published_or_final_version / abstract / Civil Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

No description available.

Electronic Business (e-Business) is recognised as being able to help organisations in the construction industry to achieve competitiveness and substantial benefits. However, the uptake of e-business in the construction industry has been relatively limited and ineffective. Previous research covers the body of knowledge about how to identify the value of e-business once it has been created or how to identify the capabilities that can create value. There is no guidance available to help organisations to maximise their leverage by investing intelligently and matching the size of their demand for e-business solutions to the size of the market they plan to supply. This research aims to identify the strategic e-business needs and requirements of organisations in the construction industry; it helps them to scan or position their current situation, and provide a holistic approach to assist them in developing an executable e-business strategy. In order to achieve the aim and the formulated objectives, a multi-methodological research design and a pragmatic mixed-methods approach, involving a combination of both quantitative and qualitative datasets, were adopted to investigate the e-business practices of organisations in the industry. These include an exploratory investigation (an industry survey with 250 industry organisations), and an explanatory investigation (four case studies with specific industry end-user companies). The collected data was analysed and problems were identified; the elements for a holistic approach to manage e-business implementation emerged. Subsequently, a Strategic e-Business Framework was developed to provide a holistic approach for organisations in the construction industry to plan, execute and review their e-business strategies. The Framework enables organisations to consider the medium term (three to five years), long-term (over five to ten years), and emergent needs to derive business value. The key features of the Framework include six phases and phase gates, five functional factors, and 23 activities. The six phases include Analyse Situation, Establish Vision, Define Critical Success Factors (CSFs), Develop Action Plan, Implement Action Plan, and Review Strategy. The phases were defined to guide the IT leaders in carrying out consistent e-business planning. The outputs of each phase (phase gates) were defined to assist IT leaders in the review of procedures during their e-business implementation. The functional factors include management, people, process, technology and external environment. The factors were identified to address every facet of an organisation, and obtain collaboration efforts from both internal and external. They also ensure organisations have the opportunities to improve capabilities in these areas, and make them ready for immediate e-business implementation. Five groups of people or teams were assigned to the activities. The five groups were the Senior Management Board, IT Managers and their teams, Middle Level Management, Lower Level Management and other End-users, and external collaborators. The activities were categorised in order to provide a basis for organisations to utilise their resources, specifically human resource. Finally, a feedback loop was defined to enable the Framework to act as a cycle for going through repeatedly, which makes the continuous improvement of e-business implementation possible within organisations and provides a learning and feedback function that ensures lessons to be learned from past e-business implementation. The evaluation of the Framework was conducted via six structured interviews with industry practitioners. The findings indicated that the industry practitioners welcomed the Framework and considered it as a positive step towards e-business management.

M.Tech. / Purpose: This study looked at the challenges and gender-based issues which women in construction face in South Africa and abroad compared to their male counterparts in order to establish why fewer women are attracted to the industry as compared to men and why women in construction have a lower success rate. Methodology: A literature review on the topic was completed and close-ended and open-ended questions were posed in the questionnaire, which was completed by contractors and consultants nationwide and subsequently analyzed. Problem investigated: Women have not emerged as significant players in the industry both in terms of size and volume of contracts, as well as breaking down the 'glass ceiling' which is still faced by many women today, especially consultants. Findings: Construction has always been a male dominated industry. Therefore, women continue to feel restricted and not well received by their male counterparts. Women still confirm that they have to constantly prove their worth to their male counterparts in order to be accepted and add value to the organization. Research limitations: The study focused on women in the construction industry as a whole and did not look at women specifically within the various built environment disciplines. Further research is also required to investigate and look into female students' experiences whilst studying and after graduation. Value: The study highlights the challenges and gender-based issues that exist with women in construction today, and suggests what should be done to attract and retain more women in the sector.

Construction managers aim to deliver successful construction projects; however it is unclear how they perceive construction project success and how they influence that success. Focusing on the construction phase of the project, a Systems Conceptual Framework is induced from the literature review. In-depth interviews undertaken by 10 construction managers, whose experience accounts for over 130 construction projects, provide data to derive categories which populate the Systems Conceptual Framework initially developed. By adopting an unstructured approach to the data collection, a holistic view of how construction managers impact the success of construction projects is acquired. The construction managers' influence on success is identified through the skills, competencies and characteristics which enable success of the construction phase (enablers). This inductive-deductive methodological approach allows the identification of categories and relations between them which, along with the Systems Conceptual Framework, form the Empirical Model. A Pareto analysis was carried out in order to determine the relative relevance categories have against each others. Overall, 56 relations were identified between the 37 categories derived from the data analysis. The results of the research show that the influence of construction managers on project success is determined by twenty enablers. According to the Pareto analysis, 6 enablers were most relevant; they are separated into two interrelated sets: Communication, Leadership and People Management, and Ability to Pull Back, Experience and Technical Skill. This suggests that construction managers consider mastering 'hard' and 'soft' aspects of the job are both equally relevant to the success of the project. The high interconnectivity between the categories is what allows the Empirical Model to be developed; making it the most important finding of this research. Evidence indicates that construction managers work with both a subjective (qualitative) and an objective (quantitative) concept of success. The quantitative concept of success can have between two and four success factors, which are prioritised according to the needs of the client; there is always one critical success factors that leads the project. The subjective concept of success incorporates aspects of the end user and personal satisfaction, and specific characteristics of the project. The results also show that the outcomes of construction projects can be three: success, failure, and a third outcome which is neither, an outcome between success and failure. Participants have identified this last outcome as being the most frequent.

The objective of this dissertation is to examine and evaluate the effects on housing supply of the fragmented administration and expenditure methodology of the Gauteng government. The interrelationship between the supply and demand for houses in a country such as South Africa with its dualistic economy is for historical, as well as socioeconomic reasons, complex. Differences in the supply and demand of housing for the racial groups as identified in the socio-economic policy, known as apartheid, determined expenditure of all administrations up to the beginning of the nineties. Not only were the policy objectives of that time mainly aimed at looking after the interests of the white component of the population, but the outspoken objective for many years, if not for decades, was to keep the standard of accommodation for blacks at a level that would enhance their desire to return to the so-called Homelands or National States. Migrant workers, mostly blacks from the Homelands, were accommodated in hostels run by government (in most cases) or the private sector (mainly mines). It was single-sex accommodation (men only). Their families had to remain in the homelands as their permanent residence. The living conditions in these hostels were poor with an approximate bed:person ratio of 1:2,8 and toilet:person ratio of 1:100. The aims of the hostels were to keep wages low as well as to control black urbanisation. (Rust 1996:139) In its “Policy for the Upgrading of Public Sector Hostels” of 1994, the Department of Housing defined several objectives for the upgrading of the hostels. / Prof. A.G. Nieuwenhuizen

The South African Construction Industry is one of the largest contributors to the gross domestic product of the country as well as to employment. It has, however, been experiencing significant challenges due to multifaceted factors. The main objective of this research was to identify the supply chain management constraints within the South African Construction Industry and how these can be overcome. This study is by nature descriptive and exploratory and contains qualitative elements. The problems were identified through a literature review, focused group discussions and interviews with major construction companies in South Africa. The findings also indicate that the main supply chain management constraints are to a greater extent internal and typical of supply chain methodologies and approaches. These constraints are among others the lack of coordination, collaboration and commitment between suppliers and clients within the supply chain, poor leadership in key areas of systems, design problems (many changes and inconsistent information), deficient internal and external communication and information transfer, inadequate management within the supply chain, mainly poor planning and control just to mention a few. A model based on supply chain system management as well as the Theory Of Constraints (TOC) has been developed that can be a useful tool to address the constraints in the construction sector. Originating from the study are applicable recommendations for the South African construction industry supply chains, covering key themes that have been articulated in the study, particularly benchmarking to the theory of constrains. Such recommendations include further research core components of supply chain such as, collaborations, logistics and how each of system components can be linked to performance of the supply chain management system.

Night time construction has adopted as a preferred method of scheduling to alleviate the problems caused by road works during the day. Over the past few years, night-time construction has been increased; it will inevitably continue to grow. Continued increase in the volume of roadwork done at night has resulted from a combination of road deterioration and traffic congestion. Although nighttime road construction is seen as the solution to alleviate the problems associated with day-time repairs and congestion, it has its own challenges and problems. Cost, productivity, quality, noise and human factors are some of the few factors that night-time road construction brings. This study is aimed at understanding the factors that influence the productivity of night-time construction and proposing strategies to improve productivity in the South African context. It is commonly known that quality and productivity differs from one roadwork site to another during night-time road construction. Some roadwork sites can perform well while others are worse off. However, through literature, the factors categorised as human, management and external may influence the productivity regardless of the operation. The current study investigates the influence of these factors on the productivity of work done at night through structured questionnaire. The results of the study show that there is minimal if no effect on the productivity of work done at night. Human factors that influence the performance of the labour have no impact on productivity, whereas management and external factors have minimal impact on the productivity of night-time road construction projects.