In September 2017 Hurricane Maria made landfall on the U.S territory island of Puerto Rico, causing substantial damage to the already weakened infrastructure and other aspects of the built environment. This research attempted to identify the challenges and opportunities that have been encountered within the Puerto Rican commercial and civil construction industry during the first year of reconstruction, post-Hurricane Maria. This was done by identifying the effects of the storm as well as the strategies of construction companies involved in the reconstruction process. The study used the events occurring after the passing of the hurricane as a case study to conduct interviews with those involved in the reconstruction efforts. The interviews followed a semi- structured interview approach to gather the data. The research found how the reconstruction efforts in Puerto Rico affected the commercial and civil construction industries, exploring the challenges, opportunities, and changes to typical business practices with regard to finances, labor, equipment, and material changes after Hurricane Maria. This was accomplished by highlighting the methods and processes used by the construction industry professionals and identifying the ones that were effective and/or ineffective in rebuilding the island. This research provided a number of key findings regarding reconstruction efforts. first, the large amounts of reconstruction related work following the storm boosted the economy of the industry and companies began growing in size and employing more personnel to fit their business needs. Second, unfortunately the vast amounts of reconstructive work created by Hurricane Maria also created a deficit in skilled labor in Puerto Rico. Third, initial reconstruction efforts were heavily focused on clearing debris, greatly benefitting companies that owned their own equipment. Finally, material availability proved to be a limiting factor in reconstruction, and lead times were directly increased because of Hurricane Maria.

There has been an increase in adoption of building information modeling (BIM) by commercial contractors over the past few years but there is not a clear indication of current application or the frequency of each use. This research was undertaken to determine the frequency and best practices of using BIM in commercial construction. Leading commercial contracting firms were contacted and employees were selected to complete a telephone survey that was designed to determine how they are using BIM. It was found that BIM is being used with more frequency on projects, with plans to continue to implement it even further on all projects that allow for its use. Most companies are incorporating trade contractors in their coordination meetings but are taking the lead to ensure a high standard is maintained. Trade contractors are given responsibility to resolve smaller clashes while bringing the larger problems to the clash detection meetings. The model quality being received is increasing as well the frequency of models being received from the design team; however, there is a lack of consensus as to the level of development requirement to ensure the model can be used for facilities management. Commercial contractors are adopting building information modeling for a variety of reasons. These include client requirements, innovative technology strategies, and fear of being left behind. Overall its use improves processes within their companies. The general agreement is that BIM is having a positive impact on profitability, schedules and sales. BIM further improves the efficiency, effectiveness and competitiveness. The best practices undertaken by commercial contractors include using BIM as a sales and marketing tool, utilizing subcontractors knowledge and allowing them to resolve minor clashes, having combination of BIM teams and BIM experts and investing in training employees and further development of BIM uses.

The Design/Bid/Build (DBB) delivery method has historically been the most popular and the most effective means of determining the least cost for building a project based upon a set of construction documents. In recent years, however, other project delivery methods, including but limited to Construction Manager/General Contractor (CM/GC) and Design/Build (DB), have slowly taken a share of the construction market away from the DBB delivery method. The choice of delivery method that will produce the best value for an owner in the measurements of efficiency in quality, cost, and timeliness depends upon the type of project and the business culture of the project owner. A unique opportunity for a comparative study was presented by the Meetinghouse Facilities Department (MFD) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The MFD completed over 200 repetitive meetinghouse projects in the U.S. over a five-year period (1999-2003), contracting approximately two-thirds of the projects using a CM/GC delivery method with an attached partnering agreement. The remaining meetinghouses were contracted using a DBB delivery method. A comprehensive comparison was conducted measuring all of the efficiencies created by the selection of delivery method, including short- and long-term costs, direct and indirect costs, construction cycle time, and quality assessment scores. After identifying and then adjusting for several confounding variables in the historical data, the statistical analysis provided evidence that the CM/GC delivery method proved to be the best value for the MFD by producing a total cost savings of over 5.5 percent on the meetinghouse projects when compared to the DBB meetinghouse projects. Construction cycle time was 20% shorter on the CM/GC meetinghouse projects and quality assessment (QA) scores were consistently higher. In regards to a 10-year life cycle repair costs, the CM/GC delivery method produced a higher quality meetinghouse, reducing repair costs by 34% when compared to the DBB meetinghouse projects.

Lean construction is often suggested as way of enhancing the productivity of the construction industry. There are no clear definitions of lean construction, but it is often referred to as a construction management philosophy that aims to minimize waste and maximise customer value. Adopting lean construction in a project can be difficult and there are several critical factors for successful implementation; one of which is the use of lean construction practices. Lean construction practices are tools, techniques and strategies through which the principles of lean construction can be implemented. It has been pointed out that there is lack of information on the number of existing practices and their exact area of use. This master thesis report identified lean practices that have been implemented in commercial construction projects, and categorised them according to the phases of lean construction. The report also explored which lean production-planning-and-control- practices have been adopted by a commercial construction contractor. To identify the lean practices, a literature analysis was conducted based on the documents reviewed by Babalola et al. (2019) in their article ‘Implementation of lean practices in the construction industry: A systematic review’. This revealed 22 different lean practices that have been implemented in commercial construction projects, with the Last Planner System having been reported the most followed by Just in Time and Pull Scheduling. The literature analysis also resulted in the project delivery stages in which each identified practice had been adopted. This helped categorise the practices according to the phases of lean construction. The phases were defined by the conceptual framework ‘The Lean Project Delivery System’ as Project Definition, Lean Design, Lean Supply, Lean Assembly and Lean Use. The categorisation showed that (out of the 22 identified practices) 3 practices belong to the phase Project Definition, while 8, 9, 15 and 0 practices belong to the other phases respectively. To explore which lean production-planning-and-control-practices have been adopted by a commercial construction contractor, a case study was conducted of the production phase of a large-sized project referred to as Project X. Seven members of the production team were interviewed as to reveal the contractor’s working methods in the planning and control of production in terms of time, activity and logistics. The revealed working methods were then compared to 9 out of the 22 identified lean practices, since they were interpreted as production-planning-and-control-practices. This analysis showed that six of those practices were seemingly implemented in the production of Project X, while one was partially implemented and two were not implemented. / Lean byggproduktion föreslås ofta som ett sätt att öka produktiviteten i byggbranschen. Det finns inga tydliga definitioner av lean byggproduktion, men konceptet beskrivs ofta som en filosofi för byggledning som ämnar minimera avfall och maximera kundvärdet. Att anta lean byggproduktion i ett projekt kan vara svårt och det finns ett antal kritiska faktorer för lyckad implementering, varav en är användandet av lean byggverktyg. Lean byggverktyg är verktyg, tekniker och strategier genom vilka principerna av lean byggproduktion kan implementeras. Det har påpekats att det finns brist på information om antalet befintliga lean byggverktyg och deras användningsområden. Denna rapport identifierade lean verktyg som har implementerats i kommersiella byggprojekt, och kategoriserade de enligt faserna av lean byggproduktion. Rapporten utforskade också vilka lean verktyg för planering och styrning av produktion som har antagits av en kommersiell byggentreprenör. För att identifiera leanverktyg i kommersiella byggprojekt så genomfördes en litteraturanalys baserat på de dokument som granskats av Babalola et al. (2019) i deras artikel ‘Implementation of lean practices in the construction industry: A systematic review’. Detta avslöjade 22 olika lean byggverktyg som implementerats i diverse kommersiella byggprojekt, där Last Planner System har rapporterats mest följt av Just in Time och Pull Scheduling. Litteraturanalysen resulterade också i projektleveransstadierna där varje identifierat verktyg hade implementerats. Detta hjälpte att kategorisera verktygen enligt faserna av lean byggproduktion. Faserna definierades av det konceptuella ramverket ’The Lean Project Delivery System’ som Project Definition, Lean Design, Lean Supply, Lean Assembly och Lean Use. Kategoriseringen visade att (utav de 22 identifierade verktygen) 3 verktyg tillhör fasen Project Definition, medan de resterande faserna innefattar 8, 9, 15 respektive 0 verktyg. För att utforska vilka lean verktyg för planering och styrning av produktion som har antagits av en kommersiell byggentreprenör så utfördes en fallstudie av produktionsfasen av ett stort projekt såkallat Projekt X. Sju medlemmar av produktionsteamet intervjuades för att uppenbara entreprenörens arbetsmetoder vid planering och styrning av produktion beträffande tid, aktivitet och logistik. De uppenbarade arbetsmetoderna jämfördes sedan med 9 av de 22 identifierade leanverktygen eftersom just de tolkades som verktyg för planering och styrning av produktion. Denna analys visade att sex av dessa verktyg var till synes implementerade i produktionen av Projekt X, medan en var delvis implementerad och två inte alls implementerade.