• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2007.03a
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• pp.140-149
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• 2007

Indian construction companies have only 0.05% market share in the 3-4 trillion dollar global construction business and only two Indian construction companies figure in the ENR "Top 225 Global Contractors 2006" list. Hence, while enormous scope for growth exists, international construction experience is limited. This study explores the risks as perceived by Indian companies venturing abroad since risks in international construction differ from home market risks. Literature survey identified a number of risk factors that were evaluated by the experts, highlighting fourteen important risk factors. Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) was used to develop a hierarchical model showing the relationships between the different risk factors, thus helping to focus on the key risks for effective risk management. The study shows that poor project management is a key risk forming the hub of the system, while political instability has maximum influence. The results of the study can be used by managers to visualise the risks in perspective and prioritise the mitigation effort.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.20-28
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• 2017

In almost every construction project, delay is an inevitable yet controllable phenomenon. The Indian construction industry encounters an enormous amount of delays in projects. Delay affects both time and money in the forms of schedule and cost overruns, respectively. Due to impressive and dynamic growth in the Indian construction sector, planned efforts are essential to limit these undesirable delays. On account of the surge in the rate of residential building construction, the task of identification and analysis of the delays in residential projects in India has been attempted by the authors. A questionnaire survey was conducted involving 100 stakeholders. Further analysis included an Importance Index to rank the identified delays, Principle Component Analysis for advanced statistical analysis, and Correlation Analysis to check the extent of agreement amongst stakeholders. Conclusions drawn with reference to the analysed data eventually reflected finance-related issues, as well as labour related problems as the dominating causes of delays. The aim of the research is to provide insight to the construction stakeholders and researchers, on an international scale, with the obtained results.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.11-19
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• 2016

Most of the Indian contractors are not well equipped to handle the growing demand of infrastructure development; hence construction projects frequently run in to time and cost overruns, disputes and quality issues. This study aims to improve the construction industry in India by implementing lean principles to eliminate non-value adding activities (wastes). The purpose of this study is to 1) identify the wastes and their sources affecting the construction process, and 2) to identify problems and document lessons by applying a Last Planner System (LPS) to a sample project. First, the researchers identified that Delays, Rework, and Interruptions were the most critical wastes affecting the construction process and Poor management control, Poor Planning and Shortage of Resources were the major sources of the above mentioned wastes. Second, the researchers report the Percent of Planned Complete (PPC) analysis results and experienced problems after implementation of LPS at the sample project. It was observed that much more improvement could have been achieved if there was consensus between the owners and the contractor on the implementation of the LPS in its entirety. Some of the problems experienced in the implementation of the LPS like lack of scheduling, resource and material shortage were found to be similar to those in developed countries.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.39-55
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• 2017

Preeminent performance of construction industry are unattainable with poor productivity resulting in time and cost over runs. Enhancement in productivity cannot be achieved without identifying and analyzing factors that adversely affect productivity. The objective therefore is to propose a productivity analysis model to quantify the probability of effect of factors influencing productivity by using fuzzy logic incorporated with relative importance index method, for various types of construction projects. To achieve this objective, a questionnaire survey was carried out targeting respondents of Indian construction industry, from four distinct projects, namely, residential, commercial, infrastructure and industrial projects. Based on questionnaire administered, the relative importance and ranks of factors demonstrated using relative importance index method. Probability assessment model to analyze productivity was then developed by using Fuzzy Logic Toolbox of MATLAB. The applicability of the proposed model was tested in seven construction projects and the probability of impact of factors on productivity evaluated. The results of application of model in the construction firms infers that the most contributing factor groups for most of the projects were discerned to be manpower, motivation and time group.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.744-747
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• 2005

The AEC (Architecture/Engineering/Construction) industry is facing a competitive world after it entered into the 21^st century. Due to improper planning and scheduling, the construction projects face severe delays in completion. Most of the present day construction organisations operate in multiple project environments where more than one projects are to be managed simultaneously. But the advantages of planning and scheduling as multiple projects have not been utilized by these organisations. Change in multi-project planning and scheduling is inevitable and often frequent, therefore the traditional planning and scheduling approaches are no more feasible in scheduling multiple construction projects. The traditional scheduling tools like CPM and PERT do not offer any help in scheduling in a resource-constrained environment. This necessitated a detailed study to model the environment realistically and to make the allocation of limited resources flexible and efficient. This paper delineates about the proactive model which will help the project managers for scheduling the multiple construction projects.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.200-205
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• 2015

Background: Construction activity has made considerable breakthroughs in the past two decades on the back of increases in development activities, government policies, and public demand. At the same time, occupational health and safety issues have become a major concern to construction organizations. The unsatisfactory safety performance of the construction industry has always been highlighted since the safety management system is neglected area and not implemented systematically in Indian construction organizations. Due to a lack of enforcement of the applicable legislation, most of the construction organizations are forced to opt for the implementation of Occupational Health Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) 18001 to improve safety performance. Methods: In order to better understand factors influencing the implementation of OHSAS 18001, an interpretive structural modeling approach has been applied and the factors have been classified using matrice d'impacts croises-multiplication $appliqu{\acute{e}}$ a un classement (MICMAC) analysis. The study proposes the underlying theoretical framework to identify factors and to help management of Indian construction organizations to understand the interaction among factors influencing in implementation of OHSAS 18001. Results: Safety culture, continual improvement, morale of employees, and safety training have been identified as dependent variables. Safety performance, sustainable construction, and conducive working environment have been identified as linkage variables. Management commitment and safety policy have been identified as the driver variables. Conclusion: Management commitment has the maximum driving power and the most influential factor is safety policy, which states clearly the commitment of top management towards occupational safety and health.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.201-208
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• 2011

Today's highly competitive construction scenario forces all the major players in the field to take up multiple projects which have put an undue pressure on the resources available within the organization. Under such a situation, there are many instances where in the resource requirement exceeds its availability due to multiple activities (with same resource requirement) which are scheduled to start simultaneously and thus results in the constrained resource becoming a bottleneck of the project. As a consequence of sharing resources, this paper studies the impact on the completion date of two similar projects under two different conditions, the first one resulting in a postponed end date and the second without any postponement. The resource utilization, the possibility of substitution of a resource and its subsequent impact on the deadline of the project is analyzed under these two circumstances. The study is done on a Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) platform instead of leaving the schedule with a traditional Critical Path Method (CPM) finish, which gives an added advantage of validating the robustness of the emerging CCPM trend in the field of resource management.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.24-34
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• 2016

Disputes seem to be synonymous with large-scale construction projects in Ethiopia. The purpose of this study is to determine the factors responsible for impacting the performance of Ethiopian public construction projects. To this end, 35 success and failure attributes responsible for impacting the performance of the projects were identified and presented to Ethiopian construction professionals in the form of a structured questionnaire, and responses were collected. The factor analysis conducted on the success and failure attributes influencing no-dispute performance separately resulted in six success factors and five failure factors. Further analysis using stepwise multiple regression indicates that owner competence and interaction among project participants have a positive impact on no-dispute performance. However, conflict among project participants has a negative impact on the no-dispute performance of Ethiopian public construction projects. Although Ethiopia-specific, the results reflect construction management problems common to both developed and developing countries. The findings are expected to help researchers and practitioners gain a better understanding of critical success and failure factors and to help them take proactive measures to avoid disputes in public construction projects.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.315-321
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• 2006

Switched Reluctance Motors (SRM) have emerged as viable alternatives to other adjustable speed drives such as vector controlled induction motors (VCIM) and permanent magnet brush-less (PMBL) motors due to their simple construction, ease of control, low inertia and higher operating speeds. However, the indispensability of the rotor position sensor in an SRM for its successful operation increases its cost, apart from causing other problems like decreasing its reliability and inability to operate in adverse environmental conditions. In this paper, a new sensorless control scheme for the SRM is advocated. The required fundamental data is obtained by analyzing the SRM using the Finite Elements (FE) package MAXWELL. The drive is studied in both 'with sensor' and 'sensorless' modes and a comparison of the performances, in both cases, is presented for various operating conditions.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.321-333
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• 2018

Flat-slabs, being a significant structural component, not only reduce the dead load of the structure but also reduce the amount of concrete required for construction. Moreover the use of recycled aggregates lowers the impact of large scale construction to nearby ecosystems. Recycled aggregate based concrete being a quasi-brittle material shows enormous cracking during failure. Crack growth in flat-slabs is mostly in sliding mode (Mode II). Therefore sufficient sections need to be provided for resistance against such failure modes. The main objective of the paper is to numerically determine the ultimate load carrying capacity of two self-similar flat-slab specimens and validate the results experimentally for the natural aggregate as well as recycled aggregate based concrete. Punching shear experiments are carried out on circular flat-slab specimen on a rigid circular knife-edge support built out of both normal (NAC) and recycled aggregate concrete (RAC, with full replacement). Uniaxial compression and bending tests have been conducted on cubes, cylinders and prisms using both types of concrete (NAC and RAC) for its material characterization and use in the numerical scheme. The numerical simulations have been conducted in ABAQUS (a known finite element software package). Eight noded solid elements have been used to model the flat slab and material properties have been considered from experimental tests. The inbuilt Concrete Damaged Plasticity model of ABAQUS has been used to monitor crack propagation in the specimen during numerical simulations.