Extending life-cycle costing (LCC) analysis for sustainability considerations in road infrastructure projects

Sustainable development is about making societal investments. These investments should be in synchronization with the natural environment, trends of social development, as well as organisational and local economies over a long time span. Traditionally in the eyes of clients, project development will need to produce the required profit margins, with some degrees of consideration for other impacts. This is being changed as all citizens of our society are becoming more aware of concepts and challenges such as the climate change, greenhouse footprints, and social dimensions of sustainability, and will in turn demand answers to these issues in built facilities. A large number of R&D projects have focused on the technical advancement and environmental assessment of products and built facilities. It is equally important address the cost/benefit issue, as developers in the world would not want to loose money by investing in built assets. For infrastructure projects, due to its significant cost of development and lengthy delivery time, presenting the full money story of going green is of vital importance. Traditional views of life-cycle costing tend to focus on the pure economics of a construction project. Sustainability concepts are not broadly integrated with the current LCCA in the construction sector. To rectify this problem, this paper reports on the progress to date of developing and extending contemporary LCCA models in the evaluation of road infrastructure sustainability. The suggested new model development is based on sustainability indicators identified through previous research, and incorporating industry verified cost elements of sustainability measures. The on-going project aims to design and a working model for sustainability life-cycle costing analysis for this type of infrastructure projects.

The importance of environmental issues and costs in Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) for highway projects

Sustainability has been increasingly recognised as an integral part of highway infrastructure development. In practice however, the fact that financial return is still a project’s top priority for many, environmental aspects tend to be overlooked or considered as a burden, as they add to project costs. Sustainability and its implications have a far-reaching effect on each project over time. Therefore, with highway infrastructure’s long-term life span and huge capital demand, the consideration of environmental cost/ benefit issues is more crucial in life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA). To date, there is little in existing literature studies on viable estimation methods for environmental costs. This situation presents the potential for focused studies on environmental costs and issues in the context of life-cycle cost analysis. This paper discusses a research project which aims to integrate the environmental cost elements and issues into a conceptual framework for life cycle costing analysis for highway projects. Cost elements and issues concerning the environment were first identified through literature. Through questionnaires, these environmental cost elements will be validated by practitioners before their consolidation into the extension of existing and worked models of life-cycle costing analysis (LCCA). A holistic decision support framework is being developed to assist highway infrastructure stakeholders to evaluate their investment decision. This will generate financial returns while maximising environmental benefits and sustainability outcome.

A micro perspective analysis of capability renewal through knowledge integration within product innovation projects

The aim of this paper is examine how firms renew their organisational capabilities based on micro organisational processes. Organisational capability development literature points to firms’ failure in capability renewal process. To overcome this inefficiency, it is proposed to integrate dynamic capability and ambidexterity perspectives by studying knowledge integration within product innovation. In this relation, applying micro perspective in studying technology diffusion within Iranian Auto industry revealed micro co-evolutionary relationships between knowledge integration within product innovation and capability development. Furthermore, based on near decomposability principals, the analysis suggested relationships among modularity of product architecture, modularity of organisational modularity and modularity of industry architecture in downstream and upstream value chain. Based on these micro-macro co evolutionary effects, capability development process underlying successful corporate entrepreneurship may be verified.

Analysis of interrelationships between critical waste factors in office building retrofit projects using interpretive structural modelling

The number of office building retrofit projects is increasing. These projects are characterised by processes which have a close relationship with waste generation and therefore demand a high level of waste management. In a preliminary study reported separately, we identified seven critical factors of on-site waste generation in office building retrofit projects. Through semi-structured interviews and Interpretive Structural Modelling, this research further investigated the interrelationships among these critical waste factors, to identify each factor’s level of influence on waste generation and propose effective solutions for waste minimization. “Organizational commitment” was identified as the fundamental issue for waste generation in the ISM system. Factors related to plan, design and construction processes were found to be located in the middle levels of the ISM model but still had significant impacts on the system as a whole. Based on the interview findings and ISM analysis results, some practical solutions were proposed for waste minimization in building retrofit projects: (1) reusable and adaptable fit-out design; (2) a system for as-built drawings and building information; (3) integrated planning for retrofitting work process and waste management; and (4) waste benchmarking development for retrofit projects. This research will provide a better understanding of waste issues associated with building retrofit projects and facilitate enhanced waste minimization.

Life cycle analysis for sustainability assessment of road projects

Road infrastructure has been considered as one of the most expensive and extensive infrastructure assets of the built environment globally. This asset also impacts the natural environment significantly during different phases of life e.g. construction, use, maintenance and end-of-life. The growing emphasis for sustainable development to meet the needs of future generations requires mitigation of the environmental impacts of road infrastructure during all phases of life e.g. construction, operation and end-of-life disposal (as required). Life-cycle analysis (LCA), a method of quantification of all stages of life, has recently been studied to explore all the environmental components of road projects due to limitations of generic environmental assessments. The LCA ensures collection and assessment of the inputs and outputs relating to any potential environmental factor of any system throughout its life. However, absence of a defined system boundary covering all potential environmental components restricts the findings of the current LCA studies. A review of the relevant published LCA studies has identified that environmental components such as rolling resistance of pavement, effect of solar radiation on pavement(albedo), traffic congestion during construction, and roadway lighting & signals are not considered by most of the studies. These components have potentially higher weightings for environment damage than several commonly considered components such as materials, transportation and equipment. This paper presents the findings of literature review, and suggests a system boundary model for LCA study of road infrastructure projects covering potential environmental components.

A conceptual analysis of strategic capability development within product innovation projects

Strategic capability development refers to the renewal of the organisational capabilities which are sources of competitive advantage. The aim of this paper is to examine how strategic capability and competitive advantage build up over time. Recent literature points to the integration of dynamic capability and ambidexterity perspectives in explaining organisational capability development. Literature analysis reveals the role of knowledge integration and product innovation in integrating dynamic capability and ambidexterity. However, little attention has yet been paid to knowledge integration within innovation projects as a context for capability development. Accordingly, this paper aims to develop a conceptual framework for strategic capability development focusing on the role of knowledge integration within product innovation projects. This framework contributes to identifying and emphasising the role of micro processes in capability renewal which in turn enhances our understanding of strategic capability development.

Understanding the behavior of workshop facilitators in systems analysis and design projects: Developing theory from process modeling projects

Organizational and technological systems analysis and design practices such as process modeling have received much attention in recent years. However, while knowledge about related artifacts such as models, tools, or grammars has substantially matured, little is known about the actual tasks and interaction activities that are conducted as part of analysis and design acts. In particular, key role of the facilitator has not been researched extensively to date. In this paper, we propose a new conceptual framework that can be used to examine facilitation behaviors in process modeling projects. The framework distinguishes four behavioral styles in facilitation (the driving engineer, the driving artist, the catalyzing engineer, and the catalyzing artist) that a facilitator can adopt. To distinguish between the four styles, we provide a set of ten behavioral anchors that underpin facilitation behaviors. We also report on a preliminary empirical exploration of our framework through interviews with experienced analysts in six modeling cases. Our research provides a conceptual foundation for an emerging theory for describing and explaining different behaviors associated with process modeling facilitation, provides first preliminary empirical results about facilitation in modeling projects, and provides a fertile basis for examining facilitation in other conceptual modeling activities.

Workplace stress and its impact analysis for strategic stress management in construction projects

Workplace stress has been an increasing concern in the construction industry. Workers are working longer hours and construction managers’ responsibilities are becoming more complex and complicated due to reduced resources and widespread stakeholder involvements. These additional pressures potentially trigger workplace stress and impact on project performance. The purpose of this study is to examine and advance understanding of stress and its impact relationships that support holistic and strategic stress management. 17 key stress sources are identified with their impact relationships on different stress types examined. Based on the research findings, this paper concludes with a Stressor-Stress-Performance relationships map.

Knowledge Sharing within IT Projects

Even though today’s corporations recognize that they need to understand modern project management techniques (Schwalbe, 2002, p2), many researchers continue to provide evidence of poor IT project success. With Kotnour, (2000) finding that project performance is positively associated with project knowledge, a better understanding of how to effectively manage knowledge in IT projects should have considerable practical significance for increasing the chances of project success. Using a combined qualitative/quantitative method of data collection in multiple case studies spanning four continents, and comprising a variety of organizational types, the focus of this current research centered on the question of why individuals working within IT project teams might be motivated towards, or inhibited from, sharing their knowledge and experience in their activities, procedures, and processes. The research concluded with the development of a new theoretical model of knowledge sharing behavior, ‘The Alignment Model of Motivational Focus’. This model suggests that an individual’s propensity to share knowledge and experience is a function of perceived personal benefits and costs associated with the activity, balanced against the individual’s alignment to a group of ‘institutional’ factors. These factors are identified as alignments to the project team, to the organization, and dependent on the circumstances, to either the professional discipline or community of practice, to which the individual belongs.

Multi-outcome construction policies : comparative analysis of western australian and queensland policies

This document provides an overview of the differences and similarities in the objectives and implementation frameworks of the training and employment policies applying to public construction projects in Western Australia and Queensland. The material in the document clearly demonstrates the extent to which approaches to the pursuit of training objectives in particular have been informed by the experiences of other jurisdictions. The two State governments now have very similar approaches to the promotion of training with the WA government basing a good part of its policy approach on the “Queensland model”. As the two States share many similar economic and other characteristics, and have very similar social and economic goals, this similarity is to be expected. The capacity to benefit from the experiences of other jurisdictions is to be welcomed. The similarity in policy approach also suggests a potential for ongoing collaborations between the State governments on research aimed at further improving training and employment outcomes via public construction projects.

Report : analysis of maintenance database inputs

In the previous phase of this project, 2002-059-B Case-Based Reasoning in Construction and Infrastructure Projects, demonstration software was developed using a case-base reasoning engine to access a number of sources of information on lifetime of metallic building components. One source of information was data from the Queensland Department of Public Housing relating to maintenance operations over a number of years. Maintenance information is seen as being a particularly useful source of data about service life of building components as it relates to actual performance of materials in the working environment. If a building is constructed in 1984 and the maintenance records indicate that the guttering was replaced in 2006, then the service life of the gutters was 22 years in that environment. This phase of the project aims to look more deeply at the Department of Housing data, as an example of maintenance records, and formulate methods for using this data to inform the knowledge of service lifetimes.

Leveraging training outcomes on public construction projects

The paper explores the efficacy of public agencies using their contracting relationships with private firms to affect training outcomes in the construction industry. It develops a theoretical perspective on this issue by extending a framework that was originally developed by Hart, Schleifer and Vishny (1997) to study privatisation. This paper shows how their framework can also be applied to situations where the provision of public works is already privatised and the government is attempting to regulate training outcomes via a contracting arrangement. An empirical study of two training policies of the Western Australian government complements this theoretical discussion. We report the results of an analysis of data drawn from the government’s Tender Registration System between 1997 & 2006. As such we use a unique and comprehensive resource to examine the possible effects of new training policies on an important segment of the construction ‘market’.

Transaction Cost Analysis of PPP Risk Share

PPP (Public Private Partnerships) is a new operation mode of infrastructure projects, which usually undergo long periods and have various kinds of risks in technology, market, politics, policy, finance, society, natural conditions and cooperation. So the government and the private agency should establish the risk-sharing mechanism to ensure the successful implementation of the project. As an important branch of the new institutional economics, transaction cost economics and its analysis method have been proved to be beneficial to the proper allocation of risks between the two parts in PPP projects and the improvement of operation efficiency of PPP risk-sharing mechanism. This paper analyzed the transaction cost of the projects risk-sharing method and the both risk carriers. It pointed out that the risk-sharing method of PPP projects not only reflected the spirit of cooperation between public sector and private agency, but also minimized the total transaction cost of the risk sharing mechanism itself. Meanwhile, the risk takers had to strike a balance between the beforehand cost and the afterwards cost so as to control the cost of risk management. The paper finally suggested three ways which might be useful to reduce the transaction cost: to choose appropriate type of contract of PPP risk-sharing mechanism, to prevent information asymmetry and to establish mutual trust between the two participants.