Promise and Barriers to Technology Enabled and Open Project Team Collaboration

In today’s world, construction projects require the collaboration of several parties who work independently for a shared purpose, sometimes across space and time, and most of the time across organizational boundaries. Working with a wide diversity of knowledge and skills brings a broad range of viewpoints and expertise to the construction projects. In design and construction, organizations depend on information technology to execute their specific well-defined tasks to make construction projects possible. Technology is used either for executing these tasks more efficiently, or for doing things that were not possible before. Nevertheless, despite the potential positive contribution of these tools to the design and construction processes and organizations, barriers still exist for achieving success. This paper presents potential benefits of technology enabled and open project team collaboration with a case study example and outlines cultural and legal barriers to its widespread adoption by the construction industry.     

Exploiting Knowledge Management: The Engineering and Construction Perspective

Construction companies have always relied on their knowledge assets to provide services to clients. In recent years the terminology “knowledge management” has been introduced. Knowledge management (KM) seeks to formalize the manner in which companies exploit their knowledge assets by harnessing organizational knowledge, promoting greater collaboration between groups with similar interests, capturing and using lessons learned on previous projects, etc. This paper investigates how major United States engineering design and construction firms are implementing knowledge management initiatives in order to identify best practice. It adopts a case study methodology to investigate companies’ strategy and implementation, people aspects, and metrics for performance. The study finds that there is a clear distinction between the knowledge management activities undertaken by large engineering design firms and those of construction firms. There is also a much greater emphasis on knowledge sharing, which is just one component of knowledge management. Moreover, some companies have specific KM initiatives while others have activities that are part of their normal business processes.     

Ontology-Centered Knowledge Management Using Information Retrieval Techniques

The paper argues that an effective solution to information and knowledge management (KM) needs of practitioners in the construction industry can be found in the provision of an adapted knowledge environment that makes use of user profiling and document summarization techniques based on information retrieval sciences. The conceptualization of the domain through ontology takes a pivotal role in the proposed knowledge environment and provides a semantic referential to ensure relevance, accuracy, and completeness of information. A set of KM services articulated around the selected ontology have been developed, using the Web services model, tested, and validated in real organizational settings. This provided the basis for formulating recommendations and key success factors for any KM project development.     

ISO 9000 and the U.S. Construction Industry

ISO 9000, the series of quality management standards issued by the International Organization for Standardization, is being used by organizations involved in construction all over the world. The construction industry in the United States has generally lagged behind other industries and other countries in the acceptance and implementation of ISO 9000 standards. Differing opinions surround the issue of ISO 9000 in the U.S. construction industry; it has received either the support or the criticism of experts, who weigh the effects of ISO 9000 as a matter of real improvements in quality against competitiveness and specific requirements at a domestic and international level. This paper attempts to determine the applicability and effectiveness of ISO 9000 in U.S. construction firms and the barriers that hinder its acceptance. The methodology used consists of a literature review and a survey distributed to a sample of firms that have or have not received ISO 9000 certification. After analyzing the gathered data, it was concluded that ISO 9000 is an appropriate and effective tool for construction firms in the United States, although several obstacles affect its implementation and acceptance among construction organizations.     

Organizational Culture and Knowledge Management Success at Project and Organizational Levels in Contracting Firms

This research focuses on contracting firms within the construction sector. It characterizes and evaluates the composition of organizational culture using four culture types (clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy), the strategic approach for knowledge flow, and the success of knowledge management (KM) systems at different hierarchical levels of contracting organizations (project and parent organization level). Responses from managers of local or overseas contracting firms operating in Hong Kong were collected using a carefully constructed questionnaire survey that was distributed through electronic mail. The organizational value is analyzed in terms of the four cultural models. Clan culture is found to be the most popular at both project and organization levels, which means that the culture of contracting firms very much depends on honest communication, respect for people, trust, and cohesive relationships. On the other hand, hierarchy culture, which focuses on stability and continuity, and analysis and control, seems to be the least favored at both levels. Another significant finding was that the two main KM strategies for knowledge flow, codification and personalization, were employed at both project and organization levels in equal proportion. This indicates that successful KM efforts at both enterprise levels utilize a hybrid and balanced approach for their knowledge flow, and that they complement each other. The findings also revealed that knowledge management system success factors emphasize the support of the management level. The results show that KM is critical and beneficial as indicated by 64% at the project and 74% at the organization level. The expectation is higher for organizations as they are the organizational memories in which experiences of past projects are archived and connected. Understanding these factors and the relationships among them has been demonstrated to be critical in order to increase the chances of success or to help with making decisions when applying KM.     

Difficulties and Hindrances Facing End Users of Electronic Information Exchange Systems in Design and Construction

Since information and communication technology (ICT) was introduced into the construction industry over a decade ago, the once fledging technologies have now been well developed. ICT has been commonly adopted, particularly in places where speedy construction is the norm, e.g., in Hong Kong. At the time when ICT is seemingly well developed, this paper aims at identifying the difficulties and hindrances facing the end users of such information exchange systems during design and construction and the consequential effects on project performance. Through literature review, a series of structured interviews, and a questionnaire survey, it is found that industry users welcomed the advancement of ICT, but that the necessary technical and psychological supports from their organizations were insufficiently provided. In addition, significant differences on the hindrances and their consequential effects have been identified between end users in the private sector and those in the public sector. The study findings have also highlighted factors impeding the smooth implementation of ICT systems at the end-user level, which would help organizations to formulate effective strategies to cope with ever-evolving communication technologies and changes in working style.     

Implementing Web-Based Project Management Systems in the United States and Japan

This paper reports on results of research conducted at the University of Washington to investigate the means and methods for overcoming barriers to the implementation of Web-based project management systems (WPMS), and to develop a set of best practices in both the United States and Japanese construction industries. The United States and Japanese economies are high-tech intensive and both cultures have embraced technology. However, a relatively small sector of the construction industry in each country has implemented WPMS. The question posed here is why have these drivers not resulted in the industry’s adoption of this new technology, and further, perhaps there are lessons learned from those who have successfully implemented WPMS. This research seeks to broaden our understanding of implementation barriers that are limiting the use of WPMS tools as well as means and methods of overcoming those barriers based on successful implementation in both countries.     

Identification of Effective Management Practices and Technologies for Lessons Learned Programs in the Construction Industry

Organizations in the construction industry cannot afford to make repetitive mistakes on major projects. Conversely, there are great benefits to repeating positive experiences from past projects. This need for institutional memory is amplified by the reality that in the course of normal turnover and retirement, people with years of experience leave their organizations. An effective lessons learned program is a critical element in the management of institutional knowledge; it will facilitate the continuous improvement of processes and procedures and provide a direct advantage in an even more competitive industry. This paper describes a research study that aimed to identify effective management practices and technologies for lessons learned programs in the construction industry. Data from 70 organizations that participated in this study are presented. Research found that even though more lessons learned programs are being initiated, the potential for savings and improvement has not been fully met. The study has also identified seven crucial characteristics of a successful program and verified that most organizations are stronger in some categories and weaker in others. The key to an effective program is to address all seven areas and guidance is provided for those wishing to implement lessons learned programs.     

Using Group Decision Support System to Support Value Management Workshops

A group decision support system (GDSS) is an interactive computer-based information system that combines the capabilities of communication technologies, database technologies, computer technologies, and decision technologies to support the identification, analysis, formulation, evaluation, and solution of semistructured or unstructured problems by a group in a user-friendly computing environment. As there is a strong demand for improvements to the practice of value management (VM), research has been conducted to design a GDSS prototype system, named the interactive value management system (IVMS), to explore its potential application in VM workshops and to investigate the effect of the application. The paper begins with an introduction to the problems of implementing VM in the Hong Kong construction industry and then proceeds to an illustration of the features of the proposed system, which has been developed in the research. Two validation studies designed to test the support of the proposed system are described and the results discussed. Findings from this research indicate that IVMS is supportive in overcoming the problems and difficulties in VM workshops.     

Computerized DSS for Construction Conflict Resolution under Uncertainty

Due to the inherent nature of construction projects, conflicts are unavoidable among the various parties involved. Such conflicts often delay projects and cause losses for all parties. This paper presents the development of a decision support system (DSS) to help in resolving construction disputes. The DSS integrates the elimination method to shortlist promising resolutions to a conflict, the graph model for conflict resolution to determine the best resolution that satisfies all decision makers’ preferences, and the information gap theory to consider uncertain decision preferences. A prototype system has been developed and a case study of a construction conflict used to demonstrate its features. The presented methodology for construction conflict resolution is useful for both researchers and practitioners to better deal with the dispute-prone nature of the construction industry under uncertainty and lack of information. In this paper, the proposed prototype successfully simulated and predicted the sequence of decisions that took place in the case study dispute, in the presence of uncertainty.     

Economic evaluation under managed competition: evidence from the U.K

Although economic evaluation in health care has a long-standing tradition in the United Kingdom, very little is known about its impact on decision making, particularly following the introduction of the internal market. Since managed competition appears to be growing in popularity worldwide, the U.K. is an interesting case study, as the reforms are well underway and there have been a number of efforts to conduct and disseminate economic evaluations. In this paper the potential for using economic evaluation in health care decision making in the U.K. is discussed. Then its actual impact is assessed in two ways. First, two case studies are discussed, on heart transplantation and the use of pharmaceuticals in the management of labour in pregnancy. Second, new data from a recent survey of potential users of economic evaluations are presented, with the emphasis on exploring the reasons for the impact, or lack of impact, of economic results. It is concluded that the NHS reforms increase the potential for the use of economic evaluation. However, there is a need to increase decision makers' awareness of economic studies and to help them interpret study methodology and results. Although worries about validity of economic studies are one of the major barriers to their use, other important barriers relate to the multiple objectives being pursued, of which increased efficiency is just one, and the difficulties of freeing resources from existing services in order to divert them to more cost-effective treatments and programmes.     

Knowledge Management to Learning Organization Connection

The changes in the engineering-construction industry of the 21st century require organizations to take a more active role in developing knowledge management and learning organization initiatives. The need to both retain knowledge within the organization and focus on continuous human resource development throughout all levels of the organization is becoming a primary challenge throughout the industry. This paper addresses this challenge by focusing on the question of the link between knowledge management and learning organizations, and how to transform an organization from a focus on knowledge management to a focus on developing a learning culture. Based on a series of studies by the writers into the characteristics of both knowledge management and learning organizations, this paper outlines models of each of these concepts and introduces a bridge that details the level of knowledge management implementation that must be in place prior to an organization having the capacity to move to a learning focus. Additionally, the case studies conducted during the current study provide a basis for presenting potentially unsuccessful paths that may be selected by organizations during the implementation of a knowledge management to learning organization transition.     

Application of Dependency Structure Matrix for Activity Sequencing in Concurrent Engineering Projects

The dependency structure matrix (DSM) has been identified as an apt tool to represent information flows between activities. Using this representation, information dependency attributes can be organized and analyzed in a structured manner to identify activity groups and sequences for concurrent execution. Current DSM methodology requires significant efforts from the experts to estimate information dependency attributes. The methodology can be more widely used if the estimating efforts are reduced. This paper proposes two concepts to reduce the estimating efforts required for the DSM methodology. The first concept reduces the number of information dependency ratings required and the second concept reduces the effort to estimate the rating. The proposed concepts are structured into a procedure. This procedure is applied to the design phase of an induced draft cooling tower (IDCT) project and discussed. The paper also discusses the shortcomings and future directions of the present approach and concludes that the present approach is applicable in IDCT projects and can be extended to other types of projects.     

Development of a Methodology for Live Capture and Reuse of Project Knowledge in Construction

The efforts to share and reuse knowledge generated on construction projects are undermined mainly by the loss of important insights and knowledge due to the time lapse in capturing the knowledge, staff turnover, and people’s reluctance to share knowledge. To address this, it is crucial for knowledge to be captured “live” in a collaborative environment while the project is being executed and presented in a format that will facilitate its reuse during and after the project. This paper uses a case study approach to investigate the end-users’ requirements for a methodology for the live capture and reuse of knowledge, and the shortcomings of current practice in meeting these requirements. A methodology for the live capture and reuse of project knowledge is then presented and discussed. The methodology, which comprises a web-based knowledge base, an integrated work-flow system and a project knowledge manager as the administrator, allows project knowledge to be captured live from ongoing projects. This also incorporates mechanisms to hasten knowledge validation and the dissemination of the knowledge once it has been validated.     

Incorporating Domain Knowledge and Information Retrieval Techniques to Develop an Architectural/Engineering/Construction Online Product Search Engine

This paper introduces a domain-specific search engine, which was developed to take advantage of the growing online product information for surveying the virtual product market. Knowledge about a product was uniquely incorporated with query expansion operations and the extended Boolean model retrieval approach to handle issues associated with the search engine development. The search engine was designed to (1) represent and utilize the represented knowledge in the product domain; (2) identify online product information; and (3) then evaluate the collected online product information. A prototype search engine for testing was developed and statistically validated with five data sets with each data set being derived from a different type of product according to MasterFormat (Alexandria, Va.) categorization. The validation results indicated that compared with the tested general search engine or aggregated information service, the prototype was able to identify more distinct product manufacturers for procurement-related decision support.     

Construction Project Risk Assessment Using Existing Database and Project-Specific Information

This paper develops a risk assessment methodology for construction projects by combining existing large quantities of data and project-specific information through updating approaches. Earlier studies have indicated that risk assessment is still difficult for practicing engineers to use due to the requirement of data on too many input variables. However, the availability of existing large quantities of data and project-specific information makes it possible to simplify the risk assessment procedure. Two main ideas are pursued in this paper to facilitate practical implementation: identify and evaluate the critical risk events, and develop a systematic updating methodology. Both epistemic and aleatory types of uncertainties in the data are considered, and corresponding updating procedures are developed. The proposed methodology is illustrated for the construction risk assessment of a cable-stayed bridge.     

Focus groups reveal perils and promises of managed care for nurse practitioners

Decades of practice and research suggest that nurse practitioners (NPs) provide cost-effective and high-quality care. Managed care's emphasis on prevention and cost savings led some policy makers to view NPs as a way to meet the need for primary care providers. However, access to and utilization of NPs has increasingly been controlled by managed care organizations (MCOs) through their selection of providers for primary care panels. This study employed qualitative methodology to examine NPs' experiences with MCOs. Three focus groups, comprising 27 NPs in New York and Connecticut, revealed NPs' mixed reactions to managed care and a range of sentiments regarding NPs' efforts to be listed as primary care providers. The results reflected NPs' concerns about their perceived "invisibility," as well as their sense of "invincibility" in the ways in which NPs are responding to the barriers posed by MCOs. They identified barriers to, as well as ways to facilitate, being listed by MCOs, and described the importance of NPs working individually and collectively in negotiating with MCOs.     

Institutional Analysis of Infrastructure Problems: Case Study of Water Quality in Distribution Systems

Civil engineers working with public infrastructure face institutional problems, but they are hard to explain and no effective methodology for analyzing them has been available to civil engineers. As applied to public infrastructure, the term “institution” includes more than agencies and organizations, and extends to laws, customs, and management behaviors. A methodology for institutional analysis should provide a systematic way to answer questions about infrastructure that include: what are the laws and controls; what are the incentives; who has control and which roles; and what is the management culture? The methodology is presented and a case study of institutional problems with water quality in distribution systems identifies technical issues and gaps in institutional arrangements that inhibit solutions to them: fragmented authority, inadequate legal controls stemming from poor technical understanding, faulty incentive structures, management cultures, and unclear roles and responsibilities, made worse by difficulties in enabling the players to undertake their responsibilities. It was evident from the case study that unless institutional problems are addressed, progress is not possible on the technical and management issues. Whereas the elements of institutional analysis are not new, the methodology offers a repeatable way to structure the analysis.     

Framework to Support the Representations of Semantic Mappings for a Hybrid Integration Strategy

To provide an integrated information system for decision support, many previous studies focused on a strategy of sharing a common semantic model among heterogeneous data sources. Such a strategy has many advantages; however, it works only when it is possible for the heterogeneous data sources to share a common semantic model. For collaborating systems that cannot assume a prior knowledge of heterogeneity among them, a different strategy is needed. This paper, discussing a hybrid integration strategy and its applications to the architecture-engineering-construction industry, is focused on the development of a framework of semantic mappings so that high-level applications can use the mappings for data retrieval and processing. Based on a case study of integrating schedule and cost information, a prototype is developed to demonstrate the use of the framework, as well as to test the framework. Limitations and future studies are also discussed.     

Human error identification techniques for risk assessment of high risk systems--Part 1: Review and evaluation of techniques

This is the first in a two-part series of papers dealing with the area of assessing human errors in high risk complex systems. This first paper outlines thirty-eight approaches of error identification, categorising them into types of error identification approach. The paper then reviews these techniques with respect to a broad range of criteria. Viable and non-viable techniques are identified. Trends and research needs are also noted. The second paper proposes a framework or tool-kit approach to Human Error Identification, and presents a prototype methodology to show what such a framework approach would look like in practice, for the nuclear power domain.