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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.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the barriers inhibiting the adoption of green building and measures to promote this approach in Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach Barriers and measures were identified and examined by using a combination of research methods, including literature review, questionnaire survey, and in-depth interviews with the construction industry-related practitioners working in Pakistan. Ranking technique and factor analysis were used to identify the significant issues associated with the adoption of green building practices. Findings As per the survey results, the most critical barrier is “lack of awareness among people about the importance and advantages of adopting green building practices,” followed by “lack of incentives from government” and “lack of green building codes and regulations,” respectively. The results also indicate that most important measure to promote the adoption of green buildings is “creation of public awareness toward green initiatives through seminars, workshops, and discussions,” followed by “availability of green building codes and regulations (mandatory to apply)” and “financial incentives and penalties by the government (e.g. soft loan, tax) for promoting green building practices,” respectively. Research limitations/implications Research limitation is that its findings, other than Pakistan, cannot be generalized to other developing countries. Practical implications Findings of the research will be helpful in sensitizing the regulatory agencies, the policy makers, and the building construction practitioners about the barriers to adoption of green building practices. The suggested measures will help in devising policies and economic measures to promote the construction of green and environment-friendly buildings. Social implications This research will help the common people to know about the importance of green buildings that may lead to a deviation from the practice of traditional buildings to a widespread trend of building green buildings. This will lead to drastic reduction in demand for energy and considerable monetary savings for the common people. Originality/value The findings of this study are expected to contribute valuable information to decision makers for the better understanding of key issues that call for more attention in the promotion of efforts of green building practices in Pakistan. The results are based on the perception of local stakeholders, but might also be helpful for policy makers in other countries.

With increasing global adoption, various critical aspects of public–private partnership (PPP) concessions are highlighted. One such aspect is the way academia and industry perceive and weigh different critical success factors (CSFs) of PPP concession. Due to difference of perception, considerable temporal as well as opinion gap exists between the two knowledge streams, leading to improper resource allocation and inadequate decision-making. This study identifies CSFs and quantifies the gap between the two streams using a detailed methodology of identifying CSFs from extensive literature review published during period 2005–2015, and ranking those CSFs separately through questionnaire surveys from 60 industrial and 56 academic experts having thorough experience of various types of PPP. Based upon responses, 8–9 years’ gap between both streams is found. For 18% CSFs, opinion difference is greater than 50% pointing to a weaker collaboration. Decision-makers can understand the gap between both streams a...

Based on the limitations of traditional procurement, this study uses analytical network process (ANP) for contractor selection. Using extensive literature review, best value (BV) contributing factors are identified. Experts are involved to get their feedback for shortlisting the identified factors. An ANP-based decision support system has been developed using data collected through a detailed questionnaire survey in the local construction industry for evaluating the selection process. Further, five case studies of completed road construction projects have been used to validate the decision support system. The findings indicate that in almost all the cases, the traditional procurement system, owing to its stringent prequalification measures, subliminally took into consideration the overall value proposition, and only one case study showed anomalies for which detailed reasoning is deliberated. This highlights the tendency of practitioners to overweigh the cost-based criteria, despite an established significance of other factors, treating the intangible value factors of quality, health and safety, environmental impact, etc. as less important. It reflects that the local construction industry attaches marginal value to qualitative factors. The construction industry will benefit from implementation of BV procurement system and a prolonged exposure may help improve its value system to realize the contribution of non-cost-based factors.

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.

Social sustainability is an important component of sustainable housing. A holistic view of social sustainability in residential buildings is lacking when it comes to modern tools and systems of building sustainability assessment, which creates gaps in analytical support necessary for sustainable decision-making. In order to pursue this issue, an assessment framework is proposed that uses a hierarchy of readily assessable sustainability indicators, parameters and sub-indicators. The proposed framework, though qualitative in nature, takes quantitative findings as inputs. It uses a weighted aggregation approach to provide a holistic social sustainability performance value of residential buildings and for determining the weights of indicators, parameters and sub-indicators, the study makes use of survey and structured interviews. Based on findings, the importance of social sustainability in residential and commercial buildings in different regions of world is also explored. A case study comprising of low-rise residential buildings provides an insight into the workability of proposed framework. Furthermore as a minor contribution of this research, the current and futuristic responsiveness of BIM towards social sustainability is explored and its role in use of the proposed framework is investigated.

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.

Purpose The purpose of this research is to quantify the effect of stakeholder conflicts on project constraints in the construction industry using ordinal regression analysis. For this purpose, the most significant project constraints and factors that cause stakeholder conflicts found in the literature are measured. Design/methodology/approach Factors causing stakeholder conflicts and project constraints are extracted through a content analysis of the published literature. Further, a questionnaire survey is conducted involving 170 professionals to assess the effect of conflicts on project constraints. Finally, to obtain a more objective assessment, a statistical model is developed, and to highlight the most severe factors causing conflict and impacting project constraints, ordinal regression analysis is performed. Findings The results show that in the construction industry, all project constraints are affected by stakeholder conflicts. Factors that result in stakeholder conflicts indicated a positive relationship with cost, time and resources. This means that any increase or decrease in the effect of stakeholder conflicts will directly influence these three project constraints. Similarly, a negative relationship was observed between stakeholder conflicts and quality, workforce productivity, protection of environment and safety regulations in the construction industry, indicating that increase in the effect of stakeholder conflicts will decrease these four project constraints and vice versa. The results for cumulative ordinal regression model highlight that lack of communication, poor quality of completed works and change orders and rework have intense effects on project constraints collectively. Originality/value A small number of studies have been undertaken to examine the emergence of project constraints in the developing countries. And even more, its relationship with stakeholder conflicts in the construction industry is limited. This research highlights the most significant project constraints and factors that result in stakeholder conflicts in the construction industry. Therefore, this study adds to the existing body of knowledge by developing an ordinal regression model that will help decision-makers and top management control this enigma of stakeholder conflicts in the construction industry.

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 ...

Sustainable smart cities are confronted by technological, organisational and external risks, making their governance difficult and susceptible to manipulation. Based on a comprehensive literature review of 796 systematically retrieved articles, the current study proposes a multilayered technology-organisation-environment (TOE-based) risk management framework for sustainable smart city governance. A total of 56 risks are identified and grouped into TOE categories. There are 17 technological risks, including IoT networks, public internet management and user safety concerns, with a 38.7% contribution to smart city governance risks. With a 15.6% share, there are 11 organisational risks, including user data security and cloud management. There are 28 external risks with a contribution of 46.7% to the smart city governance and consist of smart city's environment, governance, integration and security risks. A multilayered TOE-based risk management framework is proposed to identify and manage the risks associated with smart city governance in the current study. The framework links smart citizens to each other through the smart city governance team and the integrated TOE layers. The iterative risk management process of identification, analysis, evaluation, monitoring and response planning is carried out in the TOE layers, both at the external layer levels and internal management levels. The proposed framework operationalises the risk management process for smart city governance by presenting the collection of pertinent risks and their thematic TOE categorisation. The criticality of the identified risks in line with the study's rankings can help researchers and practitioners understand the top risks of smart city governance. These risks present investment opportunities for city governance bodies to develop critical and effective responses as well as provide safety, security and enhanced privacy for citizens.

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.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the critical decision factors of public–private partnership (PPP) concession which is complex due to a number of uncertain and random variables. To identify critical factors contributing to determination of concession period, this study reviews the published literature. It also identifies countries contributing most in PPP research. As a whole, it provides a mutually beneficial scenario by formulating a decision-making matrix. Design/methodology/approach This paper reviews the literature published during the period 2005-2015. A two-staged methodology is followed on retrieved scholarly papers: first, countries contributing to PPP are identified along with authors and affiliated institutions. Second, using frequency analysis of shortlisted critical factors, yearly appearance and stakeholders affected, a decision matrix is formulated. Findings The most contributing country toward PPP research is China, followed by the USA both in terms of country- and author-based contribution. In total, 63 factors are identified that affect PPP concession out of which, 8 per cent are highly critical and 21 per cent are marginally critical for decision-making. Practical implications Critical factors of PPP concession period will be identified with the help of decision-making matrix. This will help in adequate resource allocation for handling critical factors ensuring project success. Researchers may also understand the research trends in the past decade to usher ways for future improvements. Originality/value This paper reports findings of an original and innovative study, which identifies critical success factors of PPP concession period and synthesizes them into a decision-making matrix. Many of the previous studies have identified and ranked the critical factors but such a synthesis has not been reported.

International joint ventures (IJVs) are both advantageous and challenging due to differing technical abilities, economic and political environments, and cultural and legal frameworks. This study identifies the external risks particularly political, economic, legal, social and environmental in IJVs carrying out construction projects in Pakistan. It further analyzes the impact of these risks on the project success criteria of time, cost and quality. Data are collected using questionnaire-based survey and with the help of factor analysis, 16 critical external risks are identified. The top most critical risks are fluctuation in exchange rate, weather systems, political instability and delay in approval. Analytical Hierarchy Process is applied to prioritize critical external risks discretely for project success criteria. As a result, time is found to be the most influenced project criterion by the critical external risks, followed by cost and quality. The results are of importance for local practitioners in the form of recommendations for better management of IJV risks. Future research can benefit from incorporation of more dimensions of project success.

Purpose This paper aims at collecting and reviewing the published literature on the Six Sigma in construction along with its critical success factors (CSFs). Design/methodology/approach The research is based on literature review. Based on the keyword and semantic search techniques, papers published on the topic of Six Sigma during 2000-2015 are retrieved. Frequency analysis is performed to find out significance of identified CSFs, and zoning is performed based on the product of frequency of appearance and parties affected by the CSFs. Findings A total of 69 CSFs are identified as published in the literature. Based on an inclusion criterion of minimum 15 appearances, 22 CSFs are shortlisted for further analysis. Of these CSFs, around 32 per cent fall into red zone (most critical), 50 per cent into yellow and 18 per cent into green zone (least critical). Research limitations/implications This work is limited by partial identification of CSFs. Though based on an extensive search, the retrieved CSFs may not be all the published ones. However, more thorough search techniques can be applied to improve upon this work. Practical implications The findings can be used to facilitate the decision-making in the context of project success. Originality/value This work is an original attempt at gathering Six Sigma CSFs applicable to construction projects. It may be used for further research and development to help ensure project quality and success.

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.

Building sustainability is subject to rational use of green-building systems and techniques. A suitable combination of these systems and techniques is at the heart of design parameters. To achieve user comfort and health as well as environmental protection and long-term economic benefits, designers must optimize combinations of particular systems and techniques. It is imperative to have efficient design strategies for achieving optimum solutions and effectively leading the complex process of selecting system and technique combinations to be integrated in overall design. With goal to optimize design effort, this research aims to propose different methodologies to help incorporate various green-building systems and techniques in design process. Systems and techniques prioritized by relative weights may ease the design process. Hence, with a focus on semi-arid climatic conditions, interviews are conducted from researchers and building practitioners who help express design priorities. Use of these pri...

Construction procurement has evolved from low-bid system to Best Value (BV). This paper presents BV based contractor selection mechanism using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). BV process postulates the selection of contractor who can deliver the project in best possible way in terms of budget, quality, customer satisfaction and other success criteria. AHP is used to prioritize BV contributing factors (CFs) critical to contractor selection. This paper examines the CFs identified from literature published from 2000 to 2015 and provides the project owners a methodology of quantifying their relative effects in selecting BV contractor. The results indicate that past performance is the most significant among the 15 factors considered in contractor selection followed by cost. This is mainly due to resistance to change which encourages reputation-based procurement in construction industry blocking way for new entrants. This study helps value based contractor selection rather than the traditional low bid system. Further, it can be used by all stakeholders in a contract: client for BV contractor selection, contractor for BV supplier and consultant for BV team selection. The study can be enhanced in future to include all parties to a contract and ensure a win-win-win contracting model.

Almost all construction projects face delays resulting in extension of time (EOT) or liquidated damages, depending upon which of the two parties absorbs the responsibility as per terms of t...

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.

This study examines the benefits and challenges of offsite construction techniques (OCT) in Pakistani construction industry. It presents the view of consultants and contractors regarding offsite construction techniques by conducting a questionnaire survey. This study concludes that duration compression is the single most important factor that is driving the use of OCT in Pakistan. Moreover, the possible benefits of OCT include decrease in project duration; decreased need for skilled workers; increase in labour productivity; increase in site safety; increased design and management efficiency; and overall savings in cost. On the other hand, poor transportation facilities and logistics, and limited design options are challenges of offsite construction in Pakistani context. This study additionally analysed statistically the relationship between consultants and contractors in residential, commercial, infrastructure and industrial sectors for offsite construction techniques. A case study is also presented in this paper to compare the duration and cost of traditional onsite construction verses offsite construction.

The development of projects in isolation and such treatment by urban development authorities can lead to socioeconomic success or failure in projects. This dilemma has its roots in poor initial planning both at the level of individual project, and that of community and neighborhoods. Although the facts like project success or failure are readily determinable in case of socioeconomic sustainability, it is difficult to determine how various variables interact in determining project success. This research is aimed at using system dynamics for investigating the phenomenon of unpopularity of building projects within the urban fabric. An attempt is made to discuss the case study of a parking plaza in its context and for detailed investigation of this building, systems thinking methodology is employed. The research has highlighted various variables that have a role to play in making the case study project an example of success or failure in terms of sustainability. The practice of using systems thinking in case of deeply rooted sustainability analysis has brought some new insight which seems to have a promising role to play.