Youngcheol Kang

Comparison of Preproject Planning for Green and Conventional Buildings

AbstractThe importance of green buildings has been frequently highlighted. However, barriers such as greater complexity, lack of understanding of sustainability, and the perception of a greater possibility of cost overrun have hindered the dissemination of green buildings. More planning efforts for green buildings can presumably help mitigate these barriers. This paper investigates preproject planning efforts for green and conventional building projects. Project-level data were collected (124 in total, 71 from conventional building projects and 53 from green building projects), with project data consisting of general information about the project, a Project Definition Rate Index (PDRI) survey, and cost performance. The project data were categorized into four groups based on their project type (green and conventional) and cost performance (actual cost on/under budget and over budget). For the four groups, a two-way analysis of variance test was used to compare the degree of preproject planning efforts meas...

Interaction effects of information technologies and best practices on construction project performance

AbstractBuilding from considerable empirical research in the general business literature, this paper quantitatively explores the view that the benefits of information technologies manifest themselves through improvement in work processes. In turn, better work processes lead to increased project performance. Using an overall sample of 133 projects (missing data make specific correlation sample sizes smaller) from the Construction Industry Institute Benchmarking and Metrics database, this paper analyzes correlations between technology use and integration, best practices, and project performance measured with cost, schedule, and rework metrics. Data are also used to assess the complementary interaction between technology use, work processes as measured by best practices, and performance. The findings show that there are limited significant beneficial correlations between information technology use and performance, slightly more significant beneficial correlations between best practice use and performance, an...

Trends of Fall Accidents in the U.S. Construction Industry

AbstractFall accidents constitute a crucial type of accident in the construction industry. This study investigates fall accidents that occurred in the United States between 1997 and 2012. Using the...

Pullout of geosynthetic reinforcement with in-plane drainage capability

While there are significant economic reasons for relaxing the currently stringent specifications for backfill material in reinforced soil structures, it is also true that failure of these structures have often involved inadequate drainage and use of low quality, fine-grained soils. However, geosynthetic inclusions can be used within finegrained soils if they can provide not only reinforcement, but also lateral drainage. While using reinforcement with in-plane drainage capability is conceptually enticing, transmissivity requirements for such application have not been properly quantified. This study presents preliminary results of an ongoing experimental testing program involving geogrid pullout tests conducted in wet, fine-grained soils. Pairs of tests were conducted using geogrids with the same tensile strength but with and without in-plane drainage channels. The beneficial effect of lateral drainage is being quantified.

The 10-10 Performance Assessment Campaign: New Theories Regarding the Benchmarking of Capital Project Performance

This paper presents a recent initiative to revolutionize the benchmarking of capital projects. In the past 17 years, Construction Industry Institute (CII) has become a major source for the benchmarking of capital projects. While the value of benchmarking has been recognized by CII member companies, they find it difficult to implement it due to various issues. To address these issues, CII began working with industry experts to develop a new performance assessment system. This new system, known as the 10-10 Program, consists of input measures such as planning, organizing, leading, and controlling and output measures such as cost and capacity. This paper describes the new benchmarking theories deployed in the creation of CII’s new benchmarking system. This paper explains what the new measures are and how they were chosen. The 10-10 Program is substantially different from previous attempts to benchmark project performance by pairing high value metrics with a minimum effort concerning data collection. The new system is capable of measuring absolute metrics for specific industry sectors. Importantly, users of CII’s 10-10 Program can assess their projects at the conclusion of each of five phases from planning through startup. As a result, project management teams will be able to take proactive actions to enhance project results. It is expected that the new system will promote enhanced performance assessment through external benchmarking.

Cost Normalization for Global Capital Projects Benchmarking

Globally, many large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies invest significant amounts of money to build manufacturing and laboratory facilities. One common concern amongst these companies is whether or not these facilities are efficient in their design and their use of human and financial resources. The Construction Industry Institute (CII) has worked with 12 of these pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies over the past seven years to benchmark the performance of their capital projects. In order to benchmark absolute cost performance (e.g., dollars per square foot), the projects’ costs need to be normalized to account for location, time and currency. However, no single cost index is available to meet this need of normalizing global facilities. As a result, CII and the companies developed a procedure using established cost indices to reliably compare the cost performance of capital projects from different companies. This paper also discusses the issues and challenges of normalizing the costs associated with pharmaceutical and biotechnology capital projects. This paper contributes to a better understanding of cost normalization amongst global capital projects.

Critical look into the relationship between information and communication technology and integrated project delivery in public sector construction

AbstractThe relationship between integrated project delivery (IPD) and information and communication technology (ICT) in the context of public sector construction in the United States is critically examined in this paper. While IPD is gaining significant attention lately from educators and researchers alike, the current body of knowledge lacks information about how project owners—the key stakeholders in construction who decide on the type of project delivery system—perceive IPD. In addition, there has been little to no research investigating the relationship between IPD and ICT, taking the degree (extent) of use and type of ICT (internal versus external) into consideration. This study attempts to fill these research gaps. Using 59 survey data points collected from various public sector owners in the United States, this study investigates two research questions: (1) the perception of IPD characteristics on project delivery effectiveness, and (2) the perception that ICT fosters IPD. The perception regarding...

IOP Tool: Assessing the Benefits and Hindrances of Information Integration Implementation Opportunities

AbstractThis paper presents a tool assessing the benefits and hindrances of specific information integration opportunities (IOP) identified by firms for potential implementation. Firms face numerous choices about which of many potential information integration opportunities to pursue. However, they lack guidance in selecting opportunities and preparing for successful implementation. In addition, there are many nontechnical factors that need to be considered for successful implementation of information integration. The tool, developed by an industry research team consisting of 15 members from leading contractors, construction clients, and academia in the U.S., uses 37 benefit driver and 34 implementation hindrance questions that are scored to provide an assessment of a specific integration opportunity. The questions in the tool take market/legal, organizational and process, and people-related issues pertinent to the implementation of information integration into account. The tool has been applied to 16 tes...

A Dynamic and Context-Driven Benchmarking Framework for Zero-Net-Energy Buildings

The building sector has consumed a significant portion of energy produced in the United States. In order to achieve Zero-Net-Energy (ZNE) for Buildings in the near future, designers need to consider energy consumption and CO2 emissions during planning and design stages. Benchmarking is the systematic process of measuring performance against best performers to determine best practices leading superior performance. Today, benchmarking, such as the Energy Star designation, is already being applied to measure building energy performance. However, questions still remain as to how effective the benchmarks are. Due to the uniqueness of each building and the dynamic nature of building operations, the value of dynamic and context-driven benchmarking is not fully understood. This paper presents a framework for using automatic data collection techniques, such as sensors, to contextualize and compare the energy consumption and CO2 emissions of a building. The authors also discuss how these benchmark data can be used in planning and design phases.

A multi-perspective assessment method for measuring leading indicatiors in capital project benchmarking

This paper presents a new multi-perspective assessment method for measuring leading indicators deployed in the 10-10 Performance Assessment System that the Construction Industry Institute (CII) has recently launched. The CII 10-10 Performance Assessment System adopted a multi-perspective assessment approach for evaluating leading indicators that represent various management input measures throughout capital project delivery process. The leading indicators consist of 10 input measures, including four fundamental management functions such as planning, organizing, leading, and controlling as well as major management practices such as design efficiency, human resources, quality, sustainability, supply chain, and safety. This paper provides the theoretical background for the method through extensive review of existing benchmarking theories. Then it describes the development process for the assessment method. After this, it presents how the method was deployed to evaluate the system’s 10 leading indicators. Finally, this paper discusses how to practically utilize the input measure scores acquired from the method for performance improvement. The assessment method in the system will help project management teams to diagnose their project’s performances and thus allow them to set up proactive strategies for the subsequent phases of the project.