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Article
Publication date: 24 April 2007

R.N. Rustom and A. Yahia

Recently, there has been increased interest in the use of simulation for real‐time planning, scheduling, control of construction projects and obtaining optimum productivity. The…

1074

Abstract

Purpose

Recently, there has been increased interest in the use of simulation for real‐time planning, scheduling, control of construction projects and obtaining optimum productivity. The purpose of this case study is to demonstrate the use of simulation as an effective tool for estimating production rates in an attempt to prepare optimal time schedules.

Design/methodology/approach

Gaza Beach‐Camp Shore Protection Project was taken as a case study. The case study is used to demonstrate how to estimate effectively the production rates of labour and equipment during the implementation of the project activities and to estimate the duration of the project using process simulation. The model simulates the construction of 1,600 m of gabions divided into 32 identical stations. Probabilistic distribution functions were used to fit the time functions for each process and sub‐process based on 100 replications.

Findings

The simulation output generated three probabilistic values for completing each activity upon which the overall project completion time is determined. The resources utilizations for all processes were also generated and used in the determination of the average production rates.

Originality/value

The computation of productivity based on effective resources utilization has been demonstrated to give better results than estimating productivity based on aggregate resources assignments.

Details

Construction Innovation, vol. 7 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1471-4175

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Article
Publication date: 5 December 2022

Md. Ikramul Hoque and Muzamir Hasan

Quality is a sensitive and high-priority issue in the global construction including in Bangladesh. This research is intended to provide necessary information to stakeholders and…

278

Abstract

Purpose

Quality is a sensitive and high-priority issue in the global construction including in Bangladesh. This research is intended to provide necessary information to stakeholders and authorities for better management of the construction quality in Bangladesh. Therefore, this study seeks to find and prioritize the factors affecting the construction quality in Bangladesh.

Design/methodology/approach

In total 65 factors were extracted and categorized from the literature and expert panel discussion. Subsequently, these factors were designed in a questionnaire under 13 major groups for a survey where 176 construction professionals participated and returned their completed survey form. Collected data were tested by the Cronbach Alpha to check the reliability before proceeding to the Relative Importance Index (RII) analysis for determining the relative ranks of identified factors.

Findings

Statistical analysis of survey data represents that the most significant factors are: lack of management commitment, lack of technical skill and experience of the consultant, delays in progress investigation, political interference and contractor's desire for unrealistic profit. The most crucial major groups of factors influencing the construction quality are management, material, consultant, cost and time and contract-related major groups.

Originality/value

It will contribute to the body of knowledge, as it points out the impact of factors affecting quality in Bangladeshi construction. Authorities and stakeholders can be helped by the overview of the high and low ranks factors, understanding the diverse characteristics of factors and making more aware the industry about the quality issues which need to be a top concern to solve. Other developing countries that share the same socio-economic context as Bangladesh can be benefit from the results of this study to control quality issues in construction.

Details

International Journal of Building Pathology and Adaptation, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2398-4708

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Article
Publication date: 7 September 2010

A. Panas and J.P. Pantouvakis

The paper aims to provide a structured framework for comparing different productivity estimation methodologies and evaluate their sensitivity to operational coefficients variation…

780

Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to provide a structured framework for comparing different productivity estimation methodologies and evaluate their sensitivity to operational coefficients variation for excavation operations.

Design/methodology/approach

Two process‐oriented methodologies were analysed in a deterministic fashion in terms of their input requirements and their respective outputs. A phase‐oriented framework was presented to enable their comparison. The research methodology allows the estimation of excavation productivity in relation to the selected operational coefficients.

Findings

The system productivity is significantly influenced by operational conditions, such as the digging depth and the swing angle from the excavation front to the dumping position. Each methodology presents a differing sensitivity to every operational factor. Since the excavator is considered as the system's leading resource, the variation on productivity has direct implications for the truck fleet size and the unit cost of operations.

Originality/value

The proposed approach is useful in analyzing process‐oriented productivity estimation methodologies under a given set of operational coefficients when no historical data is available. Thus, it provides an alternative to intuitive estimates based solely on personal judgment. The concept of “baseline reference” conditions is introduced, so as to enable the transformation of any operational scenario into equivalent mathematical models that allow comparisons between different estimation methodologies and computational approaches.

Details

Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol. 17 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-9988

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Article
Publication date: 10 February 2023

Bao Pham Van and Vachara Peansupap

Construction material management is an important process in supporting construction operations that affect project performance. Previous studies attempt to identify factors…

534

Abstract

Purpose

Construction material management is an important process in supporting construction operations that affect project performance. Previous studies attempt to identify factors influencing material management in different stages such as procurement, transportation and utilization. However, they lack a model to explain the relationship between influential factors and the effectiveness of material management. Therefore, this study aims to validate the variables and key factors influencing the effectiveness of material management processes.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 42 variables were reviewed from literature in different stages of material management process. Survey questionnaires were used to collect data about participants' perceptions on these variables. The respondents were 200 project engineers and project managers from construction sites and offices in Vietnam. Then factor analysis techniques were undertaken to validate the structure of factor groups. Two methods of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were, respectively, performed to evaluate and verify the model's fit.

Findings

Factors influencing the effectiveness of material management were grouped into nine main factors, which are procurement issues, site conditions, planning and handling on site, industrial environments, contractual issues, quality control, suppliers and manufacturers' issues, transportation in and out site and security on site.

Practical implications

The paper has several implications for theory and methodology related to material management. It features influential factors in association with the material management effectiveness. Therefore, senior managers can more fully understand the errors in their works and propose timely solutions to limit the unwanted risks.

Originality/value

This research contributes on theoretical development on factors influencing effectiveness of material management processes. The key findings on influential factors can be applied to measure the effectiveness of material management processes.

Details

Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol. 31 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-9988

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Book part
Publication date: 7 August 2013

Sinem Adar

This chapter explores the impact of the seemingly new recognition of non-Muslims in Turkey, a historically marginalized minority. In the 2000s, the ruling AKP party, a religiously…

Abstract

This chapter explores the impact of the seemingly new recognition of non-Muslims in Turkey, a historically marginalized minority. In the 2000s, the ruling AKP party, a religiously and socially conservative party, made a number of symbolic gestures toward the increasing recognition of these communities. This chapter explores this ethnographically and historically by looking at the political effects of AKP’s democratization attempts on the Rum Orthodox (“Greek”) community in Istanbul. It argues that these attempts paralleled a similar language of democracy within the community particularly in the aftermath of the government’s permission to run elections in the non-Muslim community institutions (vakıfs), following a period of time during which no elections had been held in these institutions. At the same time, these attempts occasioned old and new forms of hierarchies within the community, which emerged as a result of the competing claims within it to its representation. These seemingly ambiguous effects of democratization within the Rum community emerged in the gap between the AKP’s democracy discourse that claims universal inclusion and its highly selective practice of democracy. This was so because the AKP preserved the ethnoreligious definition of national identity even while it readopted the historical legacies of the Ottoman millet system that managed society along religious confessional lines. These findings contribute to the existing theories on democratization by highlighting the inextricable link between inclusion and exclusion that emerges in the gap between the discursive claims of democracy toward universal inclusion and the selective actualization of these claims in practice. Such selective inclusion that is inherent to the politics of democracy is managed differently in different contexts due to the hybrid forms of state recognition of the population.

Details

Decentering Social Theory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-727-6

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Article
Publication date: 10 October 2008

Nabil El‐Sawalhi, David Eaton and Rifat Rustom

This paper seeks to introduce an evolved hybrid genetic algorithm and neural network (GNN) model. The model is developed to predict contractor performance given the current…

1037

Abstract

Purpose

This paper seeks to introduce an evolved hybrid genetic algorithm and neural network (GNN) model. The model is developed to predict contractor performance given the current attributes in a process to pre‐qualify the most appropriate contractor. The predicted performance is used to pre‐qualify the contractors.

Design/methodology/approach

Hypothetical and real‐life case studies from projects executed in the Gaza Strip and West Bank were collected through structured questionnaires. The evaluation of the contractor's attributes and the corresponding actual performance of the contractor in terms of time, cost, and quality overrun (OR) were collected. The weighted contractor's attributes were used as inputs to the GNN model. The corresponding time, cost, and quality ORs for the same cases were fed as outputs to the GNN model in a supervised learning back propagation neural network (NN). (The adopted training and testing process to develop a trained model is presented.) The training process, including choosing the topology of the required NN using genetic algorithms, is explained.

Findings

The results revealed that there is a satisfactory relationship between the contractor attributes and the corresponding performance in terms of contractor's deviation from the client objectives. The accuracy of the model in terms of mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), R2, average absolute error and mean square error revealed that the model has sufficient accuracy for implementation. The average MAPE for time, cost and quality OR is 15 per cent. Consequently, the model accuracy is 85 per cent.

Originality/value

The GNN model is able to predict future contractor performance for given attributes.

Details

Construction Innovation, vol. 8 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1471-4175

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Article
Publication date: 20 November 2017

Saad Abdel-Karim El-Hamrawy, Ahmed Ebrahim Abu El-Maaty and Ahmed Yousry Akal

Quality measurement is the trigger for quality improvement. Indeed, what gets measured gets done. The real scope of quality improvement in construction projects is the difficulty…

478

Abstract

Purpose

Quality measurement is the trigger for quality improvement. Indeed, what gets measured gets done. The real scope of quality improvement in construction projects is the difficulty and-maybe-lack of quality measurement methods. The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors influencing the quality performance of highway projects in Egypt. Furthermore, this paper also contributes to develop models to measure the quality level of these projects.

Design/methodology/approach

A literature review is conducted to compile a list of factors influencing the quality of highway projects. The resulting list of factors is subjected to a questionnaire survey which was sent to owners, consultants and contractors of highway projects in Egypt. Furthermore, linear regression analysis and statistical fuzzy approaches are adopted for modeling process.

Findings

The survey results show that availability of experienced staff in the owner’s and contractor’s teams during the project execution, asphalt quality and type used in the construction process, pavement is not designed according to the regional conditions, and contractor’s labors and equipment capability are among the most important factors influencing quality performance.

Originality/value

The main contribution of this study is to develop models to measure the quality of highway projects in Egypt. The first model is based on the linear regression analysis, while the second one is based on a statistical fuzzy approach which is a hybrid approach from the fuzzy logic and regression analysis. Validation of the models reveals that the linear regression and the statistical fuzzy models can accurately assess expected quality of any future highway projects at confidence levels 68.97 and 87.44 percent, respectively.

Details

Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol. 24 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-9988

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Article
Publication date: 1 May 1993

Roger J. Callan

Examines a definition of hotels and the number of hotels in thecountries of the UK. Indicates by country the proportions of hotel stockrepresented by the major grading schemes and…

451

Abstract

Examines a definition of hotels and the number of hotels in the countries of the UK. Indicates by country the proportions of hotel stock represented by the major grading schemes and guides. Analyses the schemes by number and quality of grade where appropriate, and each category by its share of the country′s hotel stock. Explains the difficulties of comparison between grades of different schemes, concluding that a percentage share of grades should be employed. Indicates with equivalence tables percentage shares of quality grades for the major comparable schemes. Concludes that although the numerical comparisons can be criticized because of minor differences in the schemes, a foundation is provided for more meaningful comparisons than has previously existed.

Details

International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 5 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-6119

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Article
Publication date: 25 June 2010

Farooq Haq and Ho Yin Wong

Spiritual tourism has recently been accepted as a growing segment of tourism in business and research circles. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a new dimension in Islamic…

5119

Abstract

Purpose

Spiritual tourism has recently been accepted as a growing segment of tourism in business and research circles. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a new dimension in Islamic marketing and investigates spiritual tourism as a new strategy for marketing Islam as a religion.

Design/methodology/approach

In this exploratory research, convenient sampling was employed to select Muslim spiritual tourists and Islamic organisations arranging spiritual tourism in Australia. A total of 34 face‐to‐face interviews were conducted. Thematic analysis was used to identify factors relevant to the research themes regarding spiritual tourism and marketing Islam.

Findings

Some religious organisations used religious gatherings and festivals as spiritual tourism products to market their religion – Islam. These organisations attracted Muslim and non‐Muslim spiritual tourists to the Islamic places, gatherings, occasions, and festivals by promoting them as spiritual tourism products.

Practical implications

The paper identifies spiritual tourism journeys and events that could be strategically used by religious organisations for marketing Islam.

Social implications

This paper aims to build bridges for better understanding of Islam among the Australian public. The paper could be replicated to study the marketing of other religions in other geographical locations.

Originality/value

The paper originates in recognising a genuinely new strategy of spiritual tourism that could be used more effectively for marketing Islam. A future quantitative study could be conducted to test the findings of this paper.

Details

Journal of Islamic Marketing, vol. 1 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-0833

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Article
Publication date: 21 August 2020

Andrej Simeunović and David John Hoelzle

The purpose of this study is to develop nonlinear and linearized models of DW printing dynamics that capture the complexity of DW while remaining integrable into control schemes…

215

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to develop nonlinear and linearized models of DW printing dynamics that capture the complexity of DW while remaining integrable into control schemes. Control of material metering in extrusion-based additive manufacturing modalities, such as positive displacement direct-write (DW), is critical for manufacturing accuracy. However, in DW, transient flows are poorly controlled due to capacitive pressure dynamics – pressure is stored and slowly released over time from the build material and other compliant system elements, adversely impacting flow rate start-ups and stops. Thus far, modeling of these dynamics has ranged from simplistic, potentially omitting key contributors to the observed phenomena, to highly complex, making usage in control schemes difficult.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors present nonlinear and linearized models that seek to both capture the capacitive and nonlinear resistive fluid elements of DW systems and to pose them as ordinary differential equations for integration into control schemes. The authors validate the theoretical study with experimental flow rate and material measurements across a range of extrusion nozzle sizes and materials. The authors explore the contribution of the system and build material bulk modulus to these dynamics.

Findings

The authors show that all tested models accurately describe the measured dynamics, facilitating ease of integration into future control systems. Additionally, the authors show that system bulk modulus may be substantially reduced through appropriate system design. However, the remaining build material bulk modulus is sufficient to require feedback control for accurate material delivery.

Originality/value

This study presents new nonlinear and linear models for DW printing dynamics. The authors show that linear models are sufficient to describe the dynamics, with small errors between nonlinear and linear models. The authors demonstrate control is necessary for accurate material delivery in DW.

Details

Rapid Prototyping Journal, vol. 26 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-2546

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