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This study investigates building information modelling (BIM) penetration in quantity surveying (QS) practice by examining the significance attached to the benefits and barriers of BIM adoption, BIM capabilities and future directions of BIM in QS processes. A popular opinion amongst construction researchers is that BIM has the capacity to revolutionize the industry. The study draws-out information in the literature regarding discipline-specific penetration of BIM.

Snowball sampling method was used to obtain information through a survey questionnaire. A total of 73 participants, largely quantity surveyors in Western Australia, took part in the study. Reductionist methodology was used to identify key variables of QS-BIM competencies that are most significant statistically.

BIM does not impose additional difficulties to traditional QS processes. Adherence to standard method of measurement and limited market demand do not hinder BIM deployment significantly. Quantity surveyors are able to use BIM to support their professional services once definitive design models are involved. In addition, the study identifies BIM penetration barriers to include constraints caused by centralised database management and interoperability issues, limitations imposed by market drivers, lack of in-house expertise to manage modelling needs and limited capability in software management.

Future opportunities for skill development are in the areas noted in the findings. Whilst many studies have reported resistance and widespread scepticism amongst some construction disciplines regarding BIM adoption, this study finds BIM penetration in QS practice is considerable, a direction that could trigger further novel innovations.

The methodology reported in the study is novel. In addition, findings from the study inspires other discipline-specific studies to articulate their BIM-penetration trends so that t broad areas of construction can develop a balanced strategy around BIM and innovation development.

This study aims to investigate clients' attributes, their key decision variables and causal relationships between the decision variables. In addition, the purpose of the study is to map-out from these analyses, the attributes of project clients that motivate contractors' bid decision.

A total of 50 responses were obtained from a questionnaire survey. 50% of participants are contractors. 44% are claims consultants, whilst 6% are manufacturers and clients. Beyond measures of central tendencies, analysis focussed on causal relationships by way of correlation, analysis of variance and reductionism.

All 20 factors considered have significant correlations with at least one other factor. Findings also show the factors can be clustered into six: reputation, financial strength, relationship with the bidder, organisational attributes, history with project attributes and project organisation.

Evidence suggests stakeholders have often struggled to consider the many decision factors reported in normative literature, numbering hundreds. By clustering the factors into sub-themes, bid decisioning has been made more efficient. The study also explains how client attributes could determine project success and contractor participation. Different stakeholders can use findings of this study for training and further studies.

Previous studies have considered bid decisioning indexically – factors were long, analyses were largely inconclusive, and causal relationships are orthogonal. Findings in this study have shown depth: 20 originating client-specific factors were clustered into six sub-themes, and correlations were established. The methodology used for the study is confirmatory and conclusive.

The normative literature suggests that there are more than seventy decision factors that contractors must consider if they intend to success in their bid and projects. In addition, such factors have been grouped in relation to project characteristics, client attributes, contractors' business administration and external factors. The extant literature suggests that the relationships between many of the bid decision factors are orthogonal and may not explain how bid-decisions shape project outcomes.

This knowledge gap has stagnated research in this area. Building on findings of recent studies, this study unbundles bid decision themes by analysing key factors amongst contractors' administrative characteristics. In addition, the study determines intrinsic predictive correlation between the sub-themes. A total of 17 variables were listed in a structured questionnaire survey and presented to participants recruited through purposive snowballing. In total, 50 responses were received and formed the basis of descriptive and inferential statistical analyses.

The study found that the 17 factors are significant in bid decisions and consequently in bid successes. However, the explanatory variables attached to the themes are most efficient if categorised into six sub-themes. These are contractor's administration depth, strategic direction, commercial intention and own market advantage, resources, experience as well as openness to technology imposed by new projects. Furthermore, four theoretical positions are significant. Contractors bid for projects strategically; they are less reliant on their resource capabilities in bid decisions; every bid decision aligns with a risk strategy, and financial stability enables them to establish appropriate risk mitigation arrangements that could ensure project success.

These findings provide some support for the conceptual premise that bid decisions need to be rational, considered and strategically contribute to project outcomes.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influences of the characteristics of procurement strategies, in this instance labour-only, on project performance concerning health and safety (H&S), a project performance indicator.

Using non-probability purposeful and snowballing sampling methods, questionnaires were used to collect data from construction professionals in Nigeria. This was then analysed using descriptive (frequency and mean scores) and inferential statistics (Mann–Whitney-U and Kendall's Tau_b tests).

The findings indicate a statistically significant negative correlation between ‘the level of client involvement and ‘fatalities' and a positive one with ‘conducting of health and safety risk assessment' and ‘conducting employee surveys on health and safety attitude’. Poor hygiene is found to be the worst lagging indicator, while conducting of inspection is the most adopted leading indicator of project health and safety performance. It also emerged that there is no significant difference in the health and safety performance of projects procured through the procurement strategy in urban and rural areas.

The study provides valuable insight into the complexities in H&S management due to the high level of client involvement in labour-only procurement system (LoPS) projects and the level of diversity in their responsibilities therein. It creates a fundamental direction for developing a detailed framework or guidance notes for client involvement in the integration of H&S into LoPS projects.

This is the first study that examines the influence of the characteristics of procurement strategy on project health and safety performance. Evidence in the literature shows that project delivery outcomes significantly improve if procurement is strategically used, including when it is considered early in projects. However, integrating H&S into procurement strategies has received little attention.

A section of project management literature attributes overruns to estimators’ deceit and delusion. An example of this is Flyvbjerg’s theorisation of strategic misrepresentation and optimism bias. To show that such a notion is not true entirely, the study elicits evidence relating to how costs of projects often fluctuate erratically as prices of construction materials change throughout contract cycle times. The purpose of this paper is to examine the causal relationships between persistent changes in prices of construction materials and project’s outturn costs.

The authors obtained and analysed price data of construction materials published in a Nigerian national daily in the 16 years between 2000 and 2015. Additional data were obtained from a quantity surveying firm to validate the archival data on material prices, and to compare the firm’s robust database of project estimates and the corresponding outturn costs of specific building elements (detailed in the study). The goal of the analysis is to explore spontaneity and causal impact in the relationship between changes in prices of construction materials and project costs. Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Anderson-Darling tests were used to obtain the probability distributions of the causal relationships.

Findings show disproportionate positive correlations between changes in material prices and outturn costs in Nigeria. An important dimension to this, however, is that although fluctuations in material costs often trigger variations to project costs, outturn price only accounts for about one-third of actual cost variability. Recovery of costs, not least profit making, under these conditions is a complex process.

This paper concludes that dynamism in cost attributes is neither a deceit nor a delusion; understanding and tolerating them is not a systemic weakness, rather an essential key to project success and stakeholder satisfaction. Findings from the study also bring measured certainties to the transformation of variable costs into fixed price outcomes, an important consideration that will help contract estimators and project managers to understand the likelihood of fluctuation in material costs and how these might trigger variability in project costs.

Delay causations in infrastructure projects are well reported in normative literature. However, very little is known regarding the environment-related causations which can assist in developing mitigation strategies. This study aims to examine critical causations of overruns in marine construction projects.

A total of 73 delay factors, grouped into 16 themes, were identified from literature. Data relating to the significance of each factor were collected through a questionnaire survey administered to 151 respondents. A total number of 126 valid responses were retrieved. Reductionist methodology was used to identify the statistical significance of each delay causation.

All 73 variables analysed in the study are significant, including communication issues amongst stakeholders, inadequate planning, safety issues, deficient technical instructions and inappropriate management approaches. Others include design and construction issues, issues with project organisational structures, political and cultural factors, environmental uncertainties and complexity in resource management. The study also found estimation errors, owner's attitude, financial issues, delay in approval processes, construction strategies and unavailability of appropriate technologies for the work as influencing factors. These findings are consistent with earlier studies on other forms of projects, but they further confirm that they are very relevant to marine projects.

Due to the diversity of marine projects, overrun factors are likely to manifest in different ways in varying project circumstances. In addition, economics, technologies and local legislation often influence project situations differently.

The implications of these findings will assist in growing the practicality of scheduling and contract administration theories in marine projects. Although delay causations that have been reported in normative literature are relevant to marine construction, however, some of the causations are more severe in marine projects. It is important that planners and project stakeholders are mindful of this such that they can develop their expectations to tolerate variability rather than trade impracticable blames.

Determining delay factors specific to marine construction projects assists stakeholders and project management community in developing dedicated strategies applicable in scheduling to prevent and correct obstructions caused by overruns. Since projects are different in types and sizes, delay observations cannot be generalised.

Evidence suggests project owners could use advance payments to prevent cost escalations. The purpose of this paper is to elicit the relationships between causations of overruns when advance payments are issued to contractors.

In total, 97 responses from a questionnaire survey were analysed. Additional data on 51 projects, completed between 2000 and 2014 under different advance payments regimes, were also obtained and analysed.

Project owners issue advance payments to contractors so as to avoid delays. However, statistical correlation between advance payments and overrun causations are not significant. Although cost overruns were higher in large projects than in small projects, schedule overruns were more in small projects than in large projects. Schedule overruns were caused most significantly by contractors’ site management approaches. Design and documentation issues were identified as the most prevalent cause of cost overruns. Regression models are proposed to elicit overruns when advance payments are issued.

Extant debates on project overruns in construction and project management literature are robust. Nonetheless, the study elicits considerable knowledge gaps regarding the roles of advance payments in fostering project performance.

This pioneering work indexes the relationship between advance payment and project overruns in Nigeria. It is also the first attempt to document the probability distribution of overruns in Nigeria, particularly under specific advance payment regimes.

Industry uptake of digital modeling is improving. Recent evidence suggests building information modeling (BIM) is the commercial reality of today’s construction education, and the way of the future that has truly begun. Amongst the significance of this is BIM’s potential to revolutionize the industry. The purpose of this paper is to use the learning experiences of undergraduate students in two construction management subjects involving quantity measurement and cost estimation to explore students’ motivation toward BIM education. In particular, the study investigates decision factors underlying students’ selection of software for information management in a modeling environment.

A total of 674 undergraduate students from the same institution were surveyed, out of which 153 responses were retrieved. The data provide insights into decisions taken by students while metamorphosing traditional processes into BIM-driven outcomes, in the form of commercial estimates of a real life project reported through a bill of quantities. Some 29 decision factors were analyzed. These include prior training, flair for creativity, ease of use, economic reasons, learning outcomes, on-going technical support and support infrastructure. Reductionist methods involving factor analysis and Cronbach’s α reliability estimate procedures were used to investigate the most important decision factors from amongst the decision factors analyzed.

Results show all the 29 decision factors are statistically significant. Access to on-going support, the mandatory requirement to use a particular tool to complete an assessment task and the requirement to use the tool for job duties are the most significant decision factors. Vendors’ persuasion and the capability of the tool to achieve better outcomes than others are least significant. Statistical correlations between the decision factors were obtained. They all suggest near-absolute correlations.

The practical implications of these findings are vital. They help to unravel factors that promote students’ interest in BIM education, and contribute toward the development of software selection models that are relevant to professionals and incipient businesses.

Future studies on decision analysis can be built on the findings also. In particular, the decision factors help in developing creative cognitive solutions to BIM adoption issues. They also help on the challenge posed by the constraints of knowledge diffusion within and across project teams, and in designing tools that meet the requirements of non-design disciplines who also play vital roles in the BIM project environment.

The decision to bid or not to bid for new projects determines contractors’ propensity for business success or failure. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that affect the decision of indigenous construction contractors to bid or not to bid in Nigeria.

Analysis was conducted on data from questionnaires received from 64 engineering management employees of leading construction companies which are members of Nigeria’s Federation of Construction Industry. The study identified 41 significant decision factors often considered by Nigerian indigenous contractors before the bid. Mean item scores were obtained for each of the factors. Principal component analysis was used to point out the most significant decision factors.

Results revealed significant orthogonal relationships between the factors. Only 11 of the 41 factors are statistically significant to influence contractors’ decision to bid or not to bid. Most of the significant items were amongst the least rated items by the participants. The post hoc decision factors include consultant’s interpretation of project specifications, previous relationship between the intending bidder and client, availability of other projects at the time of bidding, technological complexity of the project under consideration and prequalification requirements. Others include the propensity for resource price fluctuation, business capacity of partners, amount of own work vs subcontracted work, required rate of return on investment and difficulty in obtaining finance.

The practical implication of these findings are as follows: the orthogonal relationship between the decision factors implies non-linear relationship between the factors and actual decision to bid or not to bid, and that bid success is often not predictable by bid behaviour; many of the bid decision factors rated highest by indigenous contractors seldom impact the contractors’ actual bid decisions; local and international players can adopt the significant decision factors elicited in this study for managing their structures for inter-organizational partnerships.

Carpenters are constantly vulnerable to musculoskeletal disorders. Their work consists of subtasks that promote nonfatal injuries and pains that affect different body segments. The purpose of this study is to examine ergonomic exposures of carpentry subtasks involved in floor framing, how they lead to musculoskeletal injuries, and how preventive and protective interventions around them can be effective.

Using wearable sensors, this study characterizes ergonomic exposures of carpenters by measuring and analyzing body movement data relating to major subtasks in carpentry flooring work. The exposures are assessed using Postural Ergonomic Risk Assessment classification, which is based on tasks involving repetitive subtasks and nonstatic postures.

The findings of this paper suggest severe risk impositions on the trunk, shoulder and elbow as a result of the measuring and marking and cutting out vent locations, as well as in placing and nailing boards into place.

Because of the type and size of wearable sensor used, only results of risk exposures of four body-parts are presented.

This study draws insights on how to benchmark trade-specific measurement of work-related musculoskeletal disorders. Safety efforts can be targeted toward these risk areas and subtasks. Specifically, results from these will assist designers and innovators in designing effective and adaptable protective interventions and safety trainings.

Extant studies have failed to provide adequate evidence regarding the relationships between subtasks and musculoskeletal disorders; they have only mimicked construction tasks through laboratory experimental scenarios. This study adds value to the existing literature, in particular by providing insights into hazards associated with floor carpentry subtasks.