• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.369-376
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• 2018

The majority of construction projects, from the initiation phase to the project completion and operation phase, are influenced by various types of corruption. Iran, as a developing country, has been suffering from this issue in bidding, tendering procedure, contracts etc. Therefore, due to the importance of this issue, this study attempted to identify the causes of corruption and evaluate the most significant factors in the construction projects in Iran. To this aim, an intensive literature review was performed to investigate the various types of corruption and identify the potential factors causing corruption in construction projects. The questionnaire survey was designed, considering twelve forms of corruption, including 77 causes of corruption in construction projects in Iran. Out of 220 distributed questionnaires, 188 were returned by the participants. The valid collected data sets were analyzed and then Exploratory Factor Analysis was applied. It was discovered that "Inappropriate power-sharing," "Lack of obligation for human resources to properly use resources and abide by the rules and regulations" and "Lack of any monitoring of the government's performance" are the most significant factors. Findings from the study would be valuable for the construction projects authorities and academia in order to combat corruption in the construction projects.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.1-24
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• 2019

Poor project performance has been noted as the bane in the construction industry globally. This paper sought to investigate, by way of literature, the performance patterns of construction projects in Kenya since independence (1963-2018). This was informed by reports of undesirable project performance in the industry. This descriptive study used available studies previously done in this subject area. In sum, literature is replete with evidence on a myriad of challenges facing the execution of projects. The study established that generally, the project performance is poor and has assumed a chronic trajectory spanning over five decades. On average, the findings reveal that 35-60% of projects initiated in Kenya face cost overruns while time overrun is most severe with 35-73% projects overrunning their schedule. In addition, the findings problematize the issue of plurality of performance measurement regimes in the construction industry. Here, it was observed that no singular construct exists to objectively measure the various facets that constitute the 'health' of a project. This paper has contributed to the body of knowledge by examining the performance patterns in Kenya for over fifty years while at the same time identifying the bottlenecks inherent in projects execution. Importantly, the conceptual performance efficiency framework derived in the current study presents a paradigm shift in the monitoring and evaluation of projects. To this end, an in-depth analysis is recommended on the interaction of efficiency enablers in the buildup of performance efficiency index (PEI). Similarly, a further inquiry is recommended on the integration and impact of the proposed framework in the management of projects.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.50-59
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• 2022

In the Construction Technology Promotion Act (CTPA) of the Republic of Korea, safety management cost is enforced as a statutory cost that must be included in the budget of construction projects. However, the construction of underground electric power transmission facilities (UEPTFs) is not included in the category of construction works defined in the CTPA. Consequently, the statutory safety management cost does not apply to the construction of UEPTFs. To overcome this limitation, the clients of UEPTF construction projects generally provide internal guidelines enabling the addition of the safety management cost in the project budget. Nevertheless, even after the execution of the internal guidelines, some important cost items are omitted from the budget owing to the incompleteness of the guidelines. In this context, this paper proposes a complete set of accounting items and their calculation methods for appropriate budgeting of the safety management cost of UEPTF construction projects. To this end, the current budgeting method of the safety management cost of UEPTF construction projects is analyzed, and a questionnaire study is performed to confirm the necessary cost items and their appropriate calculation methods. Based on the results of the questionnaire study, a set of accounting items and their calculation criteria for the budgeting of the safety management cost of UEPTF construction projects are proposed.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.20-28
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• 2017

In almost every construction project, delay is an inevitable yet controllable phenomenon. The Indian construction industry encounters an enormous amount of delays in projects. Delay affects both time and money in the forms of schedule and cost overruns, respectively. Due to impressive and dynamic growth in the Indian construction sector, planned efforts are essential to limit these undesirable delays. On account of the surge in the rate of residential building construction, the task of identification and analysis of the delays in residential projects in India has been attempted by the authors. A questionnaire survey was conducted involving 100 stakeholders. Further analysis included an Importance Index to rank the identified delays, Principle Component Analysis for advanced statistical analysis, and Correlation Analysis to check the extent of agreement amongst stakeholders. Conclusions drawn with reference to the analysed data eventually reflected finance-related issues, as well as labour related problems as the dominating causes of delays. The aim of the research is to provide insight to the construction stakeholders and researchers, on an international scale, with the obtained results.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.111-118
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• 2022

Conflicts in public construction projects become more serious and complex so that they have a negative effect on performance of projecets. Conflicts in public construction projects are defined as expanding in complaints. This study analyzes the relationship structure and effect on performance between complaints and conflicts. First of all, 219 survey data collected from industry experts were used to derive complaints arising from the project and to understand the characteristics of each complaint. In the case of environmental damages, rather than environmental damage during construction, harmful substances or effects that can occur in completed facilities cause complaints from local residents, and opposition from environmental groups has a great effect on time and cost increase. As for safety damage, civil complaints related to prevention and countermeasures for safety accidents occur frequently, and additional construction affects cost increases. Through this study, it is possible to understand the serious complaints that are prone to conflict in public construction projects, their frequency, and the performance of the project.

• Advances in Computational Design
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.445-465
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• 2020

This paper presents a study conducted with the aim of developing a model of tendering based on a technique of artificial intelligence by managing and controlling the factors of success or failure of construction projects through the evaluation of the process of invitation to tender. Aiming to solve this problem, analysis of the current environment based on SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) is first carried out. Analysis was evaluated through a case study of the construction projects in Algeria, to bring about the internal and external factors which affect the process of invitation to tender related to the construction projects. This paper aims to develop a mean to identify threats-opportunities and strength-weaknesses related to the environment of various national construction projects, leading to the decision on whether to continue the project or not. Following a SWOT analysis, novel artificial intelligence models in forecasting the project status are proposed. The basic principal consists in interconnecting the different factors to model this phenomenon. An artificial neural network model is first proposed, followed by a model based on fuzzy logic. A third model resulting from the combination of the two previous ones is developed as a hybrid model. A simulation study is carried out to assess performance of the three models showing that the hybrid model is better suited in forecasting the construction project status than RNN (recurrent neural network) and FL (fuzzy logic) models.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.35-38
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• 2013

No single project is identical to one another in the construction industry. Furthermore, many construction projects are suffering from tighter budget, shortened schedule and higher client satisfaction level. To overcome these, project managers and engineers are willing to apply various best management practices to their projects. However, it is non-trivial to select the most appropriate practices for their projects. In many cases, it is much more important to find the appropriateness of the management practices than just to use the practices. Although many researchers are focusing on the development of new management practices, there is little research on matching between the circumstances of projects and the developed management practices. The objective of this study is to provide a structured process to suggest the best management practices for individual construction projects by developing a computerized system where an individual project is matched with the most optimal management practices to increase the value of the project. At this stage of writing, the authors have developed a computerized system to effectively find out the best suitable management practices for individual projects. By maximizing the usages of this system, it would facilitate the application of the best management practices in the industry.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2007.03a
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• pp.530-539
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• 2007

Many construction projects such as highways, pipelines, tunnels, and high-rise buildings typically contain repetitive activities. Research has shown that the Critical Path Method (CPM) is not efficient in scheduling linear construction projects that involve repetitive tasks. Linear Scheduling Method (LSM) is one of the techniques that have been developed since 1960s to handle projects with repetitive characteristics. Although LSM has been regarded as a technique that provides significant advantages over CPM in linear construction projects, it has been mainly viewed as a graphical complement to the CPM. Studies of scheduling linear construction projects with resource consideration are rare, especially with multiple resource constraints. The objective of this proposed research is to explore a resource assignment mechanism, which assigns multiple critical resources to all activities to minimize the project duration while satisfying the activities precedence relationship and resource limitations. Resources assigned to an activity are allowed to vary within a range at different stations, which is a combinatorial optimization problem in nature. A heuristic multiple resource allocation algorithm is explored to obtain a feasible initial solution. The Simulated Annealing search algorithm is then utilized to improve the initial solution for obtaining near-optimum solutions. A housing example is studied to demonstrate the resource assignment mechanism.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2013.01a
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• pp.624-627
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• 2013

No single project is identical to one another in the construction industry. Furthermore, many construction projects are suffering from tighter budget, shortened schedule and higher client satisfaction level. To overcome these, project managers and engineers are willing to apply various best management practices to their projects. However, it is non-trivial to select the most appropriate practices for their projects. In many cases, it is much more important to find the appropriateness of the management practices than just to use the practices. Although many researchers are focusing on the development of new management practices, there is little research on matching between the circumstances of projects and the developed management practices. The objective of this study is to provide a structured process to suggest the best management practices for individual construction projects by developing a computerized system where an individual project is matched with the most optimal management practices to increase the value of the project. At this stage of writing, the authors have developed a computerized system to effectively find out the best suitable management practices for individual projects. By maximizing the usages of this system, it would facilitate the application of the best management practices in the industry.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.40-49
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• 2022

Simple statistical frequency based analysis, such as Pareto analysis, are widely used in conventional accident analysis. However, due to the dynamic and complex nature of construction works, many factors can simultaneously affect or involve the occurrence of accidents in construction projects. Therefore, the identification of the complex relationship between such factors is important to establish relevant and effective safety management policies and/or programs. In this study, characteristic factors and their relationships' contribution to non-fatal accidents in construction projects are analyzed using the association rule mining (ARM) technique. To this end, a total of 59,202 construction accident data are collected from 2015 to 2019 and the ARM is performed to retrieve specific relationships -named as association rules-among classified factors in the data. Characteristics of the retrieved relationships are analyzed and compared with the results of conventional Pareto analysis. Based on the results, it is found that both fall and trip are notable accident forms having characteristic relations with other factors for non-fatal accidents in construction projects. It is also found that small-scale construction, age of 50s, less than 1 month of working period, and architectural construction are important factors for non-fatal accidents in construction projects.