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Cost and time are two of the primary benchmarks in which construction projects are measured. A variety of factors, however, affect cost and time on construction projects, as identified in previous research. This has led to a need for better understanding how factors affecting cost and time overruns on public construction projects can be managed more efficiently. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.

In this study 26 factors affecting cost and time overruns on construction projects were identified, through qualitative interviews with project managers from Danish governmental agencies and through a literature review. Through principal component analyses the 26 factors were subsequently narrowed down to four primary latent factors.

The identified four latent factors affecting cost and time overruns on public construction projects were lack of quality management, lack of project pre-planning, lack of user management and lack of project management.

Previous research has focussed on increasing knowledge by identifying and ranking factors affecting time and cost performance. This has led to the identification of an overwhelming number of factors to use for managing construction projects. The present research reduced the number of factors by clustering them into key latent factors responsible for most of the deviation in performance, narrowing the scope of construction cost and time management into a few tangible key focus areas. This supports and improves fast decision-making that is necessary in a changeable environment such as construction.

The poor capacity of prefabricated construction cost estimation is the essential reason for the low profitability of the general contractor. Therefore, this study aims to focus on the cost estimation of prefabricated construction as the research object. This research aims to enhance the accuracy of total project cost estimation for general contractors, ultimately leading to improved profitability.

This study used Vensim PLE software to establish a system dynamics model. In the modeling process, a systematic research review was used to identify cost-influencing factors; ABC classification and the analytic hierarchy process were used to score and determine the weights of influencing factors.

The total cost error obtained by the model is less than 2% compared with the actual value. It can be used to cost estimation and analysis. The analysis results indicate that there are 7 key factors, among which the prefabrication rate has the most significant impact. Furthermore, the model can provide the extreme range cost; the minimum cost can reduce by 13% from the value in the case. The factor's value can compose a cost control strategy for general contractors.

The cost of prefabricated buildings can be estimated well, and deciding the prefabrication rate is crucial. The cost can be declined by correct cost control strategies when bidding and subcontracting are in process. The strategies can follow the direction of the model.

A systemic, quantitative and qualitative analysis of cost estimation of prefabricated buildings for general contractors has been conducted. A mathematical model has been developed and validated to facilitate more effective cost-control measures.

This study aims to focus on the supply chain (SC) cost drivers of healthcare industries in the USA, as SC costs have increased 40% over the last decade. The second-most significant expense, the SC, accounts for 38% of total expenses in a typical hospital, while most other industries can operate within 10% of their operating cost. This makes healthcare centers supply-chain-sensitive organizations with limited facilities for high-quality healthcare services. As the cost drivers of healthcare SC are almost unknown to managers, their jobs become more complex.

Guided by pragmatism and positivism paradigms, a cross-sectional study has been designed using quantitative and deductive approaches. Both primary and secondary data were used. Primary data were collected from health centers across the country, and secondary data were from healthcare-related databases. This study examined the attributes that explain the most significant variation in each contributing factor. With multiple regression analysis for predicting cost and Student's t-tests for the significance of contributing factors, the authors of this study examined different theories, including the market-based view and five-forces, network and transaction cost analysis.

This study revealed that supply, materials and services represent the most significant expenses in primary care. Supply-chain cost breakdown results in four critical factors: facility, inventory, information and transportation.

This study examined the data from primary and secondary care institutions. Tertiary and quaternary care systems were not included. Although tertiary and quaternary care systems represent a small portion of the healthcare system, future research should address the supply chain costs of highly specialized organizations.

This study suggests methods that can help to improve supply chain operations in healthcare organizations worldwide.

This study presents an empirically proven methodology for testing the statistical significance of the primary factors contributing to healthcare supply chain costs. The results of this study may lead to positive policy changes to improve healthcare organizations' efficiency and increase access to high-quality healthcare.

The Afghan construction industry faces resource shortages and heavily relies on foreign aid to fund public projects on the path to recovery and reconstruction. While the resource constraints demand cost-efficient delivery of construction projects, many Afghan public projects experience delays and cost overruns. This study aims to evaluate various attributes and factors influencing cost performance in public construction projects in Afghanistan.

The literature review and Delphi method identified 30 cost performance attributes relevant to the context of Afghanistan. Next, a questionnaire survey was conducted with construction management professionals working in the public sector in the Afghan construction industry to evaluate these attributes.

This study found that the lack of resources, poor project management skills and corruption in procurement are the leading causes behind cost overruns in Afghan public projects. This study also identified five latent factors influencing cost performance in public projects in Afghanistan: competency of the project team, socioeconomic and political support, governance and public procurement, planning and risk management and project characteristics.

The exploratory factor analysis did not reveal the relative significance of different cost performance success factors. Moreover, the ranking of cost performance attributes is based on the responses from the public sector construction professionals only.

The construction industry in Afghanistan significantly contributes to the country’s social and economic growth and employment. This study’s findings will help researchers, project sponsors, government departments and industry practitioners interested in improving the cost performance in Afghan public projects.

Given the scarcity of research in war-affected and conflict-sensitive regions, this study fills a research gap on project cost performance by providing insights into the cost performance success factors in public projects in Afghanistan.

Urban population growth has increased housing density, which has expanded the construction of low-cost low-rise residential in urban areas. Good building performance and effective low-cost low-rise residential quality lead to higher user satisfaction and improve building sustainability. This study aims to focus on the factors influencing the sustainability of low-cost low-rise residential in the West Malaysia urban area to assess resident satisfaction.

A mixed-mode approach with both qualitative and quantitative were used in this study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 stakeholders to identify the common factors influencing sustainability in low-cost low-rise residential. Subsequently, questionnaire surveys were formed and distributed among building users to determine the satisfaction level with low-cost low-rise residential building performance.

The finding demonstrates that accessibility is the key factor to achieving sustainability of low-cost low-rise residential. The finding also related to the factor that influences both stakeholders and building user satisfaction levels. This study also identifies key areas that require attention to improve user satisfaction with building sustainability and building performance of low-cost low-rise residential.

This study aims to determine stakeholder and building user satisfaction levels in relation to the sustainable building factor. A few indicators have been set up to identify the factors that most influence the sustainability and environment of low-cost low-rise residential buildings. Each subchapter has a few recommendations to improve the performance of low-cost low-rise residential. Each of the factors mentioned is related to social, economic and environmental sustainability. In addition, the study discovered a strong connection between low-cost low-rise residential performance and user satisfaction.

In traditional Bayesian belief networks (BBNs), a large amount of data are required to complete network parameters, which makes it impractical. In addition, no systematic method has been used to create the structure of the BBN. The aims of this study are to: (1) decrease the number of questions and time and effort required for completing the parameters of the BBN and (2) present a simple and apprehensible method for creating the BBN structure based on the expert knowledge.

In this study, by combining the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL), interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and BBN, a model is introduced that can form the project risk network and analyze the impact of risk factors on project cost quantitatively based on the expert knowledge. The ranked node method (RNM) is then used to complete the parametric part of the BBN using the same data obtained from the experts to analyze DEMATEL.

Compared to the traditional BBN, the proposed method will significantly reduce the time and effort required to elicit network parameters and makes it easy to create a BBN structure. The results obtained from the implementation of the model on a mass housing project showed that considering the identified risk factors, the cost overruns relating to material, equipment, workforce and overhead cost were 37.6, 39.5, 42 and 40.1%, respectively.

Compared to the traditional BBN, the proposed method will significantly reduce the time and effort required to elicit network parameters and makes it easy to create a BBN structure. The results obtained from the implementation of the model on a mass housing project showed that considering the identified risk factors, the cost overruns relating to material, equipment, workforce and overhead cost were 37.6, 39.5, 42 and 40.1%, respectively. The obtained results are based on a single case study project and may not be readily generalizable.

The presented framework makes the BBN more practical for quantitatively assessing the impact of risk on project costs. This helps to manage financial issues, which is one of the main reasons for project bankruptcy.

It is widely accepted that one criterion for determining if a construction project is successful is whether it is completed within the expected budget. There have been advancements in the management of building projects throughout time but cost overruns remain a key concern in the construction sector internationally, particularly in emerging economies such as Ghana. This study aims to answer the question, “What are the critical success factors (CSFs) that can assist reduce cost overruns in public sector infrastructure projects in the Ghanaian construction industry?”

This study used a quantitative survey method. The questionnaire was pre-tested by interviewing 15 contractors to ascertain the validity of the content. Factor analysis and multiple regression were adopted to analyze the data.

This study discovered that the critical factors that can reduce cost overruns in construction projects in Ghana are directly linked to five themes: early contractor involvement in the project planning stage, adequate funding, good project team relations, competent managers/supervisors and project participant incentives/bonuses. This study identifies indestructible, empirically measurable important success criteria for reducing cost overruns in public building projects in Ghana.

When well thought through from the project initiation stage to completion, these critical successes can also be used to deal with damaging economic effects such as allocative inefficiency of scarce resources, further delays, contractual disputes, claims and litigation, project failure and total abandonment.

The uniqueness of this research resides in the fact that it is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, a first-of-its-kind investigation of the CSFs for reducing cost overruns in public building projects in developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an organizing lens for viewing the distinct contributions to knowledge production from those research communities addressing the impact of competitive strategy on company performance in general, and the influence of cost leadership and differentiation strategy on organizational performance in detail.

The research methodology was based on the PRISMA review, and thematic analysis based on an iterative process of open coding was analyzed and then the sample was analyzed by illustrating the research title, objectives, method, data analysis, sample size, variables and country.

The main factor that influenced the competitive strategy is strategic growth; strategic growth has a significant influence on competitive strategy. Furthermore, competitive strategy will boost firm network, performance measurement and organization behavior. In the same way, the internal goal factor will enhance organizational effectiveness. Also, a differentiation strategy will support management practice factors, strategic positions, product price, product characteristics and company performance.

This study contributes to the literature by identifying a framework of competitive strategy factors, company performance factors, cost leadership strategy factors, differentiation strategy factors and competitive strategy with global market factors. This study provides a complete picture and description of the resulting body knowledge in competitive strategy and organizational performance.

Time-cost trade-off is normal conduct in construction projects when projects are expectedly late for delivery. Existing research on time-cost trade-off strategic management mostly focused on the technical calculation towards the optimal combination of activities to be accelerated, while the managerial aspects are mostly neglected. This paper aims to understand the managerial efforts necessary to prepare construction projects ready for an upcoming trade-off implementation.

A preliminary list of critical factors was first identified from the literature and verified by a Delphi survey. Quantitative data was then collected by a questionnaire survey to first shortlist the preliminary factors and quantify the predictive model with different machine learning algorithms, i.e. k-nearest neighbours (kNN), radial basis function (RBF), multiplayer perceptron (MLP), multinomial logistic regression (MLR), naïve Bayes classifier (NBC) and Bayesian belief networks (BBNs).

The model's independent variable importance ranking revealed that the top challenges faced were the realism of contractual obligation, contractor planning and control and client management and monitoring. Among the tested machine learning algorithms, multilayer perceptron was demonstrated to be the most suitable in this case. This model accuracy reached 96.5% with the training dataset and 95.6% with an independent test dataset and could be used as the contingency approach for time-cost trade-offs.

The identified factor list contributed to the theoretical explanation of the failed implementation in general and practical managerial improvement to better avoid such failure. In addition, the established predictive model provided an ad-hoc early warning and diagnostic tool to better ensure time-cost implementation success.

Construction industry faces challenges in making objective decisions due to monetary value attached to quality. Among various quality management techniques available, cost of quality (COQ) is one such method used to address the concern. However, the absence of measurable COQ factors to monitor quality costs hampers the implementation of COQ framework in the construction industry. Therefore, this study aims to identify COQ factors focused on visible factors (VF) and hidden factors (HF) and the current requirements to achieve it.

This study is based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses protocol guidelines. The present study identified 57 articles published between 1992 and 2023 in peer-reviewed journals.

The findings reveal 22 factors, which are grouped into four categories based on COQ. Through systematic review, the authors observed limited methodological and theoretical diversity. In fact, there are no quantitative frameworks to calculate COQ. The study, therefore, developed a framework comprising four major routes/paths of COQ factors within the framework.

The COQ routes developed through this study will enable the practitioners to meticulously categorise VF and HF, facilitating quantifying of quality throughout the lifecycle of project, which is currently absent from the existing quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) approach. In addition, these COQ routes stand as essential construction strategies, significantly enhancing outcomes related to time, cost, quality, sustainability and fostering closer relationships within project frameworks.

The current study contributes significantly to the existing body of knowledge by developing various COQ routes and proposing future research directions to address gaps in the literature.