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Hybrid concrete construction is a technologically advanced approach to frame construction. It utilizes an optimal mix of structural materials;eg, in situ concrete with precast concrete and steelwork. The process of selecting an hybrid‐optimized solution, however, often requires several factors to be considered, eg, “hard”criteria such as time and cost, and “soft” criteria such as safety and aesthetics (to be considered simultaneously) – the complexities of which can often be a core barrier to implementation. This paper introduces the concept of hybrid concrete construction and presents a virtual prototyping tool to assist the decision‐making process. This model is able to import computer aided design information into a central database – the details of which are then layered with additional information; eg, hard and soft performance criteria and so on. Solutions can be interrogated and demonstrated through an interactive virtual environment, in which multi‐option scenarios can be evaluated against specific user‐defined criteria. Findings have identified several core benefits, including the ability to: justify decisions corroborated with detailed data; evaluate options against each other; interrogate objects at a much greater detail than before; and see the effects of changes in a “real‐time” environment.

The findings from a survey of attitudes amongst professional and trade (PT) groups in the UK construction industry in relation to the use of hybrid concrete construction (HCC) are reported in this paper. Following a brief introduction to HCC, the context of the research presented here is explained. An account of the research methods used in the project is given, together with guidance on appropriate techniques for interviewing professional and trade groups in the construction industry. The findings from the survey are divided into two sections: areas of consensus and areas of disagreement. Conclusions are drawn relating to the future design, procurement and construction of buildings that incorporate HCC.

The purpose of this paper is to identify interdependent barriers to the search and selection of new technologies by design engineers at industry, organisation and individual levels. A “proof of concept” HyCon tool is presented to demonstrate the role of information technology design support tools in supporting designers to overcome these inhibitors, in this case for hybrid concrete, by providing immersive and interactive, information‐rich environments to explore design solutions.

The HyCon tool was developed through a prototyping methodology encompassing a testing, analysis, design and coding iterative cycle. This was supported by case studies and industry workshops.

The results of a collaborative research project are presented, which describes the HyCon design support tool to promote the understanding and use of hybrid concrete in structural frames. This tool is built around a knowledge creation, application, storage, and retrieval cycle to envision and support the use of this new technology.

This paper fulfils an identified need to integrate technology management and design process considerations within the context of an information technology design support tool, and offers a “proof of concept” HyCon tool to demonstrate key issues and potential utilities and applications.

When assessing the potential benefits of using any new technology, it is essential that appropriate performance criteria are used and comparisons are made with the alternatives available. This paper reports on the development of criteria to help inform the process of deciding whether or not to adopt hybrid concrete construction (HCC) technology rather than more traditional alternatives. Following a thorough review of literature to identify a range of HCC performance criteria, their perceived importance was investigated via an opinion survey of experienced UK‐based practitioners. The result of the analysis revealed that all criteria identified through literature were considered important, with “physical form and space” of a building, “meeting perceived needs” and “construction cost and safety” being the more important performance criteria influencing the selection of an appropriate structural frame. This paper describes the potential practical application of these criteria to assist the early structural frame decision‐making process.

The conceptual stage of building design is where the most important decisions are made, for example, in determining the choice of structural elements such as floors. However, decisions made at this stage, particularly those involving costs and speeds, are often based on subjective judgement, rules of thumb and familiarity. This paper reports on the development of a computer spreadsheet tool that employs a more objective and systematic procedure in selecting concrete floors at the conceptual design stage, in which costs and speeds are quantitatively evaluated using, respectively, the method of elemental estimating and a simple bar chart technique, but in conjunction with a specially developed “lead‐in index”method. The results of the evaluation are then tabulated and systematically ranked to facilitate selection of the best floor system. The tool would thus assist engineers to make a more well‐informed and rapid choice of floor systems at the early design stage.

Industrialized construction (IC) leverages manufacturing principles and innovative processes to improve the performance of construction projects. Though IC is gaining popularity in the global construction industry, studies that establish the best practices for implementing IC projects are scarce. This study aims to benchmark practical lifecycle-based best practices for implementing IC projects.

The study used a qualitative research design where nine IC cases from Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong were analysed to identify best practices. The methodological framework of the study followed well-established case study research cycle and guidelines, including planning, data collection, data analysis and reflection on findings.

The study identified and allocated key considerations, relevant stakeholders, best practices, typical deliverables and best indicators to the different construction lifecycle phases of IC projects. It also developed a lifecycle-based framework of the best practices for IC projects.

The study provides practitioners with practical insight into how best to effectively implement, manage and evaluate the performance of the IC project lifecycle phases. The proposed framework can serve as a practical diagnostic tool that enables project partners to evaluate the performance upfront progressively and objectively in each project lifecycle phase, which may inform timely corrective actions.

The study’s novelty lies in developing a framework that identifies and demonstrates the dynamic linkages among different sets of best practices, typical outputs and best practice indicators across the IC project lifecycle phases.

This paper provides a brief critical analysis of how the focus on innovation diffusion, organisational learning and knowledge management has developed with an emphasis on the 2005-2015 period. The purpose of this paper is to provide a recent historic perspective on these concepts and suggest an integrated future focus for this research.

The paper identifies trends in how knowledge and learning is associated with innovation and experience based on a literature review.

The study of organisational learning and the management of knowledge and innovation diffusion is well-established in the construction and project management domains with two strongly emerging intertwined foci. On one hand, there has been a significant growing focus on learning through collaboration and the value of being a reflective practitioner. On the other hand, the exponential growth in the power of computing has led to “Big Data” reappearing to redefine data and information into pseudo-knowledge that is “blurring” the boundary of data, information and knowledge. Increasingly, we are likely to see effective innovation through more practical blending of these foci.

This provides a reflection on changing perspectives, on human and machine learning and knowledge management that may have a profound impact on future research themes.

Due to the increasing size and complexity of construction projects, construction engineering and management involves the coordination of many complex and dynamic processes and relies on the analysis of uncertain, imprecise and incomplete information, including subjective and linguistically expressed information. Various modelling and computing techniques have been used by construction researchers and applied to practical construction problems in order to overcome these challenges, including fuzzy hybrid techniques. Fuzzy hybrid techniques combine the human-like reasoning capabilities of fuzzy logic with the capabilities of other techniques, such as optimization, machine learning, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) and simulation, to capitalise on their strengths and overcome their limitations. Based on a review of construction literature, this chapter identifies the most common types of fuzzy hybrid techniques applied to construction problems and reviews selected papers in each category of fuzzy hybrid technique to illustrate their capabilities for addressing construction challenges. Finally, this chapter discusses areas for future development of fuzzy hybrid techniques that will increase their capabilities for solving construction-related problems. The contributions of this chapter are threefold: (1) the limitations of some standard techniques for solving construction problems are discussed, as are the ways that fuzzy methods have been hybridized with these techniques in order to address their limitations; (2) a review of existing applications of fuzzy hybrid techniques in construction is provided in order to illustrate the capabilities of these techniques for solving a variety of construction problems and (3) potential improvements in each category of fuzzy hybrid technique in construction are provided, as areas for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to define the integration capability dimensions and create a model for self-assessing the integration capability in inter-organizational projects.

A theoretical construct of, referred in this study as integration capability framework is elaborated following a systematic literature review. Thereafter, an integration capability self-assessment model, based on maturity thinking, is derived from the theoretical framework. The self-assessment model is further developed and tested for validity within five inter-organizational project networks in cooperation with industry practitioners, representing construction, industrial engineering, and mining sectors.

The results show that inter-organizational projects can use the developed model in self-assessing the maturity levels of various integration mechanisms, thus the state of integration capability at any point in time during inter-organizational projects.

This study is an attempt to identify how the integration capability dimensions can be self-assessed in inter-organizational projects, through the maturity levels of various integration mechanisms. The results offer insights for both academics and project management practitioners.

The purpose of this research is to propose a hybrid simulation framework which can take into account both the continuous and operational variables affecting the performance of construction projects.

System dynamics (SD) simulation paradigm is implemented for the modelling of the complex inter-related structure of continuous variables and discrete event simulation (DES) is implemented for the modelling of operational influencing factors. A hybrid modelling framework is then proposed through combination of SD and DES to simulate the construction projects.

This paper discusses the deficiencies of two traditional simulation methods – SD and DES – for simulation of construction projects which can be compensated by implementing hybrid SD–DES model. Different types of basic hybrid structures and synchronisation methods of SD and DES models are introduced.

The proposed hybrid framework discussed in this research will be beneficial to modellers to simulate construction projects.

The paper introduces a theoretical framework for a hybrid continuous- discrete simulation approach which can take into account the dynamics of project environment arising from the complex inter-related structure of various continuous influencing factors as well as the construction operations. Different steps required to develop the hybrid SD–DES model and synchronisation of SD and DES simulation methods are illustrated.