When Australian construction SME implementing TQM

Statistics show that construction industry contributes steadily and significantly to the national economy and SME always plays a major role. In order to offer "value for money" to the client and lower the operating cost, practising quality program is crucial. The aim of this paper is to investigate, via extensive literature reviews, how Australian construction SME should manage when implementing TQM strategy in the business model. In summary, there are four management implications: construction management, knowledge management, supply chain management and marketing management, which can enhance competitive advantage and favor commercial viability. One can reasonably conclude that quality improvements will lead to long term commercial advantages.

Embracing off-site innovation in construction in China to enhance a sustainable built environment in urban housing

With the rapid rate of urbanization and pressing need for higher levels of sustainable development within the built environment in China, the housing construction industry presently is facing urgency of shaping a sustainable construction process. This paper examines several sustainability challenges from the large-scale urban housing construction, and explores the connection between off-site innovation and sustainability within a context of China's housing construction industry. The study also identifies four pillars of strategy agendas that could enhance an enabling innovation environment for the ultimate goal of sustainability: (1) institutional environment, (2) public housing market, (3) organisational actions and (4) technological capacity. The knowledge and research findings presented in this paper would provide a ground framework that helps evaluate and assess the significances of off-site innovation to assist with a sustainable built environment.

The contribution of Building Information Modelling (BIM) to Green Building Design and Assessment in Abu Dhabi "ESTIDAMA"

Estidama is a mandatory Green Building code in Abu Dhabi by which the compliance of building design is being assessed. This paper examines the current design and assessment approaches for Green Buildings to identify the reasons that lead to delay defects and it investigates a new approach for improvement. The available literature provides a realistic understanding to the problems and shows the road to some potential solutions. The identified problems were mainly attributed to the manual assessment with too much human interference. The piled documents with limited resources left the assessment system too slow to handle the whole projects within the greater Abu Dhabi engendering high risk of the commitment to review mistakes. Therefore, this paper investigates the potentiality of automating several stages via the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) into the assessment process. Different experienced participants from all aspects within the construction industry were interviewed to contribute to the research. Also, a close question questionnaire was distributed to examine the current practice in Abu Dhabi to compare it with the initial findings. The findings point out significant requirements to adopt BIM in the assessment process, such as the availability of proper contracts form to shape the relationship between BIM parties and the readiness of the current system. Hence, the authors suggest a new model that integrates BIM capabilities within the system to accelerate the process and reduce human involvement.

Did the late-2000s financial crisis influence construction labour productivity?

The late-2000s global financial crisis has wrought dramatic impacts on the construction industry. However, the issue of whether the crisis influenced the behaviours of the construction industry has not been addressed yet. This research presents an econometric approach to investigating the effects of the recent global financial crisis on construction labour productivity. By employing the error correction model and panel regression methods, the direct and indirect effects of the financial crisis on the changes in Australian construction labour productivity are explored at national and state levels. Neither the direct nor the indirect effects appear statistically significant. The results indicate that the direct effect of the financial crisis drives up construction labour productivity at the national level, while the indirect effect diminishes productivity. The effects of the financial crisis on the state construction labour productivity vary from state to state. The financial crisis influenced construction labour productivity directly and significantly in the northern and eastern regions, while the direct effects appear not significant in the other states and territories. The indirect effects of the financial crisis on productivity are statistically significant in three regions: the Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. By comparison, the model with the financial effects fails to provide more accurate simulating results. As such, this research concludes that the influence of the late-2000s financial crisis on Australian national and state construction labour productivity is limited.

An investigation into using off-site production in housing construction for the sustainable built environment in China.

Zhai Xiaolin undertook a study of off-site construction in China's housing construction industry during her past four years PhD study. Her research provides an original thinking of embracing offsite construction as a method to help China's construction industry towards a more sustainable built environment. Also her research findings provide possible implications for other developing countries that are also seeking to identify and overcome sustainable crisis in construction industry.

Enterprise localization practices and their implication for knowledge management in foreign participation in the Chinese construction sector

Foreign firms active in the Chinese construction industry find themselves in a competitive environment unlike the environments in which they operate back home. Adaptations are therefore required in order that firms retain competitive leverage while integrating into the circumstances of the Chinese market. Since these firms primarily compete on superior knowledge capabilities it is instructive to understand how adaptations both serve to transfer propriety capabilities to China while adapting to the knowledge characteristics of the Chinese market into which those capabilities are transplanted. Five localizing parameters across which adaptations take place are identified in this paper and rates of localization are tabulated for 60 foreign firms active in the Chinese construction industry. Revealed localizing behaviors are then analyzed in the light of existing literature for explanatory power. It is concluded that in order to be strategically competitive firms must not only retain knowledge differentials, but that the knowledge must be coded and disseminated in a manner suited to the environment in which it is to be utilized.

Critical barriers to BIM implementation in the AEC industry

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is one of the most significant technological advances in the building design and construction industry to date. Implementation of BIM has increased significantly over the past decade; and it enables the different stakeholders of a construction project to collaborate better throughout its lifecycle, and improves the opportunities to share data and decrease consumption. However, the implementation of BIM lags far behind its potential due to the existence of various barriers. This paper aims at identifying, classifying, and prioritising these barriers to BIM implementation through a survey. The research findings are expected to assist major stakeholders in the construction industry to promote BIM implementation.

Evaluation of the mechanical performance of short concrete column confined with CFRP and GFRP

Concrete has been successfully used to build strong and economic structures. However severe environmental exposures slowly deteriorate concrete strength until complete failure reducing its designed service life. Fiber Reinforced Polymer “FRP” has been recently introduced in the construction industry to strengthen and retrofitting several structural elements including columns. In this research two types of FRP have been used to wrap concrete column in order to increase its capacity; these are Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer “CFRP” and Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer “GFRP”. Twelve short concrete columns have been wrapped with one and two FRP layers including CFRP and GFRP to evaluate their mechanical performance. Mechanical testing has shown that, in general, concrete columns wrapped with FRP produced higher modulus of elasticity compared to the control sample. Results showed that one layer of CFRP have 85.8% increases where as one layer of GFRP showed an increase of 64.5%. Furthermore, two layers of CFRP and GFRP showed 112.5% and 77.2% increase respectively.

Enhancing collaboration in building modeling: team working principles

Enhancing collaboration in building information modelling (BIM) teams has attracted considerable attention. Current research studies have almost entirely focused on the technical aspects of BIM overlooking the significant effects of team configurations and working procedures on collaboration in BIM teams. Against this backdrop, the present study is driven by the objective of enhancing awareness of the challenges that face teams in developing BIM models and propose a number of effective measures modifying team configurations and adjusting working processes to enhance collaboration. To this end, the study draws upon a case-study and ethnographic theory building research approach through which the development of the BIM model was explored and its major challenges with corresponding applied solutions in a high profile infrastructure project backdrop. The study set out to contribute to the field by providing evidence and opening a window for conceptualisation of the problems and modifications for enhancing collaboration in BIM through the lens of team working principles. The discussion presented outlines practical implications and provides insight into how issues of collaboration in BIM could be dealt with armed with a heightened awareness of principles of team working.

Major factors affecting waste generation on construction sites in Iran

Construction and demolition (C&D) waste account for a large share of total solid waste sent to the environment. As a result, effective C&D waste management has been treated as one of the available avenues towards sustainable development. Yet, C&D waste management within the Iranian construction industry has been literally overlooked by investigators. As one of the first studies in Iran, the main causes of generating C&D waste on construction projects have been identified through a review of literature. Afterwards, the list has been subjected to the scrutiny of 101 experts in the field deploying a questionnaire survey. The findings revealed that important causes of C&D waste generation on construction sites were all associated with lack of skills and experience of construction workers and lack of awareness of the concept of waste and values of construction materials. No discrepancy in terms of causes of waste generation was observed among different tiers of construction companies in the Iranian construction industry. The paper concludes with providing a number of guidelines to address the issues as identified for Iran and other developing countries suffering from the same problems.

Construction labor productivity convergence: a conditional frontier approach

Purpose-Understanding and simulating construction activities is a vital issue from a macro-perspective, since construction is an important contributor in economic development. Although the construction labor productivity frontier has attracted much research effort, the temporal and regional characteristics have not yet been explored. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the long-run equilibrium and dynamics within construction development under a conditional frontier context. Design/methodology/approach-Analogous to the simplified production function, this research adopts the conditional frontier theory to investigate the convergence of construction labor productivity across regions and over time. Error correction models are implemented to identify the long-run equilibrium and dynamics of construction labor productivity against three types of convergence hypotheses, while a panel regression method is used to capture the regional heterogeneity. The developed models are applied to investigate and simulate the construction labor productivity in the Australian states and territories. Findings-The results suggest that construction labor productivity in Australia should converge to stable frontiers in a long-run perspective. The dynamics of the productivity are mainly caused by the technology utilization efficiency levels of the local construction industry, while the influences of changes in technology level and capital depending appear limited. Five regional clusters of the Australian construction labor productivity are suggested by the simulation results, including New South Wales; Australian Capital Territory; Northern Territory, Queensland, and Western Australia; South Australia; and Tasmania and Victoria. Originality/value-Three types of frontier of construction labor productivity is proposed. An econometric approach is developed to identify the convergence frontier of construction labor productivity across regions over time. The specified model can provides accurate predictions of the construction labor productivity.

Measuring output structures of multinational construction industries using the World Input‒Output Database

In the context of international movement towards trade liberalization, increasing technological progress, open competition and social development have impacted deeply on the construction industry in all economies. Using the World Input–Output Database (WIOD), a multinational comparison of the construction industry is estimated from 1995 to 2011 to provide accurate and valid information on the changing patterns of its output structure. The output coefficients for 37 countries and regions are formulated to allow for inter-industry comparisons and to identify the major components of construction output. Changes of output structure are then elaborated over time across countries and regions. The research findings presented in this paper would provide a framework for identifying the output structure of a nation's construction industry and its change trends at an international level, which may help policymakers and enterprises with the formulation of their future development strategies.

Barriers to implementing reverse logistics in South Australian construction organisations

Purpose - This paper aims to present a survey of the perceptions of the barriers to implementing reverse logistics (RL) practices in South Australian (SA) construction organisations. Despite the extensive research on forward logistics and RL, there is a paucity of studies that examine the barriers to implementing RL particularly within the Australian construction industry. This study builds on the ongoing research being undertaken by the authors, entitled “Designing for reverse logistics (DfRL) within the building life cycle: practices, drivers and barriers”, which is examining the best practices and drivers that could be used as a “road map” for developing appropriate solutions for the successful implementation of RL. Design/methodology/approach - Data were collected by utilising a triangulated data collection approach, a literature review and 49 questionnaires. The review of the literature identified 16 barriers to implementing RL. The quantitative survey data were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistics with correlation analysis to examine the relationships between different pairs of variables comprising RL’s critical barriers. Findings - The following barriers were indicated as most significant: lack of incorporation of salvaged materials by designers; regulation restrictions to usage of recovered materials and components; potential legal liabilities; higher costs; and longer-time association with deconstructing buildings. The least ranked barriers were mostly drawn from the operational and industrial categories as being: organisational lack of support for deconstruction due to incompatible design; lack of organisational support for deconstructing buildings due to higher health and safety risks; and inadequate skills and experience for deconstruction (operational). The industrial barrier was related to “higher costs of salvaged materials in comparison to virgin products”. Research limitations/implications - First, the reported findings are focussed on one study that used questionnaire surveys within the construction industry; therefore, the results may not be generalisable to other contexts. Further, studies should be conducted and extended to other industrial sectors beyond the construction industry. Second, the quantitative study (n 49) used a smaller sample, and the survey items were based on the review of the literature. Practical implications - The identified barriers could be used as a “road map” for the development of appropriate solutions for the successful implementation of RL, and to improve the environment-related decision-making processes of contractors. Originality/value - This study makes a contribution to the body of knowledge on the subject of RL within a previously unexplored SA context. In addition, the study provides some insights on the contributory effects of the barriers to the implementation of RL. It is the first work undertaken to determine the barriers to the adoption of RL within the SA construction industry.