• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2013.01a
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• pp.640-647
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• 2013

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has become the new international benchmark for efficiency in design, construction and maintenance of buildings. It is the platform that brings about collaboration between project stakeholders and improvement of project outcomes. With all its potentials, not much of the impact of BIM technologies has been felt in the Nigerian construction industry. This research aimed at assessing the readiness of the Nigerian building design firms to adopt BIM technologies. The research was exploratory in nature. A field survey was conducted with the use of structured questionnaire, self administered to a sample of building design consultancy firms (architectural, structural, M&E, quantity surveying, and multi-disciplinary design firms) within Abuja and Kaduna. The questionnaire sought the perception of the responding firms on the factors affecting BIM adoption in the Nigerian construction industry, and their level of readiness to adopt BIM technologies in their practices based on the four categories of readiness-management, people, process and technology. 42.26% response rate was achieved and used for analysis. ANOVA and DUNCAN post-hoc tests were used to establish the differences between the responses of the groups of firms, while means and standard deviations were obtained to establish the important factors affecting BIM adoption in Nigeria. The survey revealed that all the groups of Nigerian design firms are appreciably ready for the adoption of BIM technologies in their practice, with slight variations in their respective levels of readiness. 'Lack of awareness of BIM technology among professionals' and clients and 'lack of knowledgeable and experienced partners' were identified as the most important barriers of BIM adoption in Nigeria; while the most significant drivers are 'availability of well trained professionals' and 'cooperation and commitment of professional bodies to the adoption'. Education and training of building design professionals and cooperation of all stakeholders in the design and construction supply chain were recommended as part of measures to ensure successful adoption of BIM in the Nigerian construction industry.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.550-557
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• 2009

The concepts of 'sustainable development', 'sustainable construction' and 'green building' have been elevated to priority levels in all types and phases of construction project development worldwide. Consultants and contractors are now required to seriously consider the impact of their operations on the natural environment and the society, and consequently adopt sustainable construction practices in the development process to minimize and mitigate the negative impacts of their activities. However, existing sustainability rating tools apply to the design, post-construction and operation phases of a building; no tool exists for the rating of the performance of the contractor or the project team at the construction phase. This study aimed to develop a model for evaluating the sustainability of construction operations, drawing on the global best practice standards on sustainability. Practical applications of the model were carried out through case studies to evaluate the performances of fifteen construction firms in New Zealand. The developed model and the outcomes of the case studies were presented, including potential areas of weaknesses, strengths, constraints to achievement or adoption of sustainable construction practices and areas for improvement in the operations of the firms. The successful application of the developed model in practice shows its usefulness and ease of application. It is therefore recommended for adoption as a simple but effective system for measuring and reporting on sustainability performance or sustainability of construction operations of firms in New Zealand and elsewhere.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.149-156
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• 2011

The performance measurement of construction firms is considered as a competitive advantage to develop and improve their performance to have place in the market and stay able to face the continuous challenge. Egyptian construction firms (ECF) started recently to adopt quality management system (QMS) as a way to develop and improve their performance as previous studies showed. However, measuring that performance to include all the firm's aspects in a competitive way is a crucial process for the ECF's culture. The research is trying to indicate the role of the QMS implementation in measuring performance (MP) through developing a model for measuring performance on the organization level, and explore its impact on the organization that adopt quality management system. This model is based on specific elements and their related indicators which have been derived from national approaches and models of measuring performance (benchmarking, quality awards and six sigma).Elements determination and the status of their real practice has been investigated through a questionnaire to a representative sample of ECF. This model determines the performance level (PL) of the organization that measured by a mean of a point system. Weights of the elements in the point system considered both the elements' importance in the international models and its real practice in the Egyptian construction firms. So, the final outcome of the model reveals the level of firm performance that helps the firm to identify the weak points against the strong ones, Confirm the priorities and identify new opportunities for developing, and Check the position of the company in the market among the others. Another questionnaire has been developed to be distributed on a group of Experts on measuring performance for the purpose of model validation. The majority of surveyed experts agreed that the proposed model can be applied effectively.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.34-44
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• 2017

The use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs) in the construction and agriculture industries continues to gain in popularity and use. Firms within these industries have begun to utilize UASs to perform many of the traditional processes and procedures, which can result in a reduction in total work force and costs needed for a task. However, as with any technology, there is a learning curve and UASs do change the way certain activities are completed. Due to this, there exist firms and individuals that have not or are not willing to invest in UASs yet. The objective of this study is to explore the applications of UASs in construction and agricultural industries to discuss the benefits, challenges, and reasons of investing in UASs. This paper conducted an in-depth literature review of current topics on UASs in construction and agriculture. Additionally, six expert interviews were conducted with individuals from construction and agricultural industries in the southeastern United States. Ultimately, this study successfully found several benefits and challenges to using UASs and discussed the reasons that some firms invest in UASs while other still do not.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.199-203
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• 2009

After the construction participants system is abolished, expectations are high for its consequences such as liquidating paper-companies, holding back low price contracts, and improving multi-stepwise subcontract structure. However, the professional construction firms have been took responsibilities and obligations as businessmen employing the chief workmen and construction workers. For this reason, it is expected that they will be charged a great deal of expenses such as increase in labor management services and laborers, the occurrence of an retirement grants, insurance fees, etc. Since the hold on power of field managers are getting weaker toward the construction workers, it is most likely to have loss in efficiency of production in the long term. Therefore purpose of this research is to analyze difficulties and the point at issues with which professional construction firms are undergoing after abolishing the construction participants system by investigating on the actual condition in the field management. For this research, we got a grip on the actual condition and analyzed the rise of a primary factor on reinforced concrete construction.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.1023-1029
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• 2009

Intellectual capital is one of the most valuable assets of any enterprise. This empirical investigation examines the causal relationship between intellectual capital and the performance of architecture firms. More than 100 architecture firms across Taiwan have each been assessed for the levels of human capital, structural capital, relational capital, and business performance. The results suggest that the architecture firms exhibit higher levels of relational capital. However, the firms indicate relatively low levels of human capital. Additionally, the results from the correlation analysis suggest that all the four measures (human capital, structural capital, relational capital, and business performance) are highly correlated. The findings from the path analysis also indicate that human capital may influence the performance of architecture firms via structural capital and relational capital.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.73-83
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• 2015

Construction management firms in Korea have mainly focused on the key management areas of time, cost, quality and safety management in line with a rapid change of construction industry recently. However, a risk management is considered comparatively less important found from our research on an investment by the firms for training, system establishment. This has been identified that the construction management firms have taken an approach of dealing with risks with their experience, insight rather than managing risks with a systemized principles or proper tools. Therefore, the current system for risk management was identified by analyzing risk factors and work process in this research and systemized process for risk management of the identified risk factors was suggested. This research is expected to be a basis on establishing standard gudiance for risk management and risk management tools.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.2 no.2 s.6
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• pp.37-46
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• 2001

Business boundaries of firms in the construction industry are strictly regulated in Korea. Under the current law, firms involved in construction processes are classified into five categories; general contractors, specialty contractors, architects' offices, engineering firms, and specialized in inspection. Among these types of firms, general contractors are prohibited to enter into specialty contractor's market and vice versa by the basic law in the construction industry. Also general contractors are not allowed to provide architectural services. The purpose of the law is to prohibit unlicensed companies from entering the construction market and to protect customers. However, the law causes critical problems e.g. low efficiency of production and rent creation. Therefore, we identify problems concerning business boundaries of firms in the construction industry and predict structural changes in the them when they are liberalized. So we surveyed general contractors and specialty contractors in Korea to estimate the effects of the liberalization on the construction industry. Most of contractors point to the enhancement of production efficiency as the motivation to integrate other construction process. If current regulations, which limit firms' decisions on business boundaries, are eliminated, firms will choose optimal business scopes taking into account types of contracts adopted by the Government for public works. Based on the cost/benifit analyses, they will decide whether to intergrate other production processes or not.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.737-743
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• 2005

Since the designation of the South Korean Construction industry as an open market industry by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994, South Korea's construction firms were exposed to competition from firms of other advanced countries. Increased competition in the industry raised quality of production and lowered the cost of construction projects. Therefore, many big construction projects were planned and constructed with foreign construction partners during the last decade. Also, from those projects the South Korea Construction industry accumulated experience in and knowledge of both project management and construction management perspectives. However, in the process of conducting those big projects, many problems - specifically responsibility and the limit of competence - occurred between foreign construction partners. Hence, this study attempts to improve its role model that is for local and foreign companies to enter into Joint Ventures in the South Korea construction industry.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.230-233
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• 2007

As a new form of the public procurement method, that is BTL(Build-Transfer-Lease) was introduced in 2005, it has consequently created a new form of emerging business, so called BTL Project Management firms. As a key participant of BTL projects, PM firms play an important role in securing the projects. But due to the short history of BTL, the identity of BTL PM firms has not been widely understood. The objective of this paper is to investigate major characteristics of BLT PM firms for better understanding of the emerging business.