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

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

This dissertation is concerned with the future of the construction industry in South Africa and the ability to improve. Continuous growth is predicted through to the year 2015 and beyond, it is considered that to meet this challenge the South African construction industry must achieve substantial improvement and change. South Africa is a developing nation with ambitious objectives to improve social development and growth through delivery of infrastructure and other areas including, municipal development, hospitals, roads, water, electricity and government facilities. It is essential that South Africa has a construction industry that can develop capability and capacity to achieve sustainable growth. Current management thinking acknowledges that the best management and production principles are transferable. This is not a new concept or proposal, early management and production theorists and applicators such as Frederick Taylor, Frank B Gilbreth and Henry Ford all held the view that best practice techniques are transferable in application. By researching and presenting current successful management and production practices it intends to identify principles that can be adopted for change and improvement by the South African construction industry. A current general review of the South African construction industry has been undertaken to place it in context regarding the adoption of these best practice principles. The research will adopt a qualitative approach; it will be subjective and contain descriptions of techniques, people interactions, observations and assumptions. The principles addressed in this research are Benchmarking, Lean Production and Supply Chain Management; they have been selected as current best practice and as having significant use and proven continued success. They are presented in a format to allow understanding of the principles now developed and to illustrate via existing case studies, successes in application. Conclusions are made on individual aspects, on common core practices existing in all three principles and the current state of the South African construction industry. Recommendations are made and further areas of research suggested. / Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2007.

Thesis (MTech (Business Administration in Project Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2019. / Construction projects are deemed to be complex due to the uncertainties in-volved in such projects. The project management literature has outlined chal-lenges that are found in construction projects. It points out that major challenges and problems found in construction projects include cost and schedule overruns. To achieve construction project success a project has to be completed within cost, time and quality standards or performance. To attain success has always been difficult due to the lack of skills and competencies required by construction project managers. A project manager that has the desired competencies to effectively manage cost, time and quality standards in construction projects is needed. Poor management of construction projects is not only in South Africa but it’s a global challenge. Through the combination of qualitative and quantitative research method (also known a mixed method) this study evaluates project manager’s competencies with the objectives of determining the appropriate competencies that could assist a project manager to excellently execute construction projects. This thesis points out that for an effective project manager to successfully manage construction projects requires to have high strength on leadership competency to provide pro-ject leadership, communication competency to direct a way forward in a project and problem solving competency to provide feasible solutions. Provision of project leadership refers to a project manager upholding effective working relationships with colleagues, influencing others to work without being pressurised and provision of vision for the team to know their direction. Direct a way forward in a project refers to a project manager effectively communicating project objectives, speaking to encourage team members to perform tasks effi-ciently and listen actively. Provision of feasible solutions refers to a project man-ager having an ability to identify a problem, seeking best solutions when dealing with problems and exhibiting creativity in problem solving.

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