Recent years has seen a significant drive away from traditional procurement routes with contractors finding themselves with an increasing responsibility for control of design - a process they have had little experience in managing. They now have to adapt accordingly. The learning curve is steep, not least because many projects must now be delivered fast track while co-ordinating increasingly complex fabric and content of buildings without a platform of accepted good practice to manage the design process. This is a major factor preventing the UK construction industry from delivering projects on time, to budget and to the specified quality. There is a need to educate an increasing number of people in design management techniques to equip them to manage today's fast moving and demanding projects. However, many current design management tools are insufficiently developed for industry application. Therefore, to improve design management in the industry, current techniques must be modified to align them with the needs of the modern design manager. This research has developed and tested a training initiative aimed at improving design management practice within a major UK Design and Construct Contractor. It comprises a Design Management Handbook, Design Management Training, Team Support and Project Monitoring. The Design Management Handbook is the core of the training initiative. It addresses critical aspects of design management practice and provides design management tools. Training provides guidance to project teams on the tools and practices. In Team Support project teams are supported in the implementation of the new practices and tools to help embed new ways of working in company practice. Project Monitoring establishes the impact of the new practices on project performance to demonstrate that they are working and thus reinforce change. To establish the training initiative's effectiveness and key findings, the impact of the initiative on design management performance has been explored. The research has established which practices and tools were used, which were not, as well as an understanding the applicability and performance of each Handbook practice and tool. From this, barriers to implementing new design management tools in industry were identified and strategies developed in order to overcome such barriers.

O crescimento da economia brasileira proporcionou uma intensificação na quantidade de obras de infraestrutura iniciadas no país nos últimos anos. A adoção e ampliação de estratégias utilizadas pelo governo para combater os efeitos da crise internacional sobre a economia e as obras necessárias ao país, em razão de eventos internacionais que acontecerão, como a Copa do Mundo de Futebol em 2014, e de programas como o Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento (PAC), foram uma resposta às atuais necessidades do Brasil. Com essas inúmeras obras, houve um crescimento na geração dos resíduos da construção civil (RCC), o que fez com que autoridades, pesquisadores e a sociedade voltassem seus esforços para enfrentar as dificuldades de manejo e disposição final adequada desses resíduos. A ausência de políticas públicas que promovessem a fiscalização do gerenciamento desses resíduos, em relação aos geradores, provocava diversos impactos como, por exemplo, o surgimento de vários depósitos clandestinos nas áreas mais afastadas do perímetro urbano e gastos por parte da administração pública com modelos de gestão corretiva. Contudo, com a elaboração da Resolução CONAMA nº 307/2002 e da Política Nacional de Resíduos Sólidos, Decreto nº 7.404/2010 que regulamenta a Lei nº 12.305, ficou instituído que os geradores devem ser responsáveis pelos resíduos das atividades voltadas à construção civil, contemplando, assim, a minimização dos impactos causados ao meio ambiente e à saúde humana. Dessa forma, esse quadro de descaso com a situação dos resíduos começou a mudar. Com a intenção de contribuir com essa área de conhecimento, esta pesquisa teve como finalidade estudar a situação do sistema de gerenciamento de RCC de obras de grande porte, após a regulamentação da Resolução CONAMA nº 307/2002 e do Decreto nº 7.404/2010, que regulamenta a Lei nº 12.305, referente à Política Nacional de Resíduos Sólidos. Para tanto, foi realizado um estudo da situação da gestão e do gerenciamento dos RCC na demolição e construção da Arena Fonte Nova, em Salvador - BA, e na construção da Arena Pernambuco, em São Lourenço da Mata - PE, realizadas para a Copa do Mundo de Futebol de 2014, por meio de três etapas de estudo: análise das variáveis e indicadores locais; caracterização qualitativa dos resíduos; e, por fim, comparação do gerenciamento da obra com o preconizado em ambas as leis. Esta pesquisa utilizou metodologia de classificação qualitativa do RCC, por meio de observações e entrevistas de campo, com o objetivo de identificar e analisar sua gestão e seu gerenciamento nessas obras, e teve como principal importância ajudar as empresas construtoras de obras de grande porte a fazerem uma autoavaliação de sua gestão e gerenciamento dos resíduos sólidos. Portanto, concluiu-se que as obras pesquisadas atendem às exigências das leis e que, para que haja um efetivo sistema de gestão e gerenciamento dos resíduos da construção civil, deve-se influenciar a mudança cultural das pessoas, visando a efetiva compreensão e concordância das necessidades ambientais. / The Brazilian economy has provided an enhancement in the amount of infrastructure works initiated in the country in recent years. The adoption and expansion of strategies used by the government to combat the effects of global crisis on the economy and the works necessary for the country due to international events that will happen as the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and programs such as PAC (Program Growth Acceleration), were a response to the current needs of Brazil. With these numerous works, there was an increase in the generation of civil construction waste (CCW), which meant that the authorities, researchers and society return their efforts to face the difficulties of handling and final disposal of such waste. The absence of public policies that promote the monitoring of waste management in relation to generators, caused many impacts, for example, the emergence of several underground deposits in the areas furthest from the urban perimeter and spending by the public administration models corrective management. However, the drafting of the CONAMA Resolution 307/2002 and the National Policy on Solid Waste Decree 7.404/2010 which regulates Law 12,305, it was established that the generators should be responsible for waste from activities related to construction, encompassing thus minimizing the impacts to the environment and human health. Thus, this picture of neglect with the waste situation began to change. Intending to contribute to this area of knowledge, the present study was aimed to study the situation of the CCW management system for large works, after the implementation of Resolution CONAMA 307/2002 and Decree regulating 7.404/2010 Law 12,305, on the National Policy on Solid Waste. To that end, a study of the CCW management situation was conducted in the demolition and construction of the Arena Fonte Nova in Salvador - Bahia, and in the construction of the Arena Pernambuco in São Lourenço da Mata - PE, performed for the FIFA World Cup 2014, through three stages of study: analysis of variables and local indicators, qualitative characterization of the waste and, finally, comparing the CCW management as recommended in both laws. This research used the qualitative methodology of the CCW, through field observations and interviews, in order to identify and analyze the management of these same works and its main importance to help manufacturers of major works to make a self- evaluation of its management and solid waste management. Therefore,it was concluded that the works researched met the requirements of laws and that to have an effective management system of civil construction waste, must influence cultural change in the people, in order to enhance comprehension and compliance of environmental needs.

During the last decade, anticipated and realized benefits of mobile and wireless information and communication technology (ICT) for different business purposes have been widely explored and evaluated. Also, the significance of ‘user acceptance’ mechanisms through ‘perceived usefulness’ of ICT applications has gained broad recognition among business organizations in developing and adopting new ICT capabilities. However, even though technology usefulness is regularly highlighted as an important factor in ICT projects, there is often a lack of understanding of what the concept involves in the practical work context of the actual users, and how to deal with the issues of usefulness in organizational ICT development processes. This doctoral thesis covers a 1,5 year case study of a mobile computing development project at a Swedish international construction enterprise. The company’s mobile ICT venture addressed the deficient ICT use situation of management practitioners in construction site operations. The study portrays the overall socially shaped development process of the chosen technology and its evolving issues of usefulness for existing construction site management practice. The perceived usefulness of mobile computing tools among the ‘user-practitioners’ is described as emergence of ‘meaningful use’ based on initial expectations and actual experiences of the technology in their situated fieldwork context. The studied case depicts the ongoing and open-ended conversational nature of understanding adequate ICT requirements in work practice, and the negotiation of mobile computing technology design properties between users and developers over time towards the alignment of diverse personal, professional and organizational needs and purposes of ICT use. The studied introduction of mobile computing technology in construction site management fieldwork practice serves as an illustrative actual example of how to interpret, understand and approach issues of usefulness and user acceptance of ICT resources in operative work contexts when managing ICT development processes in organizations. / QC 20100825

Project planning in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry at present relies heavily on individual skills, experience and improvisation. In an attempt to increase predictability and efficiency, and to improve knowledge retention across projects, this thesis proposes a more systematic approach to project planning. It does so by introducing the notion of a meta-process model that embodies and cultivates the logic and intelligence of incremental and collaborative planning activities in a given domain. Planning tasks are encoded and enforced as a set of structured dialogues between project partners. To make this possible, a taxonomy extension to current workflow modeling technology is introduced. The concept of the chosen approach can thus be classified as process mediation through structured dialogues. It is applied to the particular example case of Design-Build project delivery for which a detailed workflow model was created. This model serves as a partial instantiation of the larger Project Management Body Of Knowledge, an abstract framework put forward by the US Project Management Institute. A prototype system architecture is devised as an extension to an existing collaborative virtual environment developed in the European e-HUBs research project. This experimental Web-based platform supports the enactment of workflows that are expressed in the standardized syntax of the neutral process definition language XPDL. The functional richness of the structured dialogue extensions is demonstrated through a dialogue management prototype developed as a separate MS Access database application.

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

In the global construction market, most construction companies are willing to undertake international projects in order to maximise their profitability by taking advantage of attractive emerging markets and minimise dependence on unfavorable domestic market conditions. In order to be awarded a contract in highly competitive global construction market, companies should excel in choosing the most attractive markets and prepare winning bids for the selected construction projects in those markets. While preparing bids, the major concern of companies is to offer an optimum price that will enable them to earn enough profits and win the contract at the same time, where profit making ability is strongly correlated with proper estimation of a risk premium that is added onto the estimated cost of the project. Due to the nature of construction works, there are lots of uncertainties associated with the project, market and country conditions. Therefore, how the profitability of the project changes with occurrence of various risk events, in other words, the sensitivity of project costs to risk events, should be estimated by bidders realistically. In this study, fuzzy set theory is used to estimate cost overrun risk in international projects at the bidding stage. The objective is to propose a methodology which can be used by bidders to quantify cost overrun risk so that a realistic risk premium may be determined. A fuzzy risk rating approach is proposed to quantify cost overrun risk rating, which takes into account of risks characterised in international construction projects. For this purpose, risk sources have been identified and a risk model is put forward by using influence diagramming method. Based on this risk model, a fuzzy risk rating algorithm has been defined and software has been developed to conduct fuzzy risk rating calculations easily. After a decision-maker inserts the necessary inputs related with project and country risk factors, the output of the software is a rating that takes into account of all factors that may affect cost overrun risk in international construction projects. The reliability of the algorithm and developed software have been tested by an application on a real construction project. The proposed methodology and decision support tool have been proved to be reliable for the estimation of cost overrun risk while giving bidding decisions in international markets.

Thesis (MScEng)--Stellenbosch University, 2012 / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The construction project environment is dynamic and prone to change. Project change can be defined as any event that alters a project’s original scope, execution time or the cost of the works. Improper management of the projects’ changes could therefore adversely impact on the actual cost and duration of the project which may lead to project cost overruns and even claims and legal disputes. During the construction phase of a project, change affects every aspect of productivity – the planned schedules and deadlines, work methodology, resource procurement, as well as the budget and thus it could prevent the achievement of the project objectives. A project manager, therefore, wants to limit the number of change to a project. However, during a construction project there may be quite a number of changes. Managing a construction project is difficult, in that all the relevant information is rarely available at the initial stage of a project to enable one to plan and design the project accurately and make the best possible decisions. As information becomes available during the construction phase of the project, it can lead to various changes. Design errors or variations, unforeseen site conditions and vagueness in the original scope are but some of the reasons for change. No matter the size of the change, each alteration to the works has a cost, time and risk implication. Due to tight time constraints on most projects, every change requires quick, robust decision making, so as not to delay the project, which therefore results in changes not being comprehensively evaluated. Decisions are often made on intuition or experience, without an assessment of the risks involved or the influence on the cost of the project and without applying well-known project management techniques. The aim of this research was to determine what a change management process for a civil engineering project should look like, specifically the cost and risk management of changes. It investigated the current state of change management of construction projects in practice, by doing a case study and various interviews with project managers. Based on the findings of the research and the industry requirements, a model was developed for managing the costs and risks of changes. The Model was validated by means of an expert evaluation review. The change management model developed as part of this thesis can be used to analyse the cost, time and quality impact of the change, and to do a detailed risk assessment. The Model also reviews the proposed change in order to determine whether the change is necessary. It is a generic tool that can be used by engineers and their project team to enhance the management of changes that happens during the construction phase of a project for any civil construction project. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die konstruksie omgewing is dinamies en geneig tot verandering. Projek verandering kan gedefinieer word as enige gebeurtenis wat die projek se aanvanklike omvang verander of lei to verlenging van die tydsduur of vermeerdering van die koste van die projek. Wanbestuur van projek veranderinge kan ‘n nadelige impak op die projek kostes en tydsduur hê wat kan lei tot oorskryding van die begroting en selfs eise en regsdispute. Verandering kan elke aspek van produktiwiteit tydens die konstruksie fase van ‘n projek affekteer. Dit affekteer die beplande skedules, spertye, werk metodologie, hulpbron bestuur, asook die begroting. Dus kan dit verhoed dat die projek doelwitte bereik word. ‘n Projek bestuurder wil daarom die hoeveelheid en omvang van veranderinge beperk. ‘n Konstruksie projek kan egter heelwat veranderinge ondergaan. Om ‘n konstruksie projek te bestuur is moeilik aangesien al die relevante informasie selde beskikbaar is tydens die begin fases van ‘n projek wat nodig is om die beplanning en ontwerp van die projek so akuraat moontlik te doen en die regte besluite te neem. Soos informasie beskikbaar raak tydens die konstruksie fase van die projek, lei dit dikwels to verskeie veranderinge. Ontwerp foute of variasies, onvoorsiene terrein toestande en onduidelikheid oor die projek omvang is van die redes vir veranderinge. Ongeag die grootte van die verandering het elke wysiging tot die projek ‘n koste, tyd en riskiko implikasie. As gevolge van tydsbeperkinge vereis elke verandering vinnige en kragtige besluitneming om sodoende nie die projek te vertraag nie. Dit lei daartoe dat veranderinge nie omvattend geëvalueer word nie. Besluite word dikwels geneem op intuïsie of ervaring, sonder 'n beoordeling van die risiko's wat betrokke is of die bepaling van die invloed op die koste van die projek, en sonder die toepassing van erkende projek bestuur tegnieke. Die doel van hierdie navorsing was om vas te stel hoe 'n verandering bestuur proses moet lyk vir ‘n siviele ingenieurswese projek, spesifiek die koste en risiko bestuur van die verandering. Die huidige stand van verandering bestuur van konstruksie projekte in die praktyk is ondersoek deur middel van 'n gevallestudie en verskeie onderhoude met die projek bestuurders. 'n Model is ontwikkel vir die bestuur van die koste en risiko's van veranderinge gebaseer op die bevindinge van die navorsing en ook die vereistes van die bedryf. Die model is getoets met behulp van evaluering deur professionele ingenieurs. Die verandering bestuur model wat ontwikkel is as deel van hierdie proefskrif kan gebruik word om die koste, tyd en kwaliteit impak van ‘n verandering te analiseer, asook om 'n omvattende risiko assessering te doen. Die model hersien ook die voorgestelde verandering om te bepaal of die verandering nodig is. Dit is 'n generiese hulpmiddel wat deur ingenieurs en hul projek span gebruik kan word vir die bestuur van die veranderinge wat tydens die konstruksie fase van siviele projekte plaasvind.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:48:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 EriksonRMO_DISSERT.pdf: 2593729 bytes, checksum: e7be854fab647e1f1602ce7096cdca4c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-08-16 / In recent years, the Brazilian construction industry has gone by changes like currency stability, increasing competition, shortage of skilled labor and increasing quality importance required by the customer, who made the sector companies seek solutions through new management practices in order to become more efficient. A alternative to these management practices is known as Lean Construction which is derived from the Toyota System Production. Lean Construction main goals are to reduce parts of activities that do not add value, increase product value by considering customer needs, reduce variability and production cycle time, simplify process by reducing the number of parts or steps, increase the flexibility in the product execution and transparency process, focus the control on overall process, introduce continuous improvement process, maintain a balance between improvements in flows and conversions and seek to learn from practices adopted by competitors. However, the construction industry is characterized by having nomadic activity, which undertakes an unique product with high cost of production and big inertia for behavioral change, making it difficult to implement the philosophy of lean construction in companies. In this sense, the main objective of this study is to develop a methodology for implementation of the principles of Lean Construction. The method of implementing the proposed management system was designed with the aid of 5W2H tool, and the implementation process is divided into three phases. The first one aims to know in a macro way the current operation of construction, identify who is its target audience and what are the products and services offered to the Market. The second phase aims to describe what actions should be taken and which documents are needed to be created or modified; finally, the third step goal consists in how to control and monitor established processes, where through Strategic Planning the company goals would be set along with their respective targets and indicators in order to keep the system working, aiming for continuous improvement with focus on the customer. This methodology was conceived as a case study analyzing a medium size construction with more than 18 years of activity and certified for almost 10 years with ISO9001 and level A in PBQP-H. We also conclude that this implementation process can be used in any developer and / or builder / A constru??o civil brasileira, nos ?ltimos anos, tem passado por mudan?as como estabilidade da moeda, aumento da concorr?ncia, escassez de m?o de obra qualificada e aumento da import?ncia da qualidade requerida pelo cliente, obrigando que as empresas do setor procurem solu??es atrav?s de novas pr?ticas de gest?o, buscando se tornarem mais eficientes. Uma alternativa dessas pr?ticas de gest?o ? conhecida como constru??o enxuta (Lean Construction), sendo derivada do Sistema Toyota de Produ??o. A constru??o enxuta visa a reduzir a parcela de atividades que n?o agregam valor, aumentar o valor do produto atrav?s da considera??o das necessidades do cliente, reduzir a variabilidade e o tempo do ciclo de produ??o, simplificar o processo atrav?s da redu??o do n?mero de passos ou partes, aumentar a flexibilidade na execu??o do produto e a transpar?ncia do processo, focar o controle no processo global, introduzir melhoria cont?nua no processo, manter um equil?brio entre melhorias nos fluxos e nas convers?es e, ainda, buscar aprender com as pr?ticas adotadas pelas empresas concorrentes. A ind?stria da constru??o civil ? caracterizada por possuir atividade n?made, que empreende produto ?nico, com custo elevado de produ??o e grande in?rcia para mudan?a comportamental; desse modo, torna-se dif?cil a implanta??o da filosofia da constru??o enxuta nas empresas. Sendo assim, buscando facilitar a aplicabilidade da constru??o enxuta nas empresas, o objetivo principal deste trabalho ? elaborar uma metodologia de implanta??o dos princ?pios desta nova filosofia de gest?o. O m?todo de implanta??o do sistema de gest?o proposto foi concebido com aux?lio da ferramenta 5W2H, tendo o processo de implanta??o dividido em tr?s etapas, sendo a primeira com a finalidade de elaborar diagn?stico da empresa, visando a entender o funcionamento da construtora, identificando qual ? seu p?blico-alvo e quais s?o os produtos e os servi?os oferecidos por esta ao mercado. A segunda etapa consiste em descrever quais a??es devem ser tomadas e quais documentos precisam ser criados ou modificados; e, por fim, a meta da terceira etapa compreende como controlar e acompanhar os processos estabelecidos, extraindo do planejamento estrat?gico os objetivos da empresa com suas respectivas metas e indicadores com a finalidade de manter o sistema funcionando e almejando a melhoria cont?nua com foco no cliente. A presente metodologia foi concebida utilizando como estudo de caso uma construtora de porte m?dio com mais de 18 anos de atividade e certificada h? quase 10 anos com a ISO9001 e n?vel A do PBQP-H. Conclui-se, ainda, que esse processo de implanta??o possa ser utilizado em qualquer incorporadora e/ou construtora do segmento da constru??o

A phenomenological study was conducted to explore and understand the personal experiences and meaning ascribed by senior leaders within a large multidisciplinary construction company. An effort was made to understand how they personally experienced leading others, what they learnt about themselves, what challenged them most, and what support, if any they had during their leadership of large-scale organisational change. The research found that there is a significant personal cost to the individual. This cost comes in terms of career, work-life balance and even reputation. It provides an opportunity to grow in self-knowledge, provided leaders are open to learn and reflect and that there is a substantive support structure both internally and externally to the organisation in order to ‘survive’. Without this malleable disposition, the already high cost escalates to the extent that it could be life threatening. In spite of the prolific literature available, the leaders claim that shareholders and most others do not understand the extreme length of time it takes to start and embed change that is sustainable. Without that understanding from the other role players, the leader carries not only the blame but also the scars of failed change. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M.A. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

A challenge in Lean Construction is how to make it applicable when there is a high degree of complexity and uncertainty. In many construction projects there are changing project requirements, unique products and a need for actions that are highly focused on meeting customer/client expectations. Such scenarios require management methods that are characterised by being flexible and able to react to change. The aim of this thesis is to introduce a method that has such characteristics. Project Management, Lean and Agile paradigms are merged through the application of the fission and fusion approach of nuclear physics. This research is facilitated through a sequential explorative method. In the first instance, interviews with 22 practitioners in the fields of construction project management, Lean and Agile have been conducted. Then a quantitative self-administered questionnaire with 213 useful responses has been utilised to validate the transferability of the interview findings. It is concluded that Lean is not ideally suited to dealing with the dynamic nature of construction projects. Agile methods, which were developed to cope with the high levels of uncertainty inherent to IT projects, are more flexible and able to react to change. Hence utilising Agile-based methods might be the key to the successful utilization of Lean in construction. Therefore a management method based on combining Lean and Agile approaches has potential. Such an approach needs creative thinking to develop a solution that is different to that of “Leagile”. Leagile uses Lean and Agile methods in the execution phase sequentially, through using a decoupling point model to separate the two. This thesis introduces a new paradigm in which such a decoupling or separation does not take place. Rather, project management, Lean and Agile have been merged together to develop a new holistic and strategic framework. The paradigm presented in this thesis is termed “AgiLean Project Management”.