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Construction projects are complex endeavors where achieving higher quality standards is challenging due to the intrinsic difficulties and dynamic quality management processes. Several quality management techniques exist to overcome quality concerns, such as the cost of quality (COQ). However, implementing COQ in building construction is challenging due to the absence of a comprehensive quality cost-capturing system. Several studies have tried to quantify different quality costs but are mainly focused on visible failure cost—the tip of the iceberg while the base of the iceberg has rarely been explored. This study develops and quantifies each component of the visible and hidden quality costs—the base of the iceberg. Accordingly, a modified prevention, appraisal, and failure model is developed and applied to the primary data of 25 building projects. The findings highlight the unfamiliarity and passive attitude of the involved construction firms towards quality, thus, incurring higher failure costs amounting to over 12% of the total project cost. Most of this cost remains hidden as traditional accounting systems cannot capture it. Such costs must be eliminated by implementing COQ systems as utilized in the current study. Further, a quality costing framework is established for building projects and applied to the local construction industry to reduce construction failures and improve the quality performance of building projects.

Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) involves the managing of information, materials, cash flows, and collaboration among enterprises along the supply chain, integrating sustainable development goals. This research paper aims to determine challenges in SSCM adoption and to address related complexity using the system dynamics (SD) approach utilizing modeling and simulation techniques. This research identified challenges from the literature using content analysis. Causality among these identified challenges was determined using interviews and questionnaire surveys that led to the development of a causal loop diagram (CLD), which was used in the development of the SD model. Among the 19 shortlisted variables, CLD had IV reinforcing and II balancing loops. Moreover, CLD was used to build an SD model with two stocks, and a new stock named ‘project performance’ was added to envisage the cumulative impact of all stocks. The model was simulated for five years, and the results predict that the lack of top management commitment and corporate social responsibility adversely affects project performance. This implies that there is a need to improve numerous factors, in particular corporate social responsibility and top management commitment, which would lead to the adoption of SSCM, thus leading to a performance improvement for the construction industry (CI). The model was validated using boundary adequacy, structure, and parametric verification tests, which showed that the developed model is logical and approximately replicates the industry’s actual system. The research findings will help the CI practitioners to adopt sustainability principles in terms of the supply chain and will not only enhance productivity and performance but will also help in the minimization of delays, promote long-term relations, and reduce communication gaps and project complexities.

Construction organizations are challenged with effective management of their human resource (HR) as both are integral to each other. But the state of practice in the developing countries is not encouraging and construction professionals found themselves less motivated and enthusiastic about their job. This pushes to study the motivational needs of construction professionals of different career levels. Therefore, the current study benchmarks the HR practices of the construction industry of Pakistan to measure if there is any difference between what professionals truly value and what they get. In doing so, data was collected from 250 professionals through a questionnaire survey. Results reveal that most of the motivational needs are not gratified and the only stakeholder doing better are clients who’s mid- and end-career professionals feel somewhat satisfied. Practical suggestions are provided to help the construction industry upgrade its HR vision and facilitate its most precious resource.

Integrating sustainability in the risk management process is an emergent problem, especially for efficient infrastructure delivery. For the case of complex projects like public–private partnerships (P3), traditional management practices offer a limited capacity to address long-ranging risk impacts on the social, economic, and environmental fabric within and around the project boundaries. Although P3 projects are objective-based contracts, present risk models rarely delineate risk impacts on focused project objectives. The relevant studies are very scarce creating a limited understanding of available approaches to conducting sustainability-based risk management for P3 projects. As risk and sustainability are two inherently subjective concepts with multiple interpretations, their combined assessment within a single framework demands a pragmatic approach. Therefore, the current study presents a model for conducting a sustainability-based risk assessment of P3 infrastructure projects through global data. Monte Carlo simulation is employed to further define the probabilistic risk ranges and risk ranks over relevant triple-bottom-line-based sustainability indicators for highway sector P3 projects. Findings are further demonstrated through two highway case studies and relevant mitigation strategies are also suggested. In the end, an implementation framework and future recommendations for the application of study findings on actual projects are also suggested. The study has useful implications for practitioners and researchers alike aiming for the delivery of sustainable complex projects.

With time, construction waste is increasing massively and its dumping is a serious issue globally. Utilizing the waste in various products and construction projects is boosting, but still, the amount of waste is much higher. Transitions to more sustainable construction can assist in attaining the specific goal of slowing down natural resources depletion, reducing environmental damage by extracting and recycling new materials, and minimizing pollution from the processing, use, and disposal of materials once they complete their useful life period. An important way to do this is to improve efficiency and bring productivity in the utilization of resources. The circular economy is more productive and healthier, where raw materials are stored longer in the production cycle and can be recycled, thus producing less waste. Due to potential benefits through enhanced quality and productivity in the processes, the concept of circular economy is grabbing the attention of construction industry stakeholders to attain sustainable construction waste management. This chapter focuses on the significance of a circular economy for the attainment of sustainable waste management in the construction sector. Moreover, the impact of construction waste and its utilization through recent sustainable solutions which also impact the economy has also been highlighted.

Competitiveness is a complex domain with multiple perspectives and a vast range of definitions, meanings, and measures. Therefore, it is challenging to create an appropriate framework to evaluate the competitiveness of an ever-changing and evolving construction industry. This study captures the contractor’s perspectives about the competitiveness of the Pakistani construction industry, underlines the key factors affecting its performance, and proposes a framework for enhancing competitiveness. The proposed framework identifies the areas for improvement and contributes to the development ofstrategies for adoption. To achieve this, a qualitative approach is adopted which captures the opinion of contractors about the competitiveness and its perception and analyzes it through the fuzzy approach. The results based on 25 expert interviews highlight that the recruitment of well-trained human resource and cutting-edge technologies, the collaboration between academia and industry, investment in R&D projects, and a stable business environment contribute to enhancing the competitiveness of the construction industry and should be adopted to enhance the current state of practice. The study has perks for both academia and industry and requires active participation from both counterparts as well as supply chain actors and regulatory bodies to achieve the holistic goals.

Water scarcity has become a major problem for many countries, resulting in declining water supply and creating a need to find alternative solutions. One potential solution is rainwater harvesting (RwH), which allows rainwater to be stored for human needs. This study develops an RwH assessment system through building information modeling (BIM). For this purpose, a hydrological study of Cfa-type climate cities is conducted with the example of Islamabad, Pakistan. The monthly rainfall data of three sites were assessed to determine the volume of the accumulated rainwater and its potential to meet human needs. The average number of people living in a house is taken as the household number. Household number or of the number of employees working at a small enterprise, roofing material, and rooftop area are used as the key parameters for pertinent assessment in the BIM. The data simulated by BIM highlight the RwH potential using five people per house as the occupancy and a 90 m2 rooftop area for residential buildings or small enterprises as parameters. The results show that the selected sites can collect as much as 8,190 L/yr of rainwater (48 L/person/day) to 103,300 L/yr of rainwater (56 L/person/day). This much water is enough to fulfill the daily demands of up to five people. Therefore, it is established that the study area has an RwH potential that is able to meet the expected demands. This study presents a baseline approach for RwH to address water scarcity issues for residential buildings and factories of the future.

Safety is a well-researched yet underperforming management aspect of the construction industry. Building information modeling (BIM) can help, and some frameworks have addressed safety management in limited phases of the project lifecycle. This study positions BIM centrally in the safety management process and develops a safety management framework that covers the entire lifecycle of a construction project in the context of developing countries. A systematic literature review is conducted to identify the safety factors and BIM features that are synthesized to devise BIM-based safety improvement strategies. The strategies are presented to construction management professionals from developed and developing countries through an online questionnaire survey, and their level of agreement is identified. Afterward, construction safety experts are engaged to integrate these strategies into appropriate lifecycle phases. Additionally, these experts are also engaged to develop an automated hazard recognition process to leverage BIM potential in safety management. The integration of strategies into project lifecycle phases resulted in a comprehensive safety implementation framework leveraging the BIM platform. This framework takes a lead from the experience of developed countries and considers the limitations of developing countries in terms of resources and technology. Furthermore, a BIM-based process map for hazard identification is developed. The process map takes the BIM model as input and provides a detailed safety report. The process map can be automated to enhance effective safety management. This study expands the body of knowledge through a BIM-driven lifecycle safety management framework for developing countries where BIM adoption is still in its early stages. It is a fresh take on safety automation to make the construction industry safer and more reliable. However, it is limited due to inadequate safety reporting and documentation in developing countries. Future research can improve upon this limitation by positioning in a safety-compliant culture.

Rapid advances that improve flood management have facilitated the disaster response by providing first aid services, finding safe routes, maintaining communication and developing flood maps. Different technologies such as image processing, satellite imagery, synthetic imagery and integrated approaches have been extensively analysed in the literature for disaster operations. There is a need to review cutting-edge technologies for flood management. This paper presents a review of the latest advancements in the flood management domain based on image processing, artificial intelligence and integrated approaches with a focus on post-disaster. It answers the following research questions: (1) What are the latest developments in image processing for flood management in a post-disaster scenario? (2) What are the latest techniques for flood management based on artificial intelligence in a post-disaster scenario? (3) What are the existing gaps in the selected technologies for post-disaster? (4) How can the authorities improve the existing post-disaster management operation with cutting-edge technologies? A novel framework has been proposed to optimise flood management with the application of a holistic approach.

DOI: 10.7764/RDLC.18.3.445 Construction in developing countries is often encountered with multifarious challenges including contractor’s performance due to lack of qualification and resources. The lowest bid criterion is binding in public procurements. However, contractors exploit the loopholes in the bid process management system. This paper scrutinizes the prevalent rules for the bid evaluation and investigates the criterion used by both clients and consultants in selecting the contractors during the bids evaluation phase of construction projects in Pakistan. The current research uses the relative importance index and severity index approach to analyze the data. It was discovered that proper planning, credit worthiness, transition plans, plant and equipment holding, financial stability, past performance, and quality, are the most imperative factors, influencing the contractor’s selection procedures used by clients and consultants. Likewise, a high probability of success is presaged if the contractors are selected using the multi-criteria method. The study contributes to the body of knowledge by revealing the significant factors impacting the contractor’s selection and bid evaluation process, especially in a developing country. Its results and methodology can also be generalized with caution in other developing countries having similar work environment.

Economic growth, social wellbeing, and infrastructure are strongly interrelated and jointly contribute to national development. Therefore, evaluation and selection of a road infrastructure project direly need a comprehensive sustainability assessment integrating holistic decision criteria. This study presents an elaborate life cycle sustainability-based project evaluation tool, comprising an assessment framework, an integration model, and a decision framework. In the first phase, a life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) framework for road infrastructure is established using mixed methods. In the second phase, interviews are conducted to obtain pairwise comparisons among impact categories and subjective reasoning of their priorities. Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is adopted to develop the LCSA integration model. The minimum threshold limits of impact categories are evaluated and integrated into the proposed decision framework. Further, thematic and cross-sectional analyses are performed on the interview findings to rationalize the proposed decision framework. The findings include a detailed and customized project assessment framework, an integration model, and a decision framework for the assessment of different project alternatives. This study helps policy- and decision-makers in selecting the project alternative by maximizing sustainability in road infrastructure projects. Insights into environmental and social externalities and their quantitative interpretation throughout the life of the road are also achieved.

Building materials with a low environmental impact are critical to the sustainability of the built environment. The environmental impact of materials can be determined by a Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA), which constitutes multiple parameters such as the water used in a material’s life cycle. To use the LCIA approach for building material selection, its parameters need to be assigned different weights, which is the primary objective of this study. Building Information Modelling (BIM) can play an influential role when using LCIA during the building design process. With this consideration, we study the attention given to environmental sustainability in buildings and the responsiveness of BIM in this case. A multi-regional survey of 120 experts from academia and industry was conducted. The results show the relative importance of LCIA parameters and the focus of the building sector on environmental sustainability. The current and the future responsiveness of BIM towards environmental sustainability is also indicated. To promote the integration of LCIA in building design and performance assessment, the future role of BIM applications is explored. The results will contribute to research and practice in the sustainable built environment by helping select environment-friendly building materials.

Despite its importance and appeal, the social dimension of sustainability in construction projects is less explored and lacks a comprehensive and standardized framework. This diminishes the holistic view of sustainability. The existing customized frameworks make the selection of factors challenging across different contexts. Eventually, the practitioners have to pick and choose the factors. This reduces the reliability of social sustainability assessments and makes them a procedural challenge. To fill this gap, the current review synthesizes a framework of social sustainability for construction projects. For this purpose, a systematic review of the literature published until 2021 is performed. The indicators are extracted from the selected 22 papers and their content is analyzed to check for similarities. The final set of 76 factors is synthesized into an assessment framework through a thematic analysis based on a bottom-up approach. The framework is organized into 7 enablers or themes, 27 indicators, and 76 sub-indicators. The enablers of social sustainability are stakeholder, safety and health, human resource development, project, industry, community, and government. The framework provides a comprehensive and precise view of social sustainability which can be leveraged to ensure better planning and sustainable development of construction projects.

The relationship between the perceived fairness of administering projects’ claims and contractors’ reduced potential to disputes is probably missing in published literature in the context o...

Building information modeling (BIM) is a promising technology for the construction sector, as it addresses multiple risks, supports decision-making and enhances value. However, its technological and contractual novelties introduce some new risks. To observe the BIM-driven risk transformation, this paper performs a thorough analysis involving international experts and practitioners. Data is collected in the form of open-ended interviews and typeset questionnaire along with case studies of running projects. Results reveal that BIM eliminates a majority of significant risks. Further, the findings fuel a new research problem; the lack of a dedicated BIM plugin for risk management. Responding to it, a theoretical framework is developed to automate the risk management process and improve overall project management practice. It is concluded that construction projects can greatly benefit from an automated risk management system and investment in developing a dedicated plugin is recommended, ensuring an effective penetration of BIM in the construction industry.

© Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2017. The construction industry consumes a large part of raw material and global energy, and produces huge amount of solid waste. It is established that waste generated by construction processes has significant negative impact on the economy and environment. Effective waste management helps in reducing quantity of wastes and making a substantial contribution towards sustainable development and cost control. Based on a benchmarking approach, this research quantifies the material wastage and its causes in different types of building projects. In a waste diagnostic survey, 38 project sites were surveyed. Results revealed that bricks, tiles, and plaster from mortar are the most wasteful materials, and improper worker's skills, poor supervision, and lack of management the most significant causes. Buildings with substantial architectural works tend to generate maximum amount of waste while contractor size does not affect waste generation rate. Based on expert opinion, practical recommendations are given to control material waste. The findings offer a new perspective on sustainable construction by correlating building types with waste generation, as contribution to the existing body of knowledge. It will lead the construction managers to better understand the actual situation of construction waste and devise control measures.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is recognized as one of the most significant technological breakthroughs in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. The pace of implementation of BIM in AEC has increased during the past decade with an enhanced focus on sustainable construction. However, BIM implementation lags its potential because of several factors such as readiness issues, lack of previous experience in BIM, and lack of market demand for BIM. To evaluate and solve these issues, understanding the current BIM implementation in construction organizations is required. Motivated by this need, the main objective of this study is to propose a tool for the measurement of BIM implementation levels within an organization. Various sets of indexes are developed based on their pertinent Critical Success Factors (CSFs). A detailed literature review followed by a questionnaire survey involving 99 respondents is conducted, and results are analyzed to formulate a BIMp-Chart to calculate and visualize the BIM implementation level of an organization. Subsequently, the applicability of the BIMp-Chart is assessed by comparing and analyzing datasets of four organizations from different regions, including Qatar, Portugal, and Egypt, and a multinational organization to develop a global measurement tool. Through measuring and comparing BIM implementation levels, the BIMp-Chart can help the practitioners identify the implementation areas in an organization for proper BIM implementation. This study helps understand the fundamental elements of BIM implementation and provides a decision support system for construction organizations to devise proper strategies for the effectual management of the BIM implementation process.

Electricity crisis has become a key issue in Pakistan mainly due to a tenacious and spreading gap between demand and supply. Moreover, the current production is causing severe environmental and energy security issues due to reliance on thermal sources. Stakeholders are hindered to address these issues due to a significant knowledge gap causing discrepancies in power policies. A comprehensive approach over the sustainability dimensions is missing due to non-adoption of life cycle thinking. This study adopts an integrated approach of life cycle sustainability assessment of the electricity sector in Pakistan for proposing policy guidelines and implementation framework to optimize the future energy mixes. In total, 20 sustainability indicators have been assessed covering life cycle of seven electricity generation sources, currently in use. These sources have been ranked by equally weighting the sustainability dimensions and respective indicators. Hydropower is found as the most sustainable option having lowest environmental and economic impacts. While due to worst economic and social impacts, oil is found to be the least sustainable option for the country. While establishing tradeoffs between different electricity generation sources, this study presents an unbiased view and highlights the worth of life cycle approach in sustainability assessment for improving the energy policies.

Building sustainability is a multi-dimensional concept that is increasingly becoming a focus of the mainstream construction industry. The choice of right materials, techniques, and systems for a building project was always important to ensure built environment sustainability but these days it has also become a difficult and confusing task owing to the availability of a wide array of processes, systems, techniques and materials (PSTM). To achieve sustainable design a responsive design process able to assess and optimize the use of a variety of available PSTM options is required. The purpose of the study reported in this paper is to develop a conceptual framework of a futuristic BIM-based Design Iteration (BIM-DIT) tool for selecting PSTM combinations during design. Such development can support decision-making process during the design stage of residential buildings by assisting the design team in the generation of design alternatives. The model development includes discussion of various components necessary for development and successful working of the hypothetical tool. The conceptual model development exercise shows that the hypothetical BIM-DIT tool can significantly benefit from the pre-existing design approaches in the built environment. The discussion shows that the PSTM combination selection approach used for BIM-DIT tool will help decision makers with precise knowledge of available options for achieving truly sustainable building projects. Although model development is largely inspired by pre-existing approaches, the use of these approaches for finding appropriate PSTM combinations through the involvement of all three sustainability dimensions is relatively new. Further development in this area can play a significant role in building design related decision-making.

Increase in urban population is resulting in increased population densities through high-rise residential buildings. High-rise residential buildings have some unique aspects. The purpose of the study reported in this paper is to assess the role high-rise related aspects can play in sustainable development. The research adopted a two-step approach. First, on the basis of a detailed review of the literature published on high-rise buildings, the aspects unique to high-rise buildings are identified and shortlisted through brainstorming sessions. The aspects are then allocated to some basic properties of sustainable systems obtained from published work. Second, through another explorative brainstorming on high-rise residential building aspects, a cause-effect relation among various building aspects and related issues is developed using a system dynamics modelling. This study used about 54 building aspects majorly found in high-rises. The findings show that the aspects affect sustainability in both the positive and negative ways. Linking the various building aspects together has also resulted in a cause-effect diagram visually explaining how constructing high-rise for a residential purpose can pose a fairly complex problem in terms of sustainable development. The findings show that most of the high-rise related aspects positively affect the effectiveness property of both the building and natural systems while also creating a detrimental effect on the psychological needs of humans. The qualitative assessment undertaken within this study for understanding the role of high-rise residential buildings in sustainability can lead to further research exploration in the subject area and can increase the understanding of high-rise complexity, consequently leading to well informed sustainable approaches.

Cities in Pakistan, because of rapid pace of urbanization, are unable to provide adequate housing supply to cater to the needs of the people. Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, has a population of two million with a growth rate of six percent. Construction of apartment buildings, as one of the alternatives to fulfil the housing needs, is on the rise. However, apartments are being designed without considering the needs of the residents. This research focuses on assessment of socio-economic profile and satisfaction of residents of single unit houses vis-à-vis of those living in apartments. Fried and Gleicher’s approach was used in this research. This study analysed the socioeconomic characteristics, level of satisfaction of residents; drivers and barriers that influence the residential satisfaction of residents in two types of residential units in Islamabad. This study finds that residents of both housing types were equally satisfied with housing attributes and surrounding neighborhood while the residents of single unit houses were more satisfied with facilities, maintenance and culture. This study suggests that more focus should be given to factors like open space, basic amenities, privacy while designing an apartment building.

With increasing focus on more nuanced aspects of quality of life, the phenomenon of urban visual pollution has been progressively gaining attention from researchers and policy makers, especially in the developed world. However, the subjectivity and complexity of assessing visual pollution in urban settings remain a challenge, especially given the lack of robust and reliable methods for quantification of visual pollution. This paper presents a novel systematic approach for the development of a robust Visual Pollution Assessment (VPA) tool. A key feature of our methodology is explicit and systematic incorporation of expert and public opinion for listing and ranking Visual Pollution Objects (VPOs). Moreover, our methodology deploys established empirical complex decision-making techniques to address the challenge of subjectivity in weighting the impact of individual VPOs. The resultant VPA tool uses close-ended options to capture the presence and characteristics of various VPOs on a given node. Based on these inputs, it calculates a point based visual pollution scorecard for the observation point. The performance of the VPA tool has been extensively tested and verified at various locations in Pakistan. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such tool, both in terms of quantitative robustness and broad coverage of VPOs. Our VPA tool will help regulators in assessing and charting visual pollution in a consistent and objective manner. It will also help policy makers by providing an empirical basis for gathering evidence, hence facilitating evidence-based and evidence-driven policy strategies, which are likely to have significant impact, especially in the developing countries.

Building information modeling (BIM) is an encouraging development in the architecture, engineering, construction, and operations (AECO) industry due to its data-rich digital representation ...

The real estate sector brings a fortune to the global economy. But, presently, this sector is regressive and uses traditional methods and approaches. Therefore, it needs a technological transformation and innovation in line with the Industry 4.0 requirements to transform into smart real estate. However, it faces the barriers of disruptive digital technology (DDT) adoption and innovation that need effective management to enable such transformation. These barriers present managerial challenges that affect DDT adoption and innovation in smart real estate. The current study assesses these DDTs adoption and innovation barriers facing the Australian real estate sector from a managerial perspective. Based on a comprehensive review of 72 systematically retrieved and shortlisted articles, we identify 21 key barriers to digitalisation and innovation. The barriers are grouped into the technology-organisation-external environment (TOE) categories using a Fault tree. Data is collected from 102 real estate and property managers to rate and rank the identified barriers. The results show that most of the respondents are aware of the DDTs and reported AI (22.5% of respondents), big data (12.75%) and VR (12.75%) as the most critical technologies not adopted so far due to costs, organisation policies, awareness, reluctance, user demand, tech integration, government support and funding. Overall, the highest barrier (risk) scores are observed for high costs of software and hardware (T1), high complexity of the selected technology dissemination system (T2) and lack of government incentives, R&D support, policies, regulations and standards (E1). Among the TOE categories, as evident from the fault tree analysis, the highest percentage of failure to adopt the DDT is attributed to E1 in the environmental group. For the technological group, the highest failure reason is attributed to T2. And for the organisational group, the barrier with the highest failure chances for DDT adoption is the lack of organisational willingness to invest in digital marketing (O4). These barriers must be addressed to pave the way for DDT adoption and innovation in the Australian real estate sector and move towards smart real estate.

Stereotypical construction of buildings, however convenient, poses its own set of challenges. It affects the sustainable development critically and can give rise to social, economic and environmental problems. In other words, same design of a building if repeated irrationally from one place to another even within an identical climatic region gives rise to some grave problems which can compromise multiple dimensions of sustainability. Mosque architecture has some elements that have gradually become its identity. In this research different elements of repetition i.e. stereotype features in mosque architecture are explored. While using a case study approach this research is used to assess mosque projects in an urban region of Lahore, Pakistan. While considering the case studies the positive and negative effects of stereotype elements on three dimensions of sustainability are investigated.

© 2016 The Authors. Risks are inherent in construction projects. In order to manage risks, contingency amount is set aside usually in an escrow account. Cost contingency can be a handsome amount that would get blocked during the execution of the project for further use, incurring constant opportunity cost. The stakeholders may wish to use this held amount for other endeavors during project execution. The managerial practices for dynamic contingency management are of extreme importance. Stakeholders anticipate risks and hindsight project performance by eyeing key performance indicators of a project to direct decisions. The aim of this research is to integrate project key performance indicators with future risk perception to develop a decision support system for facilitating cost contingency release requests. The model is expected to help decision making to ease the managerial burden ensuring effective use of contingency. The findings are not conclusive due to ongoing nature of research.

The building sector is amongst the major resource consuming and waste generating sectors of the economy. The paradigm of the circular economy has the potential to overcome the problems resulted due to adoption of the linear economic model by the building sector. The circular economy offers a new perspective for industrial ecosystems including materials and products being fed back into the supply chain as resources, thereby resulting in reduced consumption of primary resources and waste generation. The research on circular economy increased rapidly during recent years; however, a research gap exists on the assessment of current state and barriers to the circular economy in the building sector of developing countries. This study has developed and used a circular economy assessment scale for the building sector of developing countries. It is found that the current state of circular economy implementation in the building sector is unsatisfactory. Out of the seven circular economy dimensions used for analysis, the energy dimension showed the best performance and the waste dimension showed the worst performance. Serious steps are required by all the stakeholders of the building sector to improve the adoption of the circular economy. Furthermore, interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and matrice d’Impacts croises-multipication applique an classment (MICMAC) techniques are used to identify and classify the key barriers to the circular economy. It is found that a lack of environmental regulations and laws is driving the rest of the barriers to the circular economy. Equally critical is the lack of public awareness and support from public institutions. Finally, a mitigation framework for the building sector of developing countries is proposed, which is an addition to the circular economy existing body of knowledge. The proposed framework could serve as a guideline for decision and policymakers.

The supply side of sustainable housing needs to be complemented with, driven by, and shaped around a willing and committed demand site. This study examines the sustainable housing sector of Pakistan by describing the potential buyers’ profile and quantifying their willingness to pay (WTP) for sustainable housing uptake in the market. WTP is estimated through a survey of 354 potential homebuyers. Furthermore, the hierarchical Bayesian model of adaptive choice-based conjoint analysis is utilized to study the correlation of descriptive determinants on WTP for sustainable housing. The results suggest that demographical factors of age, gender, and literacy level positively correlate with WTP whereas environmental knowledge and income level negatively correlate with WTP. Also, energy saving has the highest relative importance among other housing attributes. The study contributes a vital empirical input to the literature by finding the potential sustainable homebuyers in Pakistan and their characteristics and proposes several policy guidelines to promote the uptake of the sustainable housing sector in the country.

Rising demand and limited production of electricity are instrumental in spreading the awareness of cautious energy use, leading to the global demand for energy-efficient buildings. This compels the construction industry to smartly design and effectively construct these buildings to ensure energy performance as per design expectations. However, the research tells a different tale: energy-efficient buildings have performance issues. Among several reasons behind the energy performance gap, occupant behavior is critical. The occupant behavior is dynamic and changes over time under formal and informal influences, but the traditional energy simulation programs assume it as static throughout the occupancy. Effective behavioral interventions can lead to optimized energy use. To find out the energy-saving potential based on simulated modified behavior, this study gathers primary building and occupant data from three energy-efficient office buildings in major cities of Pakistan and categorizes the occupants into high, medium, and low energy consumers. Additionally, agent-based modeling simulates the change in occupant behavior under the direct and indirect interventions over a three-year period. Finally, energy savings are quantified to highlight a 25.4% potential over the simulation period. This is a unique attempt at quantifying the potential impact on energy usage due to behavior modification which will help facility managers to plan and execute necessary interventions and software experts to develop effective tools to model the dynamic usage behavior. This will also help policymakers in devising subtle but effective behavior training strategies to reduce energy usage. Such behavioral retrofitting comes at a much lower cost than the physical or technological retrofit options to achieve the same purpose and this study establishes the foundation for it.

The determination of the concession period (CP) in public–private partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects presents complexities to decision makers because various critical success factors (CSF) are involved which may be overlooked. This paper outlines a system dynamics (SD)-based approach to provide an in-depth understanding of CSFs that determines PPP projects’ CP and models them for localized use. The CSFs are obtained from published literature, duly vetted through a survey of 56 experts, and used to develop a quantitative and qualitative SD model, validated by simulating case studies of five infrastructure projects. A total of 59 concession-affecting CSFs are highlighted that are reduced and compared for localized infrastructure projects. The findings indicate that CP should be dynamic instead of fixed and static, and warrant an extension of the originally proposed concession in three cases and reduction in the remaining two. The decision-making implications of this study target the three key stakeholders: the public body through reduced financial risks, the private organization through increased confidence and reassessment of concession during project life, and the end user through nominal tolls.

Earned value management (EVM) is an industry standard for monitoring the performance of ongoing projects. The performance baseline is set up in the planning phase to measure any time and cost deviations during project execution. Based on the current progress, an estimate at completion (EAC) is forecasted. Traditionally, EVM only focuses on the project schedule (SPI) and cost (CPI), and does not address other important aspects of health and safety, stakeholder satisfaction, and quality. Despite its superior formulation, EVM forecasts are still influenced by project risks and uncertainties, leading to inconsistency between EAC results obtained through standard formulae. In order to estimate better EAC, a framework is developed that incorporates various key performance indicators into the risk performance index (RPI). Using SPI, CPI, and RPI, an integrated model is developed and a number of case studies are run to validate it. The findings indicate a better EAC when compared to traditional methods. I...

Risk management is a topic heavily researched and i mportant for industry professionals. Both academic and industry perspectives are critical to advancing thi s field, especially in risk identification and taxo nomy. A unique comparison and convergence of these perspectives is developed in order to understand the most relevant risks for projects and to ensure they are addressed in the risk management process. This comparison is created via a content analysis of the relevant literature and a survey to industry profe ssionals. The differences and similarities among risks are an alyzed, revealing that both perspectives emphasize financial/economic risks. The literature tends to f ocus on political; acts of God classified risks, wh ereas the industry places emphasis on regulatory risks. An el aboration of variations is performed aiming to impr ove the literature-based taxonomy taking into account t he industry perspective to ensure its risk manageme nt process responds to these risks and provides a clea rer focus towards future research.

This research attempts to facilitate client needs by describing the priority indicators that could help in decision making for awarding contracts. The indictors are recognized as key variables that impact the subsequent decisions of contracts award. The authors present a hierarchical review of relevant literature and integrate the factors that help in decision making using the Best Value Approach. This framework is comprised of eight dimensions of Best Value contributing factors – cost , risk , performance , quality control , health and safety , project control , current workload and delay claims . These eight dimensions aid the individual clients and organizations in selecting the most suitable contractor. The authors provide a brief understanding of Best Value contract strategy and the basis for the contract award in terms of business choice, managerial capacity and competency. This paper aims to provide a philosophy as to how Best Value decision making could be influenced by the ranking of contributing factors. This work also help in decision making by providing a hierarchical arrangement of the influential factors and the corresponding criteria for Best Value contract award.

Contingency budgets are commonly used by managers to respond to uncertainty and control the project within the original cost and schedule targets. However, a variety of project participants with conflicting interests creates tensions when it comes to managing the risk contingency escrow account during the project development, and divergences often arise over the need for either retaining the unspent contingencies (for future risk and improved facility) or releasing it as a profit. With the purpose of studying the dynamics and main influences involved in the risk contingency management process of a design-build (DB) project, a system dynamics (SD) contingency management model is proposed to simulate the decision-making scenarios, under different project conditions and behavioral pressures of senior managers and owners. The model suggests that an aggressive proactive risk management practice might be an effective policy for managing the contingency budget in a complex engineering, procurement, and c...

The area of Project Risk Management (PRM) has been extensively researched, and the utilization of various tools and techniques for managing risk in several industries has been sufficiently reported. Formal and systematic PRM practices have been made available for the construction industry. Based on such body of knowledge, this paper tries to find out the global picture of PRM practices and approaches with the help of a survey to look into the usage of PRM techniques and diffusion of software tools, their level of maturity, and their usefulness in the construction sector. Results show that, despite existing techniques and tools, their usage is limited: software tools are used only by a minority of respondents and their cost is one of the largest hurdles in adoption. Finally, the paper provides some important guidelines for future research regarding quantitative risk analysis techniques and suggestions for PRM software tools development and improvement., {"references":["Royer, P. S. 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Project Risk Management (PRM) is gaining attention from researchers and practitioners in the form of sophisticated tools and techniques to help construc tion managers perform risk management. However, the large variety of techniques has made selecting an a ppropriate solution a complex and risky task in its elf. Accordingly, this study proposes a practical framew ork methodology to assist construction project managers and practitioners in choosing a suitable r isk analysis technique based on select project driv ers. Additionally, the methodology transforms the tradit ional triple constraints by broadening the focus fr om the project to a combination of the project and PM orga nization. Scale harmonization is achieved by dividi ng the selected project drivers and risk analysis cate gories into four levels. The applicability and effi ciency of the methodology is demonstrated in two actual const ruction projects by creating a radar chart and performing their ex-post risk analysis with the hel p of the developed technique. The study contributes to the existing body of knowledge on PRM as a practical to ol that helps project managers select suitable risk analysis techniques under given project characteris tics.