Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Title proper from title frame. Restrited access for 3 years. Also available in printed format.

The construction industry is based on age old skills where 'man' has been the builder and is coupled to his creative ability and skilled craftsmanship. This significant dependency on human resources continues to this day and thus the success of the construction industry is linked to making effective use of the human resources through training programmes. The research presented in this thesis investigates the use of expert systems in such management training programmes. The work described in this thesis includes a literature survey in chapter 2 on different aspects of human resources management with particular emphasis on management training and learning styles. Chapter 3 presents the results and analysis of the civil engineering and management practices survey, which was carried out during this research. The survey focused mainly on management training and attitude towards computer technology within the construction industry. Expert systems as a branch of artificial intelligence is discussed in chapter 4, where an assessment of the usefulness of using expert systems in different areas of construction management is carried out. Research methodology and techniques of knowledge acquisition applied in this research are presented in chapter 5. The process of the different stages in the development of the contract and safety management expert system is presented in chapter 6, which further describes the structure in which the system was designed. Finally, in order to assess the usefulness of the expert system tool developed, a summative evaluation is carried out. This evaluation examines many factors including attitudes towards computing, human-computer interaction, knowledge base design, use of expert system for training and expert system evaluation tests. Evaluation results and analysis are presented in chapter 7. It is concluded that there is certainty about the importance of management training in the construction industry. Developing expert systems for such training can be used as an aid tool in many training programmes. The choice of the development tool is considered to be an important function in this research in order to achieve the anticipated results by utilising the available resources. Evaluation of different shells was carried out against the criteria mentioned in chapter 4 and CRYSTAL 4.5 was chosen as the tool to be used in this research. During the development of the expert system, CRYSTAL 4.5 proved to be flexible and fast in structuring the knowledge base. The research also revealed the importance of the evaluation as an essential element of any systematic training program. Results obtained from the contract and safety management expert system evaluation (70% in favour of using expert systems for training) suggested that most trainees managed to grasp the subject information. Only a minority of trainees experienced difficulties during the training program. Those trainees will benefit from the implementation of the points which are raised in chapter 7.

Current attempts to answer the questions of how learning can be nurtured within projects; and, how it can be shared within the supply chain make a conscious stance in support of one of two seemingly conflicting perspectives. These are; a first generation knowledge management systems perspective, or a second generation socialisation perspective. This study shrewdly identifies that to categorically anchor to simply one perspective is fundamentally flawed. It is a strategy which regards each as mutually exclusive and therefore negates the advantages of its opposition. Each perspective is suited to differing needs. A first generation perspective satisfies the desire of organisations to create a tangible representation of their knowledge base. However, purely focusing on this need ignores the requirement of socialisation, which is essential for effective tacit knowledge transfer. This has astutely been identified as causing cycles of disillusionment due to its inevitable inability to perform effective knowledge sharing. In comparison, a purely second generation approach fails to satisfy the desire to produce a tangible resource base, which thus reduces the incentives for organisations to provide vital socialisation opportunities. It has been widely acknowledged that learning within projects is needed to make strides towards continuous improvement. If this is not the case, the industry will continue to repeat flawed practices or continuously reinvent solutions unnecessarily. This is resulting in significant inefficiencies within the industry, reduced quality outputs and supplying reduced value. Furthermore, it is not simply the case that learning within individual phases of the construction lifecycle, or within organisations will realise these benefits. For true efficiency benefits to be realised, knowledge and learning from projects has to be shared throughout the supply chain. This research s contribution has been established through the development of a feedback framework predominantly between construction and design teams throughout a project s lifecycle. The framework provides the capability to transfer lessons to not only individual organisations, but across organisational boundaries also. It seeks to improve internal knowledge management through incorporating critical facets such as live capture, multimedia formats and the ability to network with other knowledge owners/seekers. Accordingly, this project has made a significant theoretical contribution through identifying the ability and need to combine first and second generation knowledge management perspectives.

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The quality of any finished project in the construction industry relies mainly on the specifications written for that project. The specifications are benchmarks for the quality of the project, which should be referred to during all phases of the project. Successful specifications are normally associated with accuracy, clarity, coverage of all clauses, precession and the effectiveness of the description of the materials and methods of fixing. On the other hand, poor specifications often result in delays in handing-over, escalation of prices due to variations, disputes, high penalties, loss of trust and compromise in the quality of the finished project. The construction industry in Bahrain often suffers from poor specifications. In order to determine the severity of the problem, a questionnaire survey was undertaken to analysis the present standard of specifications used in the construction industry in Bahrain. The outcomes of the survey revealed major setbacks in the standard of the existing specifications such as inappropriate repetition, excessive conflict, unclear and uncompleted clauses with little precession. The majority of respondents called for a change in the situation. Improvement of quality has become a major challenge faced by the construction industry and can involve, reducing cost solving problems of rework, reducing maintenance cost and improving the life cycle value of the buildings. Total Quality Management has become one of the best solutions to overcome the problems, and specification could be used as a gate to introducing TQM to the construction industry. Specifications are approach to setting the standard of quality for any construction project, and used as a tool to get design and construction teams committed to the projects quality standards through all stages of the construction process. The overall afin of Us thesis is to develop a framework for implementing Total Quality Management (TQM) in the construction industry in Bahrain, by developing a dynamic specifications model which will help to improve performance in the construction industry, improve consultant-client- constructor- supplier chain relation, control the budget of the project and reduce disputes, claims and variations in the construction industry.

Claims negotiation plays an important role in construction claims settlement and disputes resolution. However, claims negotiations are normally conducted inefficiently. Although many research projects have been undertaken on human behaviours in negotiation (e.g. negotiation planning, documentation and negotiation strategies) and computer-aided negotiation, there is not an effective approach to solving such problem. The development of multi-agent systems provides an innovative approach to facilitating claims negotiation, where intelligent agents can negotiate with each other for the real world parties that they represent. The significance of multi-agent systems lies in the fact that they match the fragmented nature of the construction industry. This thesis describes the work of developing a multi-agent system for construction claims negotiation (MASCOT). The objectives are to create an architecture for the agent system, and develop a negotiation mechanism for agent interaction. A conceptual MASCOT model is designed based on a thorough analysis of the nature, characteristics and problems of construction claims negotiation, multi-agent systems negotiation mechanisms, and negotiation theories. A modified Monotonic Concession protocol and the related negotiation strategies which are based on the integration of Zeuthen's risk evaluation model and Bayesian learning model were developed. A prototype was built using the ZEUS agent building toolkit and Java. The system was then assessedin terms of the quality of the negotiation mechanisma nd prototype using critical evaluation criteria and prototype evaluation. The result revealed that the MASCOT system could significantly enhance the efficiency of construction claims negotiation. Furthermore, it is recognised that multi-agent systems have a great potential to solve the fragmentation problem in other construction areas such as scheduling, concurrent engineering; and collaborative design, particularly when the project team members are geographically distributed. This research not only contributes to the improvement of construction claims negotiation, bdt also provides an effective approach for the development of multi-agent 'system negotiation mechanism.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 351-400) Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 351-400) Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DX201798.

Thesis (M. S.)--Michigan State University. Construction Management Program , 2006. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on June 19, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 147-150). Also issued in print.