on most large and complex concrete jobs. Furthermore, formwork has major consequences for the project schedule, as well as all related trades, such as ironworkers and cement finishers. Consequently, selecting a formwork system and planning its field operations must consider the effects of the system on the overall project. However, due to competitive pressures and limited recourses, contractors seldom have the time to think through the construction phase specifics, and enter bids with carryover estimates adjusted for inflation. This may result in significant difficulties in meeting the project requirements. The paper illustrates the complexities involved in the selection and deployment of a formwork system through a study of the concrete formwork selection on the Bird Island Flats Tunnel project. This

Impact of I/D Contracts Used for Expediting Michigan’s Road Construction

290 million project was a part of the Central Artery/Tunnel project in Boston, Massachusetts. Because the conventional shoring methods coul...

Ironworkers: Physiological demands during construction work

AbstractThe Michigan DOT (MDOT) has been using monetary incentive/disincentive (I/D) payments/penalties to accelerate highway construction work. This paper examines whether the I/D for expediting construction captures the true cost (user delay savings versus actual I/D dollars) and identifies its impacts on the long-term pavement performance for projects that have been expedited. Data were collected and analyzed on projects built through acceleration techniques and similar projects, constructed under standard contract means from 1998 to 2012. The analyzed data statistically supports an improvement in the long-term project performance for incentive projects and suggests a trend that incentive clauses accelerate project schedules. Additionally, data analysis statistically supports the concept that incentive clauses increase project cost yet further analysis finds that the avoided user delay was higher than the additional paid cost for some incentive clauses. The analysis results highlight the effectiveness ...

Environmental Impact Analysis Using Hybrid Decision Support Framework: A Transportation Project Case Study

Construction craft work is a physically strenuous and demanding occupation. Physically demanding work leads to physical fatigue which is associated with decreased productivity. Early attempts to investigate the physical demands of construction work date back to the 1950s and were based on principles from work physiology. The work and workforce have changed since the 1950s warranting an investigation of todays construction work performed by todays construction workforce. This paper investigates the physical demands of construction ironworkers. Physiological measures of energy expenditure, including oxygen consumption and heart rate data, were collected for 7 ironworkers performing a total of 10 actual construction activities. The results indicate that these construction workers routinely exceed one or more published guidelines for acceptable levels of energy expenditure, oxygen consumption, and heart rate. The methods described in this paper have wide applications in identifying excessively demanding construction tasks so the work can be modified to accommodate the abilities of all workers, to reduce physical demands and resulting physical fatigue.

The validity of data dependent system modelling to predict relative physiological workload during construction work

An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study for any project is a time- consuming process because it has a large number of dependent and independent variables that must be taken into account. Although EIAs are dependent on geo-spatial information in order to make an assessment, there are no standard rules for conducting an environmental assessment. In addition, each assessment objective is case-dependent, based on what information is available. This paper presents a new framework for the analysis phase of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for projects, based on the integration between remote sensing technology, geographic information systems, and spatial modeling. The framework comprehensively analyzes the environmental vulnerability around the project areas and its impact on the environment by integrating the merits of the map overlay method and the matrix method. This framework is expected to improve the quality of the decision making process in urban and inter-urban projects. A transportation project is used as a framework demonstration case study to illustrate the decision support framework and demonstrate its capabilities.

Predicting Workload during Physically Demanding Work Using Oxygen Uptake Data

The measurement of oxygen uptake during physical work activities is considered a good measure of the physiological workload experienced by construction workers. Many work physiologists advocate reporting the measured oxygen uptake as a percentage of maximum oxygen uptake, a ratio commonly known as relative workload. The main advantage of this ratio is the subject-specific workload it provides. This enables the tailoring of work demands to the ability of individual workers. Determining relative workload is arithmetically simple once maximum oxygen uptake is known. However, finding exact maximum oxygen uptake requires intricate and complicated laboratory procedures that may be dangerous for unfit individuals. Therefore, despite sacrificing accuracy, maximum oxygen uptake prediction techniques offer an attractive alternative. This paper presents a large scale validation of a maximum oxygen uptake prediction method that uses in-situ collected sub-maximal oxygen uptake data. The methodology, developed using twenty subjects and verified on eight construction workers, was based on the use of time series analysis techniques and the hypothesis that oxygen uptake data are serially dependent. The validation results using 100 subjects arrived at a ±0.65 liter·min -1