• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.213-216
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• 2015

Despite the significant increase of Korean contractors in the international construction market, many SMCCs (Small & Medium Construction Companies) have suffered in the global financial crisis, and some of them have been kicked out of the international market after experiencing huge losses on projects. SMCCs face obstacles in the international market, such as an insufficient ability to gather information and inappropriate management of associated risks, which lead to difficulties in establishing effective business strategies. In other words, making immature decisions without an effective business strategy may cause not only the failure of one project but also the bankruptcy of the SMCC. To overcome this, the research presented herein aims to propose a decision support system for SMCCs, which would screen projects and make a go/no-go decision at the early stages of international projects. The proposed system comprises a double axis: (1) a profit prediction model, which evaluates 10 project properties using an objective methodology based on a historical project performance database and roughly suggests expected profit rate, and (2) a feasibility assessment model, which evaluates 17 project environment factors in a subjective and quantitative methodology based on experience and supervision. Finally, a web-based system is established to enhance the practical usability, which is expected to be a good reference for inexperienced SMCCs to make proper decisions and establish effective business strategies.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2007.03a
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• pp.653-661
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• 2007

Overseas construction projects tend to be more complex than domestic projects, being exposed to more external risks, such as politics, economy, society, and culture, as well as more internal risks from the project itself. It is crucial to have an early understanding of the project condition, in order to be well prepared in various phases of the project. This study compares a structural equation model and multiple regression analysis, in their capacity to predict cost performance of international construction projects. The structural equation model shows a more accurate prediction of cost performance than does regression analysis, due to its intrinsic capability of considering various cost factors in a systematic way.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.6-9
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• 2015

Traditional project management theory is based on a three-dimensional life cycle approach where the project managerseeks to optimize the dimensions of cost-schedule-technical (quality or design). This paper reports the findings of a case study analysis of two complex mega-projects in Michigan which confirm the findings of previous research and illustrates the use of a framework for five-dimensional project management (5DPM) that is for conceptualizing a complex project's scope of work. The framework elevates the recognition that the project's social/political context and the financial arrangements create complexity adding two new dimensions. This paper also demonstrates a methodology to graphically display a project's complexity to better understand and prioritize the available resources. The result is a "complexity footprint" that may help a complex project manager identify the boundary between controllable and uncontrollable projects impacts. The paper finds that applying 5DPM to the two case study projects has given the project delivery team a tool which is actually adding value to the complex project management process.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.324-329
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• 2011

Significant decisions are made by the project team during the early planning phase of capital facility project developments. The preproject planning phase begins after a decision is made to proceed with a project concept and continues until the detail design stage. Many of the industry practitioners and researchers have recognized the importance of preproject planning and that inadequate early planning is one of the key factors affecting project success. Nevertheless, the preproject planning practices vary significantly for the construction industry in Taiwan and the quality of preproject planning relies heavily on individual project team's experience. This research sets out to benchmark the preproject planning practice for the building construction industry in Taiwan. From late 2007 to early 2010, the researchers collected information from a total of 92 building construction projects using questionnaire survey. The analysis results show that the surveyed projects with better preproject planning have better cost and schedule performances on average. It is recommended that project team spend more efforts in the preproject planning stage to have a better chance of achieving project success.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.479-486
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• 2009

This paper presents an integrated real-time monitoring and control framework that facilitates decision making by enabling project managers to take corrective actions right after any deviation happens and mitigate the damage to the ongoing steel projects. The proposed framework employs the High Level Architecture (HLA) as its infrastructure. It is composed of several individual monitoring and control components called "Federates," which cooperate and interact with each other through the Real-time Infrastructure (RTI). Reusability, interoperability and extendibility of federates in the proposed project control system make this a unique system.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.162-167
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• 2011

Construction projects are full of risks. This is particularly the case in civil construction projects that are often featured with large scale, complexity and involving a large number of participating parties. The eventuation of risks typically results in extended project durations leading to an increase in the total project budget. The consequence can be amplified considering the significant impacts of civil construction projects on the society, from economical, environmental and social perspectives. This research investigates the significance of risks within civil construction projects and approaches to deal with risks. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with local industry practitioners in South Australia on this matter. It is found that the industry is fairly aware of risks associated with civil construction projects and subsequently has procedures in place to attempt to minimize the impacts of these risks on the project outcomes. The interview results also indicate that there is limited utilization of software for the risk management purpose from the cost estimation perspective.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.1-9
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• 2015

Project cost is an important concern in any construction project. Although there has been a lot of studies on factors affecting the cost of construction projects, there seems no consensus as what cost factors have direct influence on the cost of civil engineering projects. This study therefore aims to bridge the current knowledge gap by examining quantity surveyors' perception of the factor structure among nineteen costing attributes identified based on literature review. Questionnaire was used to elicit responses from quantity surveyors working in the Hong Kong construction industry. Principal component analysis is conducted to extract the factor structure of the cost attributes and the attributes are grouped into three factor components, namely the contract management factor, the project management factor and the monetary value factor. Understanding these cost impact factors could be crucial in managing civil engineering projects, since it allows the project stakeholders and quantity surveyors to take precautionary steps to identify the cost management problems and areas for improvement and could even help to avoid cost deviations in engineering projects.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.1414-1418
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• 2009

International construction projects typically manifest difficult, complex, and varied types of risk exposures; because of this, there is a need for accurate evaluation of risk-integrated performances during the timeframe of project execution. Given the financial crisis currently affecting the world economy recession, risk management has become a more crucial part for the success of international project management. However, the majority of risk management approaches, particularly for overseas projects, are focused primarily on simple forms of checklists, formalization of risk variables affecting project performance for a specific phase, or more complicated computational methods that restricting practical utilization in real-world projects; moreover, these methods lack the conceptual basis to broadly visualize the level of risk over all phases of a project. This study suggests an efficient, yet simple risk-integrated total index to successfully assess the risk levels of overseas construction projects. To this end, this paper first investigates the life cycles and key processes of decision-making for a given project and then derives formulas to represent the total risk index (TRI) along the key decision-making processes. In addition, the study examines the relationships between TRI and performance levels based on the analysis of 126 real-world project samples. Validations using the proposed TRI showed a high correlation to project performance, signifying the usefulness of the proposed approach for construction firms when investigating the level of risks and key areas for management focus.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.196-203
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• 2022

The resource constrained scheduling problem (RCSP) constitutes one of the most challenging problems in Project Management, as it combines multiple parameters, contradicting objectives (project completion within certain deadlines, resource allocation within resource availability margins and with reduced fluctuations), strict constraints (precedence constraints between activities), while its complexity grows with the increase in the number of activities being executed. Due to the large solution space size, this work investigates the application of Genetic Algorithms to approximate the optimal resource alolocation and obtain optimal trade-offs between different project goals. This analysis uses the cost of exceeding the daily resource availability, the cost from the day-by-day resource movement in and out of the site and the cost for using resources day-by-day, to form the objective cost function. The model is applied in different case studies: 1 project consisting of 10 activities, 4 repetitive projects consisting of 40 activities in total and 16 repetitive projects consisting of 160 activities in total, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the algorithm in different-size solution spaces and under alternative optimization criteria by examining the quality of the solution and the required computational time. The case studies 2 & 3 have been developed by building upon the recurrence of the unit/sub-project (10 activities), meaning that the initial problem is multiplied four and sixteen times respectively. The evaluation results indicate that the proposed model can efficiently provide reliable solutions with respect to the individual goals assigned in every case study regardless of the project scale.

• Korean Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.124-135
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• 2010

PLM(Product Lifecycle Management) is one of innovative manufacturing paradigms which leverages e-business technologies to allow a company's product content to be developed and integrated with all company business process through the extended enterprise. In these days, most construction companies also make an effort to enhance their systems for creating, sharing and managing information to improve business efficiency through entire lifecycle of project execution. Because of different needs, business process and diverse engineering activities such as design, structural analysis, installing simulation, documents and data managements, a new paradigm for construction companies is needed to manage and share the entire workflow, and information in total project lifecycle. In this paper, we conducted user requirement and business process analysis of constructions to design C-PLM system which is a PLM system for effective management of civil project and engineering activities. Also, we implement C-PLM system based on commercial PDM system, and applied it to civil project as case studies.