Search results

This paper presents an analytical framework for determining efficient levels and durations of precontractual investigation. Economic efficiency in the allocation of investigation tasks between client and tenderer is shown to depend on how closely related the technologies of investigation and construction are. Moreover, risk aversion and the interest rate affect the efficient allocation. The framework is also used as a basis for an investment analysis of the balance between client's investigation efforts and expected claims in the future. Finally, the framework is used to show how the optimal length of the investigation period can be derived from the expected cash flow associated with a project over its total life cycle, from inception to demolition. Results indicate the economic potential of tailoring risk sharing in construction procurement, according to the type of construction project and the attitudes to risk among client and contractors.

This study provides a framework for comparing construction management contracts in the UK and the US construction practices. It starts by reviewing previous studies on UK and US contracting practices and explores the main delivery methods, inform of comparison with construction management contracting systems. It examines construction management contracting types, processes and procedures and interaction between the construction manager and other stakeholders. This study was based on a literature review and the result shows the similarities and differences between the American and British CM systems within each practice and between both practices; the distribution of responsibilities and risks both in pre‐construction and during the construction stages; and allocation of responsibility in both practices.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the insurable risks that impacted the operations on complex construction projects in developing countries using Ghana as a case study.

In this study, structured questionnaires were used to collect relevant information from the top management of construction and insurance firms in Ghana, comprising 50 industry professionals. The study adopted the χ² and independent samples’ t test to interpret the responses from participants.

The study revealed the major risks that severely impacted the operations on complex construction projects, including strikes and labour disputes, long waiting time for approval of test samples, damages to property during construction, delay in payment to contractor for work done, poor construction method, pressure to deliver project on an accelerated schedule, labour shortage, permits delayed or take longer than expected, inaccurate materials estimating, change in weather pattern, low productivity of subcontractors and inadequate contractor experience.

The study is expected to contribute to increase in the awareness of the insurable risks and policies that project participants are exposed to, which will serve as a decision-making tool for contract formation.

This study assists in managing construction and insurance firms to note the major risk in managing a complex construction project. In addition to knowing the major risks identified, the study investigates the insurable risk by managing both construction and insurance firms.

As a remedy to usually voluminous, complicated and not easily readable construction contracts, smart contracts can be considered as an effective and alternative solution. However, the construction industry is merely known as a frontrunner for fast adoption of recent technological advancements. Numerous administrative risks challenge construction companies to implement smart contracts. To highlight this issue, this study aims to assess the administrative risks of smart contract adoption in construction projects.

A literature survey is conducted to specify administrative risks of smart contracts followed by a pilot study to ensure that the framework is suitable to the research question. The criteria weights are calculated through the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process method, followed by a sensitivity analysis based on degree of fuzziness, which supports the robustness of the developed hierarchy and stability of the results. Then, a focus group discussion (FGD) is performed to discuss the mitigation strategies for the top-level risks in each risk category.

The final framework consists of 27 sub-criteria, which are categorized under five main criteria, namely, contractual, cultural, managerial, planning and relational. The findings show that (1) regulation change, (2) lack of a driving force, (3) works not accounted in planning, (4) shortcomings of current legal arrangements and (5) lack of dispute resolution mechanism are the top five risks challenging the adoption of smart contracts in construction projects. Risk mitigation strategies based on FGD show that improvements for the semi-automated smart contract drafting are considered more practicable compared to full automation.

The literature is limited in terms of the adoption of smart contracts, while the topic is receiving more attention recently. To support easy prevalence of smart contracts, this study attempts the most challenging aspects of smart contract adoption.

The prevention through design (PtD) concept has been widely recognized as one of the most effective approaches to eliminate or reduce construction site hazards. It encourages engineers and architects to consider occupational safety and health during the planning and design phases. Nevertheless, the implementation of PtD is often inhibited because designers lack adequate knowledge about construction safety and the construction process, and limited design-for-safety tools and procedures are available for designers to use. The purpose of this paper is to provide designers a tool for assessing construction risks during early phases of multistory building projects at an activity level and on a daily basis in a 4D environment. By using the tool, proactive measures could be taken in the design and planning phase to reduce site hazards.

The proposed method consists of four steps including risk quantification at a design element level, 4D model integration with risk values, risk assessment, and design alternative selection and model acceptance. A case study was carried out to test and verify the proposed method.

The proposed tool has the capability to assess the safety risk for an entire multistory project and visualize safety risk in a particular time period, work space and task prior to construction. It benefits designers in conducting risk assessments and selecting design alternatives concerning safety. Contractors could also utilize the visualization and simulation results of the 4D model for site safety planning so that a range of risk mitigation strategies could be implemented during construction.

The study provides an innovative PtD tool targeting designers as primary end-users. The proposed tool helps designers assess construction risks and has potential to incorporate the top levels of the hierarchy of risk controls.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the formation mechanism of the host country people's coping behavior regarding the construction of transnational railways to help engineering managers and decision makers improve their risk management and lead to sustainable transnational railway construction projects.

This paper adopted the grounded theory methodology to analyze the news stories reported by “Belt and Road Portal” and “The New York Times” about eight transnational railways. They were China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan (Central Asia), Mecca-to-Medina (West Asia), Hungarian–Serbia (Europe), China–Nepal (South Asia), Bi-Oceanic (South America), Mombasa–Nairobi (Africa), China–Laos (Southeast Asia) and Panama railways (North America). The keywords for news search were the names of each railway. After eliminating the problem sentences with semantic repetition and ambiguity, 2,631 effective sentences were formed to screen the information and code. The process included open, axial and selective coding.

It was concluded that the core structure of the formation mechanism was “situation,” “influence factor,” “cognition” and “coping behavior.” The country-of-origin image has served as an adjustment function in the analysis for the host country people. Governance strategies were suggested focusing on risk prevention, risk mitigation and risk response according to social risk management.

The rise of transnational railway construction is encouraged by the process of globalization. But during the long construction period, the host country people's coping behavior would develop into social conflicts and mass incidents, becoming a significant obstacle to construction objectives. Thus, studying the formation mechanism of public coping behaviors can better take measures to prevent social risks.

The contributions of this research are three aspects: first, a formation mechanism of the host country people's coping behavior based on grounded theory is presented. Second, the country-of-origin image is found to be a factor that cannot be ignored in a transnational context. The formation mechanism of public coping behaviors is improved compared to risk management in the domestic situation. Finally, the host country people pay more attention to the motivations of country-of-origin's controlling interests and their own emotions compared with internal stakeholders.

Public-private partnership (PPP) projects for construction waste recycling have become the main approach to construction waste treatment in China. Risk sharing and income distribution of PPP projects play a vital role in achieving project success. This paper is aimed at building a practical and effective risk sharing and income distribution model to achieve win–win situation among different stakeholders, thereby providing a systematic framework for governments to promote construction waste recycling.

Stakeholders of construction waste recycling PPP projects were reclassified according to the stakeholder theory. Best-worst multi–criteria decision-making method and comprehensive fuzzy evaluation method (BWM–FCE) risk assessment model was constructed to optimize the risk assessment of core stakeholders in construction waste recycling PPP projects. Based on the proposed risk evaluation model for construction waste recycling PPP projects, the Shapley value income distribution model was modified in combination with capital investment, contribution and project participation to obtain a more equitable and reasonable income distribution system.

The income distribution model showed that PPP Project Companies gained more transaction benefits, which proved that PPP Project Companies played an important role in the actual operation of PPP projects. The policy change risk, investment and financing risk and income risk were the most important risks and key factors for project success. Therefore, it is of great significance to strengthen the management of PPP Project Companies, and in the process of PPP implementation, the government should focus on preventing the risk of policy changes, investment and financing risks and income risks.

The findings from this study have advanced the application methods of risk sharing and income distribution for PPP projects and further improved PPP project-related theories. It helps to promote and rationalize fairness in construction waste recycling PPP projects and to achieve mutual benefits and win–win situation in risk sharing. It has also provided a reference for resource management of construction waste and laid a solid foundation for long-term development of construction waste resources.

PPP mode is an effective tool for construction waste recycling. How to allocate risks and distribute benefits has become the most important issue of waste recycling PPP projects, and also the key to project success. The originality of this study resides in its provision of a holistic approach of risk allocation and benefit distribution on construction waste PPP projects in China as a developing country. Accordingly, this study adds its value by promoting resource development of construction waste, extending an innovative risk allocation and benefit distribution method in PPP projects, and providing a valuable reference for policymakers and private investors who are planning to invest in PPP projects in China.

To achieve project success, an effective project risk management procedure is inevitable. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of risk factors on project success in the Chinese construction industry context.

This study by way of utilizing both qualitative and quantitative methods has examined risk factors that are closely linked to project success in the Chinese construction industry.

After a thorough survey and analysis, risk factors related to designer, contractor, subcontractor, client and government are shown to affect project success to some extent.

It is suggested that the present research may be made more generalizable by a larger, more representative samples across various industries and regions of China.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the risks involved in the construction project based on a literature survey (LS), to develop a project risk management (PRM) framework based on Industry 4.0 technologies and to demonstrate the developed framework using Internet of Things (IoT) technology.

A comprehensive LS was carried out to know the different risks involved in the construction project and developed a PRM framework based on Industry 4.0 technologies to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of PRM. Heavy equipment and parameters were identified to demonstrate the developed framework based on IoT technology of Industry 4.0.

This paper demonstrates Industry 4.0 in the various stages of PRM. LS has identified 21 risks for a construction project. The demonstration of the PRM framework has identified the sudden breakdown of equipment and uncertainty of equipment as one of the critical risks associated with heavy equipment of construction project.

The project complexity and features may add a few more risks in PRM.

The PRM framework based on Industry 4.0 technologies will increase the success rate of the project. It will enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of PRM.

The developed framework is helpful for the effective PRM of construction projects. The demonstration of PRM framework using IoT technology provides a logical way to manage risk involved in heavy equipment used in a construction project.

Under the background that engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracting model is introduced to adapt to the highly fragmented characteristics of prefabricated construction, the schedule management of general contractor is faced with the challenge of dynamic transmission and interaction of construction scheduling-related risk. The purpose of this paper is to develop the hierarchy of prefabricated construction scheduling-related risks from the perspective of the general contractor, and to analyze the transmission mechanism between risks. The paper also aims to further distinguish the difference of the impact degree of scheduling-related risks, and provide reference for formulating the strategy to alleviate the construction delay.

Based on a review of the literature on prefabricated buildings, this paper identifies 22 scheduling-related risks in construction from the perspective of the general contractor. Semi-structured interviews were then conducted to obtain experts' views on the interrelationships among these risks. Following this, their overall structure was determined by using a hierarchical structure established by using interpretive structural modeling (ISM), and Matrice d'Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliqués à un Classement (MICMAC) technique was applied to classify them into four groups according to their driving and dependence powers.

The results indicate that the 22 scheduling-related risks in construction followed the inherent path of step-by-step transmission, and all of them could cause different degrees of delays in prefabricated construction. Among them, general experience in contracting projects, the use of emerging technologies and the completeness of the relevant standards and specifications were strong drivers of scheduling delays in construction, and should be prioritized by the general contractor in schedule management. The transitive link between scheduling risks can guide them in developing prevention strategies.

Data quality and reliability risks are the major drawbacks of semi-structured interviews. These were minimized by engaging experts with rich theoretical and hands-on experience in prefabricated construction projects. The hierarchical model only reflects static influence relationships, and so dynamic interactions among scheduling-related risks should be studied in future.

The primary value of this study is in its development of a hierarchical model by using the integrated ISM–MICMAC approach that reflects the interaction between scheduling risks in the construction of prefabricated buildings. The hierarchy of these risks and the results of a “driving-dependence power” analysis can guide the general contractor in taking targeted preventive measures to avoid scheduling delays in the construction of prefabricated buildings.