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Contract risk management has become a critical mission, as contract issues may lead to a loss of vast amounts of money to parties involved or cause project failure. This study sought to identify effective management strategies to mitigate construction contract issues that might emerge during construction.

A quantitative research approach was adopted for the study. Structured questionnaires made up of close-ended questions were distributed to construction professionals in South Africa via the SurveyMonkey platform. The data were then analysed using descriptive statistics.

The findings indicate that the critical sources of contract-related disputes are ambiguous definitions of the contract parties' scope of their rights and obligations, lack of precise arrangements regarding the calculation of contractual penalties for failure to meet the deadline, lack of detailed specification of the works and specific milestones, lack of provisions regulating changes to the project documentation during the construction stage, an excessive amount of contractual penalties on contractor's side and lack of provisions regarding the rules of performing additional and replacement works and their settlement. However, for these disputes to be effectively managed, strategies such as reduction uncertainties in project's phases, setting up contingency plans, construction guarantee, extension of time claims, payment guarantee, retention and escalation clause should be implemented by the parties involved.

Even though the empirical study focused on construction professionals in South Africa, the findings could be applied to other countries outside of South Africa.

To effectively manage and prevent contract disputes from averting project failures and losses to parties involved in the contract, construction professionals need to be aware of strategies that must be implemented before and during the project execution. If well implemented, these strategies will help a construction project be successful and experience fewer contractual disputes.

The study has identified the knowledge gap concerning suitable contract risk management strategies available for implementation to effectively prevent any contract parties from losing money, time and project failure.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the main causes of delays in the projects are from the client (relative importance index (RII)=0.716), labor and equipment (RII=0.701) and contractor (RII=0.698). Hence determining the contractual responsibility of delay is the most likely source of dispute in construction projects and many techniques have been used in the courts to demonstrate the criticalities of a delay event on the project schedule. Therefore, authors try to investigate all process-based techniques of delay claims and evaluated and conformed them with principles by Society of Construction Law (SCL) protocol and Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering International (AACEI) in order to choose the best techniques based on the specific circumstances of each project.

This section is divided into two distinct parts: refers to the methods used to assess the perceptions of clients, consultants, and contractors on the relative importance of causes of delay in construction industry; and refers to advantages and disadvantages of various techniques used to analyze delays and their conform with SCL protocol. A questionnaire was developed to assess the perceptions of clients, consultants, and contractors on the relative importance of causes of delay in Iranian construction industry. The respondents were asked to indicate their response category on 78 well-recognized construction delay factors identified by authors.

In total, 78 causes of delay were identified through research. The identified causes are combined into seven groups. The field survey included 58 contractors, 55 consultants, and 62 client. Data collected were analyzed by RII and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The authors identified main causes of delay and ten most important causes, according to Table AII, from the perspective of three major groups of participants (clients, consultants and contractors). The ranking of categories of causes of delay, according to Table I, were: client-related causes (RII=0.716); labor and equipment category causes (RII=0.701); contractor-related causes (RII=0.698); material-related causes (RII=0.690); design-related causes (RII=0.666); external causes (RII=0.662); and consultant-related causes (RII=0.662). But according to the discussions and given that determining the contractual responsibility of delay is the most likely source of dispute in construction industry and many techniques have been used in the courts to demonstrate the criticalities of a delay event on the project schedule.

All process-based techniques of delay analysis have been present in this paper and categorized in 11 groups. In order to understand the advantages and disadvantages of them by clients, contractor and consultant, a thorough review conducted to reveal the nature of techniques. In the next step, given that selecting the most appropriate technique based on constraints and specific conditions of each project is one of the most important steps to carry out a successful delay analysis. The authors conformed, all process-based techniques of delay analysis, by SCL protocol and AACEI principles. Finally, the result of this match was brought in order to choose the best technique based on the specific circumstances of each project.

Is humanity heading to immortal living? If so, what areas of society are playing an active role in achieving this? In order to understand this, the study explores the relationship between immortality and the wellness and medical tourism industry to seek potential relationships between them and ultimately, asks difficult questions about the growth of these tourism sectors and the potential need for greater regulation of them.

Taking a pragmatic philosophical approach and through the examination of refined information from secondary sources and published material and reports, the study presents original theoretical knowledge and a model exploring tourism and human immortality.

This paper argues that continued growth in the wellness and medical markets today could lead to a world where transhumanists and cyborgs are present in our world, even taking over from Homo sapiens. The study presents a model highlighting the potential role of wellness and medical tourism markets, illustrating the potential for future consumer services that could further fuel the search for immortality. Thus, how such markets and consumer desires are (in)directly supporting humanities desire for (non-human) immortal existence.

Today, individuals are driven by wellness practices and medical and cosmetic desires and are willing to travel the globe in search of companies who are either capable of carrying out the desired procedures or seeking prices more affordable to them. This research offers novel insights into these complex relationships and maps the affiliation between wellness and medical practices and the concept of immortality.

This paper aims to overcome the inability of both comparing loss costs and accounting for production resource losses of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)-related approaches.

The authors conducted a literature review about the studies focusing on approaches combining OEE with monetary units and/or resource issues. The authors developed an approach based on Overall Equipment Cost Loss (OECL), introducing a component for the production resource consumption of a machine. A real case study about a smart multicenter three-spindle machine is used to test the applicability of the approach.

The paper proposes Resource Overall Equipment Cost Loss (ROECL), i.e. a new KPI expressed in monetary units that represents the total cost of losses (including production resource ones) caused by inefficiencies and deviations of the machine or equipment from its optimal operating status occurring over a specific time period. ROECL enables to quantify the variation of the product cost occurring when a machine or equipment changes its health status and to determine the actual product cost for a given production order. In the analysed case study, the most critical production orders showed an actual production cost about 60% higher than the minimal cost possible under the most efficient operating conditions.

The proposed approach may support both production and cost accounting managers during the identification of areas requiring attention and representing opportunities for improvement in terms of availability, performance, quality, and resource losses.

Knowledge- and communication-intensive domains still long for a better support of creativity that considers legal requirements, compliance rules and administrative tasks as well, because current systems focus either on knowledge representation or business process management. The purpose of this paper is to discuss our model of integrated knowledge and business process representation and its presentation to users.

The authors follow a design science approach in the environment of patent prosecution, which is characterized by a highly standardized, legally prescribed process and individual knowledge study. Thus, the research is based on knowledge study, BPM, graph-based knowledge representation and user interface design. The authors iteratively designed and built a model and a prototype. To evaluate the approach, the authors used analytical proof of concept, real-world test scenarios and case studies in real-world settings, where the authors conducted observations and open interviews.

The authors designed a model and implemented a prototype for evolving and storing static and dynamic aspects of knowledge. The proposed solution leverages the flexibility of a graph-based model to enable open and not only continuously developing user-centered processes but also pre-defined ones. The authors further propose a user interface concept which supports users to benefit from the richness of the model but provides sufficient guidance.

The balanced integration of the data and task perspectives distinguishes the model significantly from other approaches such as BPM or knowledge graphs. The authors further provide a sophisticated user interface design, which allows the users to effectively and efficiently use the graph-based knowledge representation in their daily study.

The construction of cement asphalt (CA) emulsified mortar can obviously disturb the slab status after the fine adjustment. To decrease or eliminate the influence of CA mortar grouting on track slab geometry status, the effects of grouting funnel, slab pressing method, mortar expansion ratio, seepage ratio and grouting area on China Railway Track System Type (CRTS I) track slab geometry status were discussed in this paper.

Combined with engineering practice, this paper studied the expansion law of filling layer mortar, the liquid level height of the filling funnel, the pressure plate device and the amount of exudation water and systematically analyzed the influence of filling layer mortar construction on the state of track slab. Relevant precautions and countermeasures were put forward.

The results showed that the track slab floating values of four corners were different with the CA mortar grouting and the track slab corner near CA mortar grouting hole had the maximum floating values. The anti-floating effect of “7” shaped slab pressing device was more efficient than fixed-joint angle iron, and the slab floating value could be further decreased by increasing the amount of “7” shaped slab pressing devices. After CA mortar grouting, the track slab floating pattern had a close correlation with the expansion rate and water seepage rate of CA mortar over time and the expansion and water seepage rate of the mortar were faster when the temperature was high. Furthermore, the use of strip CA mortar filling under the rail bearing platform on both sides could effectively reduce the float under the track slab, and it could also save mortar consumption and reduce costs.

This study plays an important role in controlling the floating values, CA mortar dosage and the building cost of projects by grouting CA mortar at two flanks of filling space. The research results have guiding significance for the design and construction of China's CRTS I, CRTS II and CRTS III track slab.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss contemporary knowledge relevant to the application of performance measurement (PMe) in the concept of OPM and to compare findings from a literature review with solutions recommended for utilization by managers from general contractors operating in Poland. There are few studies related to the mentioned topic, much fewer describing the geographical area of Eastern Europe.

Triangulation of research methods was selected. First literature review, next desk research and finally descriptive statistical analysis and interview were conducted. The research methods were applied in three steps whose beginnings overlapped and the mid-term findings from one study complemented others.

PMe should be focused on management and governance issues. Its evaluation is related to various organizational levels (permanent organization, portfolio, program, project, construction site and supply chain), most of them are under valuated by practitioners. The conducted study pointed out that there are numerous supporting tools and measures applicable in organizational project management (OPM). The managers recommend combining various tools in one comprehensive OPM system, to limit multiple manual incorporations of the same data to the various databases. The managers call to increase the practical usefulness of researchers’ proposals, to educate the construction managers in the application of complex performance systems and to promote portfolio thinking.

The comparison of performance measurement solutions proposed by academia with experience collected from Polish construction managers could support the better application of theoretical ideas in practice.

Construction projects usually suffer delays, and the causes of these delays and its cost overruns have been widely discussed, the weather being one of the most recurrent. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of climate on standard construction work activities through a case study.

By studying the extent at which some weather variables impede outdoor work from being effectively executed, new maps and tables for planning for delays are presented. In addition, a real case regarding the construction of several bridges in southern Chile is analyzed.

Few studies have thoroughly addressed the influences of major climatic agents on the most common outdoor construction activities. The method detailed here provides a first approximation for construction planners to assess to what extent construction productivity will be influenced by the climate.

Although this study was performed in Chile, the simplified method proposed is entirely transferable to any other country, however, other weather or combinations of weather variables could be needed in other environments or countries.

The implications will help reducing the negative social, economic and environmental outcomes that usually emerge from project delays.

Climatic data were processed using extremely simple calculations to create a series of quantitative maps and tables that would be useful for any construction planner to decide the best moment of the year to start a project and, if possible, where to build it.

This paper is based on research addressing quality of construction schedules. The paper aims to structure a Schedule Health Assessment method and present it as a means to carry out the evaluation of construction schedules.

The development of the Schedule Health assessment method can be characterised as constructive research. The structuring of the method is based on analysis of factors forming the overall quality of construction schedules. The method has been tested in a proof of concept study. This comprised a case study in which four master schedules developed by junior production managers were evaluated using the Schedule Health assessment method.

It is possible to construct a method for the quality evaluation of construction schedules.

The completed testing is still rather limited since it is based merely on experiences of junior production managers with a single case.

The Schedule Health assessment method can in a useful manner make the quality evaluation of construction schedules easy to approach and effective process.

This research has produced a novel method for the quality evaluation of construction schedules.

This paper aims to provide and empirically test a conceptual model in which artificial intelligence (AI), knowledge management processes (KMPs) and supply chain resilience (SCR) are simultaneously considered in terms of their reciprocal relationships and impact on manufacturing firm performance (MFP).

In the study, six hypotheses have been developed and tested through an empirical survey administered to 120 senior executives of Italian manufacturing firms. The data analysis has been carried out via the partial least squares structural equation modelling approach, using the Advanced Analysis for Composites 2.0 variance-based software program.

Using a conceptual model validated using an empirical survey, the study sheds light on the relationships between AI, KMPs and SCR, as well as their impacts on MFP. In particular, the authors show the positive effects of the adoption of AI on KMPs, as well as the influence of KMPs on SCR and MFP. Finally, the authors demonstrate that KMPs act as a mediator through which AI affects SCR and MFP.

This study highlights the critical role of KMPs for manufacturing firms that can deploy AI to stimulate KMPs and through attaining a high level of the latter might succeed in enhancing both their SCR and MFP.

This study demonstrates that manufacturing firms interested in properly applying AI to ameliorate their performance and resilience must carefully consider KMPs as a mediator mechanism.