• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.6D
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• pp.831-837
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• 2008

Korean construction industry faces diverse social and economical changes. Labor shortage, Free Trade Agreements (FTA), high oil prices alert industry practitioners to the new challenges and opportunities. It is time to make novel approaches for significant improvement of industry performance. Korean government and companies have plans for interdisciplinary research and development efforts. To this end, technology evaluation and market needs analysis should be extensively carried out prior to research initiation. Research programs developed in this way are presented in term of budget estimate, research scope and timeline. A framework for construction technology valuation methodology is also suggested to evaluate the holistic technology value and return on investment of research, development and commercialization.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.2D
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• pp.249-258
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• 2008

Korean engineering firms need to improve their performance in order to stay competitive in the globalize environments which has been led by some international movements including World Trade Organization (WTO) and Free Trade Agreements (FTA). There have been various activities and researches focusing on how to improve competitiveness of Korean engineering firms and the out-of-fashion Engineering Project Delivery System (EPDS) has repetitively identified as one of main barriers to deter advancements of Korean engineering industry. Therefore, this research attempted to investigate global standards of EPDS such as International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC), American Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR), Brooks Act, and so on. The procedures of international EPDSs along with a few case studies were comprehensively analyzed and compared with Korean EPDS in order to propose recommendations of improving Korean EPDS. Some major differences between international and Korean EPDS were identified and they includes emphasis on qualifications of engineers and/or firms rather than their proposed cost, extensive use of long and short-list, common use of negotiation process, etc. Research findings are envisioned to guide the Korean public engineering sector to innovate Korean EPDS.