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This study proposes the concept of the field resting heart rate (FRHR) and aims to approach the practical workload of workers at construction worksites using the percentage of heart rate reserve (%HRR). As part of this study, an FRHR algorithm has been developed, which accesses the real-time resting heart rate (RHR) benchmark using photoplethysmography (PPG)-based heart rate wristbands. The results suggest a reasonable FRHR can be extracted by a single minimum working heart rate and refined for five days at least to obtain a convergence FRHR of below three bites per minute (bpm). It provides the %HRR baseline to develop a continuous long-term personalized workload indicator. The study also establishes the individual physical workload safety zone and the reasonable boundaries on the S-curve distribution by accumulative working time in a tunnel project. The real-time monitoring system introduced in this study can reduce health risks and be beneficial to construction management.

The building industry is blamed for consuming enormous natural resources and creating massive solid waste worldwide. In response to this, the concept of circular economy (CE) has gained much attention in the sector in recent years. Many pilot building projects that implemented CE concepts started to appear around the world, including Taiwan. However, compared with the pilot projects in the Netherlands, which are regarded as the pioneer ones by international society, many CE-related practices are not implemented in pilot cases in Taiwan. To assist future project stakeholders to recognize what the key CE-related practices are and how they could be implemented in their building projects in Taiwan, this study has conducted a series of case studies of Dutch and Taiwanese pilot projects and semi-structured interviews with key project stakeholders of Taiwanese pilot projects. Thirty key CE-related practices are identified via case studies, along with their related 5R principles (Rethink, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle) and project phases. Suggestion on CE-related practices, their 5R principles, project items, and phases to implement in building projects in Taiwan is also proposed while discussion on differences between two countries&rsquo, pilot projects is presented.

After the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008, government agencies were eager to attract private capital to develop large-scale infrastructures and stimulate national economies. This study investigated the major role public–private partnerships (PPPs) played in stimulus plans and the challenges faced when promoting PPPs in response to the 2008 GFC. In Taiwan, practices for PPP institutional frameworks (IFs) have been established to improve the current strategy that policy makers can follow. This paper proposes specific tools and measures as well as a novel strategic governance model comprising 4 stages in a closed-loop process that is based on experiences in Taiwan and constructed to facilitate stakeholder management. The model can be used to identify key stakeholders and their needs, address key stakeholders’ needs, and evaluate the performance of proposed solutions. The findings of this study can be used by governments that intend to enhance IFs and systematically attract private investment in infrastructure projects; economic downsizing and other adverse consequences of GFCs can thus be avoided. In addition, those who intend to participate in PPP projects in Taiwan can benefit from understanding the PPP strategy introduced in this paper.

Although construction contractor prequalification highly prioritizes the financial capacity of the construction contractors, a special assessment of contractors' financial capacities has seldom been performed in the construction industry. Cash flows largely reflect a contractor's capacity to meet its financial obligations, this study assesses the credit qualities of construction contractors by using a cash flow based credit model (CFB credit model). The model uses historical continuously free cash flow to firm of construction contractors to simulate possible future cash flow paths. The credit quality scores of construction contractors are then assessed using the CFB credit model. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of assessment of the credit quality of construction contractors, and recommend the clients to adopt it in prequalification of the contractors' financial abilities.

This is the first study to apply the barrier option model to predict defaults of construction contractors and to assert that the path-dependent characteristic of the model is very suitable for describing the behavior of contractor default. Different from existing contractor-default prediction models, this research uses a much larger contractor sample in empirical analyses to alleviate sample-selection biases, and employs a Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curve to assess the model performance. Empirical results of this study show that the proposed model outperforms traditional financial ratio models in differentiating the risk of defaulted and nondefaulted construction contractors. Additionally, the barrier option model has markedly better discriminatory power than when applied to non–construction-related industries. The results of this paper support the postulation that the barrier option model has significant advantages for the construction industry.

The global expansion of public-private partnerships (PPPs) has generated interest in establishing national PPP units for implementing or analyzing PPPs. Despite the good intentions for establishing such units, results have been mixed. Unless its role is clarified, a national PPP unit cannot be successful because it lacks adequate authority to respond appropriately to the changing environment. However, relevant research in construction journals is too limited to provide policymakers with constructive suggestions. This study aims to improve this situation by aligning a theoretical model with empirical data. The PPP activities can be analyzed as a game between the host government and private promoters trying to maximize their respective payoffs; thus, in accordance with new institutional economics (NIE) theory, a national PPP unit can be considered an endogenous equilibrium outcome of a game. On the basis of this perspective, three game (four consensus) theoretical models are constructed to find equilibriums: a single game for a single authority, repeated games for a single authority, and repeated games for government with multiple subordinate authorities. This study also uses a case study to present the history of PPPs in Taiwan and the evolutionary role of the National PPP Taskforce, Taiwan. National and international data confirm the theoretical model, which indicates that the common role of a national PPP unit is as a trust-creator between the public and private sectors. This pilot study contributes to the theoretical foundation that policymakers need to accelerate the learning process for implementing a PPP. It also provides researchers in the construction field with an NIE methodology for analyzing other governance structures in the construction field.

Highlights? We propose a novel composite prediction approach to forecast the current progress during the construction phase. ? Four Typical S-curves and practical construction cases are provided for testing its prediction ability. ? Getting better prediction accuracy almost within 10%. In this paper, we propose a novel construction project progress forecasting approach which combines the grey dynamic prediction model and the residual modified model to forecast the current progress during the construction phase. Firstly, four typical S-curves simplified from various sigmoid curves are proposed and fitted to the grey dynamic prediction model. For higher prediction accuracy, three different residual modified models are taken to amend the initial prediction value which was derived from the above step. The mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and standard deviation of the estimate of Y (SDY) are used to assess the accuracy of the composite results. The better residual modified prediction model is adopted to combine the grey dynamic prediction model to form the novel progress forecasting approach. Then, practical completed construction cases are provided for testing the prediction ability of the proposed progress forecasting approach. Results show that the forecasting approach proposed to forecast construction progress during construction phase is able to get better prediction accuracy almost within 10% whether typical S-curves or practical cases. The new approach relatively provides an accurate, simple and stable method for predicting construction progress in comparison with the previous traditional forecasting methods.

The financial health of construction contractors is critical in successfully completing a project, and thus default prediction is highly concerned by owners and other stakeholders. In other industries many previous studies employ support vector machine (SVM) or other Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) methods for corporate default prediction using the sample-matching method, which produces sample selection biases. In order to avoid the sample selection biases, this paper used all available firm-years samples during the sample period. Yet this brings a new challenge: the number of non-defaulted samples greatly exceeds the defaulted samples, which is referred to as between-class imbalance. Although the SVM algorithm is a powerful learning process, it cannot always be applied to data with extreme distribution characteristics. This paper proposes an enforced support vector machine-based model (ESVM model) for the default prediction in the construction industry, using all available firm-years data in our sample period to solve the between-class imbalance. The traditional logistic regression model is provided as a benchmark to evaluate the forecasting ability of the ESVM model. All financial variables related to the prediction of contractor default risk as well as 7 variables selected by the Multivariate Discriminant Analysis (MDA) stepwise method are put in the models for comparison. The empirical results of this paper show that the ESVM model always outperforms the logistic regression model, and is more convenient to use because it is relatively independent of the selection of variables. Thus, we recommend the proposed ESVM model as an alternative to the traditionally used logistic model.

This paper presents an algorithm for efficiently designing, fabricating, and constructing the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) systems for buildings. MEP facility construction presents numerous challenges related to its complexity, space limitations, and interference with other trades working in confined areas. Besides, schedule delays can easily be caused by the uncontrolled delivery schedule of the components. This research provides a rational planning algorithm which packages large and complex MEP systems into several smaller fabricated components using spatial planning algorithms to increase the efficiency of the installation process, create a safer work environment, improve construction quality and productivity, reduce construction cycle time, and minimize cost. Furthermore, the technique is verified and validated by three experts and a case study is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of this algorithm.

Construction contractor evaluation is a critical issue in successfully completing a project. It is important for project owners and other stakeholders to identify potentially failing contractors and to avoid awarding them contracts. Previous studies developed construction contractor default prediction models incorporating managerial or economic variables into traditional financial ratio models to enhance predicting power. However, managerial variables are subjective and qualitative, and both economic variables and financial ratios are only available periodically and may not provide the necessary information in time. This study predicts contractor default by employing three option-based credit models (BSM, CB, and BS) based on stock market information, and the empirical results show that all of the models have strong discriminatory power in ranking contractors from riskiest to safest. The misclassification rates of the three models are BSM: 10%, CB: 10%, and BS: 12.7%, all of which are smaller than that of...

Material costs comprise major portion of total costs in construction projects. In developed countries, 40-45% of total construction cost is for materials alone. In some developing countries, material costs make up as much as 60-65% of the total cost for a construction project (Formoso & Revelo, 1999). This research studied the relationships between pre-cast's production operations and site construction activities to develop a pre-cast production planning model. The model was established to meet the site construction demands for pre-cast elements, satisfy internal resource constraints, and optimize total production costs of production resources. The algorithms employed for solving the pre-cast production planning model were genetic algorithms and the branch-and-bound method. The near-optimal solutions were evaluated with the quality of total production cost. In the empirical study, an actual case was used to evaluate the performance of the model and algorithms. The results show that the model and the solving algorithm provide better quality of solutions than the pre-caster's production plan and improve the actual production results in the illustrative case.

In recent years, general contractors in the construction industry have gradually begun to implement a system called enterprise resource planning (ERP). During the ERP implementation process, contractors performed required analyses on daily operation functions demanded by the enterprise. The analyses focused on function mapping to ensure that ERP satisfies all the requirements, including the functions of existing information systems, and meets future requirements. The process of function mapping in the construction industry typically involves a series of lengthy and time-consuming meetings, and face-to-face discussions; systematic analysis procedure was lacking. This research will propose a novel function mapping approach, the Architecture of Integrated Information Systems (ARIS)-house-based (AHB) method, to enhance the effectiveness of meetings and improve the efficiency of discussions. In addition, AHB method will use the structure of ARIS-house diagram to guide the function mapping process, streamline existing information systems, meet future requirements, and successfully implement ERP. Finally, this research will use a case study to verify the effectiveness of the AHB method for contractor to implement ERP.

The process knowledge assets make a substantial contribution to the risk management (RM) for contractors in the construction phase. To effectively reuse these assets, knowledge extraction becomes a significant research area. This paper was designed to explore an approach to conduct knowledge extraction by establishing project risk ontology. Specifically, the study proposed the ontology-based risk management (ORM) framework to enhance the RM performance by improving the RM workflow and knowledge reuse. The ORM framework facilitated the identification, analysis, and response of project risks. This study validated the ORM framework through a case demonstration. Through the implementation and application, the results demonstrated that the ORM framework was able to apply to the RM workflow for contractors, and more importantly, it greatly increased the effectiveness of project RM.

Regardless of their pattern, construction disputes create additional costs in terms of money and time for both owner and contractor. The Taiwanese Government promulgated the Government Procurement Act (GPA) on 27 May 1998. This Act established a Dispute Mediation System (DMS) to mediate construction disputes involving contractors and the administration and attempted to reduce associated litigation. The DMS resembles the Dispute Review Board (DRB) that was established in the mid 1970s. The DRB is set up at the start of a construction project, and meets regularly at the job site to resolve any disputes as they occur. However, the DMS system does not become active in mediating construction disputes until a specific request is submitted by the contractor. The present study not only introduces this DMS, but also analyses previous dispute mediation cases involving Taiwanese infrastructure projects including dispute patterns, succinct case explanations, and mediation suggestions.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is characterized with superior predispositions, including the recognition of multiple markers, communication ranges from five to six meters, and a storage database for thousands of data files. These unique features resolve data storage and record-reviewing difficulties, prevent repetitive data entries, and facilitate instant feedbacks. The precast industry is a management-intensive sector, for which pivotal issues include methods relevant to the instant provision of acquired management information to executive managers, materials of precast concrete products, quality control inspection and inventory and transportation management information, and convenient data entry for frontline personnel. It is anticipated to integrate usage of Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) and the application of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). Using RFID tag and reader to collect the information, and then transmit the multi-faceted, mobilized information such as the production quantity, the materials quantity, quality control inspection and inventory and transportation management information to the manager office or the site worker via the PDA and wireless Internet. This precast production management system which has been developed by the author and utilized in precast production management encompasses inspection of incoming materials, production process inspection, molds inspection, specimen strength feedback, and logistic and receiving management. The mobilized information frame elaborated in this proposal can, to certain degree, be regarded as a reference for the construction of a mobilized precast industry management system.

Taiwan's construction industry has encountered many problems surrounding knowledge management (KM) applications for recent years. With regards to this issue, this study proposes a modified knowledge management application model, knowledge flow and work flow collaborative operation (KFWFCO) model, based on the approach of process-oriented KM and the investigations of Taiwan's construction industry characteristics of KM applications. In this study, the selected case study company will implement the model to integrate the knowledge flow into workflow and verified the feasibility of this model. The results of this study demonstrated that this model can help construction industry to resolve the previous construction KM problems by more systematic and flexible KM implementation.

Knowledge, particularly in the form of experience, can provide a competitive advantage in the construction industry. Knowledge organization (KO) systems developed in the library, information, and computer sciences are excellent for delivering knowledge services. However, it is difficult for these systems to judge how suitable (not just relevant) any of the retrieved knowledge will be in practice. This study puts forward a directional experience ontology (DExOntology) framework, which makes use of KO characteristics to set up problem-topic ontology, but augments the retrieved knowledge documents (KwDocs) in the knowledge bank with additional “orientation” from weighted attributes determined by domain experts, thus bridging the gap between existing KO systems and practical requirements. The goal is a mechanism that delivers knowledge, especially in the domain of practical experience, more efficiently and effectively than simple information retrieval searches. The study finds that the DExOntology framework significantly improves both the relevancy and suitability of the retrieved knowledge, making it a more useful system for construction industry practitioners to use in the field.

Construction management requires engineers to acquire effectively and efficiently management experience. Most experience management (EM) in the construction industry focuses on explicit experience (such as writing reports and documents). Furthermore, tacit experience is usually more difficult to acquire than explicit experience. This study proposes an After the Issue Review (AIR) approach to acquire experience from engineers involved in construction projects, and effectively enhance experience sharing through a web‐based platform. Moreover, an AIR Construction Pattern (AIRCP) scheme is proposed and utilized to codify and edit the acquired experience. The web‐based experience management system presents a user‐friendly interface of an experience‐sharing platform, through which engineers learn valuable tacit experience derived from previous projects. Finally, a case study involving tunnel construction for expressway projects in Taiwan is utilized to validate the proposed approach and demonstrate the effectiv...

Usually the rating values are determined by visual inspection in most of the bridge management systems (BMSs). A visual inspection is not very objective, and can sometimes result in a different assessment of element condition that may lead to improper prioritization for corrective action. Our novel evaluation results in a more objective condition rating based on visual inspection data. In order to provide an easier way to arrange and prioritize the maintenance schedule among the bridges, the health condition of a bridge needs to be diagnosed in a more practical and more accurate manner. This work utilized systematic classification and statistical analysis based on the thousands of sets of existing bridge inspection data collected in Taiwan over the past five years, with the following goals in mind: (1) develop a normal zone in the health condition shown on the diagnostic figure, and identify the health situation for the bridge using a specific inspection condition; (2) determine the time when the bridge will be in the worst situation, then determine the proper time for maintenance to be carried out; (3) introduce a new data process and innovative model into the BMS in Taiwan, as it will definitely be an asset to be able to estimate reliable maintenance costs in the future.

Knowledge management involves creating, securing, coordinating, combining, retrieving and distributing knowledge. Knowledge can be reused and shared among engineers and experts to enhance construction processes and decrease the time and cost of solving problems. This study presents a novel and practical method to capture and represent construction project knowledge by using network knowledge maps. Network Knowledge Maps (NKM) gives users an overview of available and missing knowledge in core project areas, enabling tacit and explicit knowledge to be managed appropriately. This study addresses application of knowledge management in the construction phase of construction projects, and presents a construction Map-based Knowledge Management (MBKM) concept and system for contractors. The MBKM system is then utilized in selected case studies involving a High-Tech factory building enterprise in Taiwan to verify the proposed methodology and indicate the effectiveness of sharing knowledge, particularly in the construction phase. Knowledge can be captured and managed to benefit future projects by effectively utilizing information and web technologies during the construction phase of a project. The results of this study demonstrate that an MBKM-like system can be applied effectively in knowledge management systems in the construction industry by using map-based knowledge management and web technology.

The high variability of construction environments results in high construction-cost variation, especially in material costs. Inadequate planning may cause material shortages that delay the project schedule or, alternatively, a substantial increase in inventory costs by producing or supplying materials earlier than they are needed at the construction site. In order to solve these problems, this paper studies steel rebar production and supply operations and establishes an optimal model that minimizes the integrated inventory cost of the supply chain. Based on the optimal model, this paper develops a decision-support system to generate a production and supply plan for a supplier and buyers of steel rebar. After utilizing the decision-support system to create the supply and production plan, this paper analyzes the results to study the influence of transaction constraints on inventory cost. This paper also discusses cases of global optimization of the inventory cost for the entire supply chain and compares them with cases of local optimization for individual members.

Construction project control aims to effectively obtain real-time information and enhance dynamic control by utilizing information sharing and connecting involved participants of the projects to reduce construction conflicts and project delays. However, extending the construction project control system to job sites is not considered efficient because using notebooks in a harsh environment like a construction site is not particularly a conventional practice. Meanwhile, paper-based documents of the site processes are ineffective and cannot get the quick response from the office and project control center. Integrating promising information technologies such as personal digital assistants (PDA), bar code scanning, and data entry mechanisms, can be extremely useful in improving the effectiveness and convenience of information flow in construction supply chain control systems. Bar code scanning is appropriate for several construction applications, providing cost savings through increased speed and accuracy of data entry. This article demonstrates the effectiveness of a bar-code-enabled PDA application, called the mobile construction supply chain management (M-ConSCM) System, that responds efficiently and enhances the information flow between offices and sites in a construction supply chain environment. The advantage of the M-ConSCM system lies not only in improving the efficiency of work for on-site engineers, but also providing the Kanban-like visual control system for project participants to control the whole project. Moreover, this article presents a generic system architecture and its implementation.

In recent years, effective communication among project participants has been regarded as one of the critical factors for achieving project success. Participants in a multi-contract project acquire external real-time scheduling information from other involved parties and use this to make appropriate decisions in regard to project control. However, there are two major obstacles to project participants gaining efficient access to external information in a distributed data environment: (1) the variety of data structures that project members may use, and (2) the lack of an automatic mechanism for data acquisition. Based on the ontology defined by the eXtensible markup language Schema for Scheduling (XSS), the Data Acquisition Language for Scheduling (DALS), the Hierarchy Searching Algorithm (HSA), and an automatic mechanism called Message Transfer Chain (MTC), an Electronic Acquisition Model for Project Scheduling (e-AMPS) centralized in an information agent, Message Agent (MA), was developed. Each participant equips a Message Agent as his unique information window to automatically acquire external information and provide other participants with scheduling information as well. The ultimate goal of this study is to build an automatic communication environment for multi-contract projects to solve the abovementioned difficulties, and thus achieve effective communication among project participants.

Landfill space is an important commodity for landfill companies. It is desirable to develop an efficient tool to assist space management and monitor space consumption. When recyclable wastes or particular waste materials need to be retrieved from the landfill site, the excavation operations become more difficult without an efficient tool to provide waste information (i.e., location and type). In this paper, a methodology and several algorithms are proposed to develop a 3-D graphical database system (GDS) for landfill operations. A 3-D GDS not only monitors the space consumption of a landfill site, but can also provide exact locations and types of compacted waste that would later benefit the landfill excavation operations or recycling programs after the waste is covered.

Considering the characteristics of highly specialized corporation in the construction industry, it's crucial to select appropriate subcontractors to implement specific subprojects. In this research, the overall subcontracting supply chain of a construction project is considered as a global procurement system and an optimal combination of subcontractors can be obtained within this system. Combining the quick response mechanism of information technology with portfolio theory in financial management, an integrated XML (eXtensible Markup Language) of Accelerated Subcontracting And Procuring (ASAP) model was proposed. The ultimate goal of this study is not only to develop a web-based decision support system for general contractors to accurately decide an appropriate trade-off between risk and profit for different combinations of subcontractors, but to take the subcontracting and procuring process into re-engineering through omnipresent Internet. Author Keywords: Procurement; Subcontracting

It is important for project owners to select only those construction contractors who are uniquely qualified to perform the work because this leads to the greatest chance for achieving project success. Owners typically screen contractors by using the following key criteria: financial stability, technical ability, management capability, health and safety, and reputation. This study focuses primarily on the construction contractor’s financial stability during the prequalification phase and employs a dynamic threshold cash flow based structural model (DCFM) to assess the credit quality score for each construction contractor. This model differs from the existing credit model because it only requires accounting statement information; thus, it is applicable to both publicly listed and private construction contractors. Moreover, only a small portion of companies are rated in the construction industry; this model is especially useful for owners to assess the credit quality of unrated construction companies...

Recently, the high incidence of construction firm bankruptcies has underlined the importance of forecasting defaults in the construction industry. Early warning systems need to be developed to prevent or avert contractor default; additionally, this evaluation result could facilitate the selection of firms as collaboration or investment partners. Financial statements are considered one of the key basic evaluation tools for demonstrating firm strength. This investigation provides a framework for assessing the probability of construction contractor default based on financial ratios by using the Logit model. A total of 21 ratios, gathered into five financial groups, are utilized to perform univariate logit analysis and multivariate logit analysis for assessing contractor default probability. The empirical results indicate that using multivariate analysis by adding market factor to the liquidity, leverage, activity and profitability factors can increase the accuracy of default prediction more than using only four financial factors. While considering the market factor in the multivariate Logit model, clear incremental prediction performance appears in 1-year evaluation. This study thus suggests that the market factor comprises important information to increase the prediction performance of the model when applied to construction contractors, particularly in short-term evaluation.

A methodology and several algorithms for interactive motion planning are developed for multi-equipment landfill operations in an automated landfill system (ALS). A system for establishing ALS is also proposed in the paper. To develop a multi-truck/multi-compactor ALS, the major problems can be classified into three principal categories: (1) navigation system for multiple devices, (2) job-site geometric model, and (3) instantaneous motion planning and control system for equipment in the work site. To solve the problems from the three categories, this paper will present a methodology to simulate the operational processes of landfill vehicles and equipment in pre-planning a landfill project as well as finding efficient and collision-free motion patterns to control autonomous landfill equipment during the construction phase. Furthermore, by linking this system to a global positioning system (GPS), the efficient traffic routing and collision-free path for each piece of equipment can be calculated by using real-time positional data acquisition in a 3-D geometric model of a landfill site.

Under the continuous compression of life cycles for products from the high-tech industry, all investors expect to recoup an enormous amount of investment within the shortest possible timeframe and raise production rapidly, so they can acquire more market opportunities and improve market share. In view of this, investors desire to shorten plant construction as much as possible. The return air floor slab for the clean room is one of the key construction projects. This floor is a common design used in high-tech plants to control the cleanliness and humidity of the air. Concentrated openings and large thickness are the two major requirements for it. Under these two requirements, levelness and resistance to minor vibration of the floor slab must also be considered; this has caused significant difficulties in construction, where many vendors are also confronted with pressures for construction time and quality. In order to solve the difficulties in waffle slab construction, this study has proposed a technique of precast waffle slab to meets the requirements for the high-tech industry on construction time and quality under intense market competition.

It is important that how to improve junior engineers efficiently acquire construction project’s experience. For junior employee’s training, how to effectively reuse the tacit knowledge through information technology becomes an important subject in construction. If the knowledge map could be applied in construction, it would achieve the following spots: (1) enhance the knowledge search efficiency for junior engineer, (2) improve the knowledge reuse in construction, reduce the barrier when construction enterprises implement electronic business, and (3) feed back the experience for developing construction knowledge management system. In order to apply knowledge map in this study, the research will utilize the junior engineer demand with expert interview method, and use the IDEF0 (Integration Definition Function Modeling) methodology to analysis the key factors when junior engineer reuse construction knowledge. Finally, the research will combine the knowledge classification structure, the related documents in construction process, the related websites in internet environment, and knowledge management system to build the individual knowledge map application process for junior engineer.

Knowledge Management (KM) has become an important term in the construction industry. Knowledge management involves creating, securing, capturing, coordinating, combining, retrieving and distributing knowledge. The knowledge can be reused and shared among the involved engineers and experts to improve the construction process and reduce the time and cost of solving problems. Sharing and reusing knowledge depends on acquiring and preserving both tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge as the property of a corporation. This study addresses application of knowledge management in the construction phase of construction projects and proposes a construction map-based knowledge management (MBKM) concept and system for general contractors. This paper proposes a practical methodology to capture and represent construction project knowledge by using knowledge map. Using knowledge maps, users can get an overview of available and missing knowledge in core project areas and take appropriate management in tacit and explicit knowledge. Also, a portal system is developed to assist and present project-related knowledge by providing keyword and map search. The MBKM system is then applied in a case study of a construction precast office building in Taiwan to verify our proposed methodology and demonstrate the effectiveness of sharing knowledge special in the construction phase. By effectively using information and web technologies during the construction phase of a project, knowledge can be captured and managed to benefit future projects. The combined results demonstrate that, an MBKM-like system can be an effective tool for all experts and engineers participating for construction projects by utilizing the knowledge management concept and web technology.

Knowledge map is one of the most important and useful tools in the knowledge management field. Knowledge map can be used to effectively plan the implementation of a knowledge management strategy for a term, department, and enterprise. With the assistance of knowledge map, users cannot only easily understand and identify where the knowledge in located in the system, but can also determine what intellectual assets are essential to their enterprise. The methodology uses a knowledge map as a tool to represent knowledge in implementing construction knowledge management effectively. The main contents of this paper includes (1) study current knowledge management and map application system’s function and characteristics; (2)propose the process for creating a construction knowledge map; (3) propose important factors and analysis in knowledge map design. Furthermore, a construction classification structure is provided in the paper and a scenario is explained to describe the framework of building construction knowledge map by studying review literature and experts symposium.

Knowledge management has already demonstrated a number of benefits and has offered justification for further implementation. The Internet facilitated its development and growth via fast and timely sharing of knowledge. By sharing knowledge, a enterprise can creates exponential benefits from the knowledge and experience as employee learns from it. In Taiwan, the construction industry is attempting to take a further step to apply knowledge management (KM) to capture, store, share, and reuse past information and knowledge in their projects. A survey is made to identify the application and problem of knowledge management in public sector and private sector in the A/E/C industries of Taiwan. This paper focuses on the current implementing and problem of the public and private sections in construction knowledge management. The purpose of the paper is helpful to further understand the strategy and problem solving for implementing construction knowledge management successfully. Finally, suggestions and strategies based on the survey are provided in the paper to help and apply the future implementing of knowledge management in the A/E/C Industries.

Construction projects are composed of a large number of contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers that comprise the project supply chain. Construction supply chain management as a field of study concerns itself with improving the coordination of these firms to improve project performance along various metrics such as speed, cost, reliability, quality, etc. In order to link the construction supply chain well, information sharing is a basic requirement and function in the supply chain management system. Without the information sharing, the supply chain partners cannot communicate each other and connect construction operation to synchronize and streamline all communications among the company. However, the rise of the interconnectivity between different information systems over the Internet impacts construction processes, thus the defective characteristics of the construction industry can be overcome by an assistance of technology. This paper describes the prototype and system of e-Hub Construction Supply Chain Management (eHub-ConSCM) System for information shared service in executing the construction projects. The information needs for eHubConSCM System are illustrated, a general system architecture is describe and the implementation of eHubConSCM system is presented.

The objective of supply chain management is to quickly obtain real-time information, minimize cost, increase levels of service, improve communication among supply chain components, and increase flexibility in terms of delivery and response time. In the traditional construction industry, construction processes are always labor-intensive, manual, and time-consuming. With the advent of the information technology, it is possible to achieve the supply chain management for construction by seamlessly connecting all components in the construction chain with real-time information. The supply chain of construction contractors includes internal construction supply chain and external construction supply chain. This paper proposes simplified models for internal and external construction supply chains to achieve supply chain management for construction by utilizing information technologies. These information technologies adapted in construction supply chain management include Internet, Intranet, Extranet, and Mobile devices (such as Personal Digital Assistant device). In addition, XML is introduced for standard and technology designed to accelerate data sharing by seamlessly integrating systems across the construction supply chain effectively.