Establishing a Performance Index for Construction Project Managers

Establishing a Performance Index for Construction Project Managers
Author: Virendra Kumar Paul
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2023-03-07
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1000845850

Assessment of professional competence for project managers and the measure of project success is well-trodden ground in the research and professional project management literature. Whilst standards and certifications like PMBOK and the IPMA competence baseline have been developed as a guide for the development of project managers’ competence, the manifestation of these competencies into good performance is neither guaranteed nor always easily ascertainable. This book presents a brand new, comprehensive, and reliable quantitative tool to assess the performance of a construction project manager. Though the performance of a project construction manager may be judged on time and cost criteria of a project, there is still no one conclusive evaluation tool based on the varied criteria or competencies that are usually ascribed to them. This book develops a performance index for construction project professionals which can be indicative of their performance measured over varied attributes over the lifetime of their professional development. This index has the potential to provide all project stakeholders with better control over selecting appropriate resources for managing projects and drive the project professional from within towards improving his/her credentials with every project. This book can be used by aspiring and practising project managers for measuring their own performance and assessing their relative strengths and weaknesses. Organizations can use the tool as a benchmark to select the best of their human resources for their projects, and training institutions can use the tool to set a baseline, highlight areas for intervention, and indicate the readiness of trainees to face real world projects.

Measuring Performance and Benchmarking Project Management at the Department of Energy

Measuring Performance and Benchmarking Project Management at the Department of Energy
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2005-08-01
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 0309181763

In 1997, Congress, in the conference report, H.R. 105-271, to the FY1998 Energy and Water Development Appropriation Bill, directed the National Research Council (NRC) to carry out a series of assessments of project management at the Department of Energy (DOE). The final report in that series noted that DOE lacked an objective set of measures for assessing project management quality. The department set up a committee to develop performance measures and benchmarking procedures and asked the NRC for assistance in this effort. This report presents information and guidance for use as a first step toward development of a viable methodology to suit DOE's needs. It provides a number of possible performance measures, an analysis of the benchmarking process, and a description ways to implement the measures and benchmarking process.

Intelligent Computing in Engineering and Architecture

Intelligent Computing in Engineering and Architecture
Author: Ian F.C. Smith
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 703
Release: 2006-10-02
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3540462465

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 13th Workshop of the European Group for Intelligent Computing in Engineering and Architecture, EG-ICE 2006, held in Ascona, Switzerland in June 2006. The 59 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions for inclusion in the book. All issues of advanced informatics are covered including a range of techniques.

Designing a Framework to Estimate Project Duration with Respect to Weather Risk and Creating a Navigational Support System in Benchmark Space

Designing a Framework to Estimate Project Duration with Respect to Weather Risk and Creating a Navigational Support System in Benchmark Space
Author: Foad Marzoughi
Publisher:
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2018
Genre: Benchmarking (Management)
ISBN:

Construction projects often do not meet their targets, and usually face time and cost overruns (Agyakwah-Baah & Fugar, 2010; Memon, Abdul, & Abdul, 2012). Due to the complexity and dynamic nature of these projects, it is difficult for project managers to meet project objectives (Collyer & Warren, 2009). A substantial amount of work has been done to overcome this problem by developing different tools and methods, yet often projects still cannot meet their targets (Acebes, Pajares, Galán, & López-Paredes, 2014; Y. Chen, Zhang, Liu, & Mo, 2012). In the construction industry, a rich body of research has emerged to develop frameworks and tools for project management. The majority of current tools do not consider the dynamic nature of projects (Franceschini, Maurizio, & Domenico, 2007). Therefore, in this research, a decision support framework has been developed for the planning phase of a project lifecycle. In addition, a navigational support system has been created for the execution phase of the project lifecycle to monitor and control project performance. This thesis focuses on creating two artefacts: [1] a decision support framework for planning construction projects under uncertainty, in particular, severe weather conditions, and [2] a decision support system as a generic engine for controlling and monitoring key performance indicators at project level. For validation, we applied both artefacts to the construction industry and selected construction projects as cases. It is important to estimate a project’s duration properly in the initial phase to avoid cost and time overruns. Thus, the developed decision support framework in this thesis fills the gap in the phase of project planning by estimating project duration and taking into account the effect of weather on project performance and construction activities. Initial project planning is essential, but it is important to monitor and control the project to bring the project back on track if it veers off from the desired performance. Hence, project managers are keen to know the position of project performance with respect to the agreed criteria and what action to take to bring the project back on track. Thus, a decision support system called Navigational Support System (NSS) has been created to monitor and control project performance among multiple key performance indicators. This research consists of three original papers. Paper I provides a comprehensive review of the literature on the possible causes of delays, the problems with current methods and tools in construction projects in estimating project duration. This paper fills a gap in the literature by proposing a decision support framework to estimate project performance and duration with respect to weather, and presents a model developed through the proposed framework and validated in a real-case construction project. Paper II provides a comprehensive review of literature on the problems of existing performance measurement tools. A conceptual framework of the Navigational Support System (NSS) (Marzoughi & Arthanari, 2016a) based on the idea of navigating in benchmark space, introduced by Arthanari (2010), and the architecture of NSS is proposed. In addition, this paper illustrates the NSS using a case from interior design projects. Finally, Paper III illustrates the implementation of the generic engine proposed in Paper II for further validation in a real-life construction project. In this research, different methodologies have been used to validate both the decision support framework and NSS. In Paper I, multiple methodologies are used to integrate five modules (expert knowledge module, filtration module, multicriteria decision-making module, forecasting module and estimation module) to estimate the duration of construction project activities. Moreover, the techniques applied to integrate weather related variables in the process of estimating the duration of activities affected by weather, such as multivariate data analysis methods including principal component analysis, time series model building approaches, multi-criteria decision-making tools, non-linear multiple regression, and qualitative and quantitative data collection methods are introduced. In Paper II, a Navigational Support System (NSS) is created as a generic engine using design science research methodology. Multivariate statistical techniques and dynamic decision-making techniques were integrated to create the NSS. In Paper III, the NSS has been implemented in construction projects for validating created artefacts. Finally, the efficacy, validity and ease of use of the NSS are evaluated through applying the NSS in a real-life construction project.

Rethinking Construction

Rethinking Construction
Author: Construction Task Force (Great Britain)
Publisher:
Total Pages: 40
Release: 1998
Genre: Construction industry
ISBN: 9781851120949

Relational Contracting for Construction Excellence

Relational Contracting for Construction Excellence
Author: Albert P Chan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2009-09-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1134036027

Improved efficiency and effectiveness in the construction industry provide huge potential savings. Various forms of relational contracting such as partnering, alliancing, public private partnership (PPP), and joint venture are good examples of this. Relational Contracting for Construction Excellence presents the principles of relational contracting, practicalities and a series of short case studies. Principles begins with the fundamentals then covers development in major countries, definitions of relational contracting, their benefits, difficulties, critical success factors and key performance indicators. Practice includes the relational contracting approach and process in general, and significant factors which make workshops successful, at whatever stage of the process. A number of real-life case studies from the UK, USA, Australia, and Hong Kong are provided. Since the book draws on a combination of practical consultancy works and university research, a wide range of readers will find it useful, i.e. from industrial practitioners to undergraduate students.

Rural Built Environment of Sichuan Province, China

Rural Built Environment of Sichuan Province, China
Author: Yibin Ao
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2020-12-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 981334217X

Major changes are taking place in the Chinese countryside as China rushes to modernizes and urbanizes its rural fabric. The transformation is improving the quality of life of rural inhabitants, but also brings about challenges as people strive to adjust. This book systematically examines the impact of change on the daily lives and activities of the residents of Sichuan Province, in China’s South-west. It examines the themes of infrastructure, transport modes and preferences, sanitation, water conservation, earthquake and flood disaster preparedness, and the impact these have on villager behavior and quality of life. This book is an essential reference guide for graduate students and practitioners in the fields of rural planning, renewal, and construction.

Construction Project Management

Construction Project Management
Author: Kumar Neeraj Jha
Publisher: Pearson Education India
Total Pages: 706
Release: 2011
Genre: Construction industry
ISBN: 9788131732496

Construction Project Management deals with different facets of construction management emphasizing the basic concepts that any engineering student is supposed to know. The major principles of project management have been derived through real life case studies from the field. Simplified examples have been used to facilitate better understanding of the concepts before going into the large and complex problems. The book features computer applications (Primavera and MS Project) used to explain planning, scheduling, resource leveling, monitoring and reporting; it is highly illustrated with line dia.

Project Management for Facility Constructions

Project Management for Facility Constructions
Author: Alberto De Marco
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 183
Release: 2011-03-23
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3642170927

This book describes concepts, methods and practical techniques for managing projects to develop constructed facilities in the fields of oil & gas, power, infrastructure, architecture and the commercial building industries. It is addressed to a broad range of professionals willing to improve their management skills and designed to help newcomers to the engineering and construction industry understand how to apply project management to field practice. Also, it makes project management disciplines accessible to experts in technical areas of engineering and construction. In education, this text is suitable for undergraduate and graduate classes in architecture, engineering and construction management, as well as for specialist and professional courses in project management.