Design Phase Of Construction Projects Research Articles

Assessing interdisciplinary collaboration in the detailed design phase of construction projects: applying practice-based inter-organisational theories

Assessing interdisciplinary collaboration in the detailed design phase of construction projects: applying practice-based inter-organisational theories

An integrated building energy performance evaluation method: From parametric modeling to GA-NN based energy consumption prediction modeling

Building energy performance evaluation, as an important process in a sustainable building design, has important consequences for global energy conservation and environmental protection. The traditional methods to perform this evaluation are usually time-consuming and computationally complex, and have high requirements for designers’ professional knowledge on architectural physics and software operation skills. To solve these problems and provide rapid, user-friendly, and more accurate prediction results, this study presents an efficient building energy performance evaluation method which integrates building information modeling, energy simulation, and energy consumption prediction together. This method follows a three-stage research framework: Stage 1 proposes a rapid 3D building energy modeling process according to the parameterized setting, Stage 2 generates numerous simulation results automatically by EnergyPlus, and Stage 3 develops the user-friendly building energy consumption prediction model with the help of the Genetic Algorithm-Neural Network (GA-NN) and provides the energy performance level of the building design after the prediction. A case study is carried out to present the overall process and verify the accuracy of the proposed three-stage building energy performance evaluation method. This study contributes to the improvement of both the extensive dataset establishment and the operational efficiency of building energy consumption prediction. It can provide designers with a real-time, user-friendly, and reliable building energy consumption prediction tool and an energy performance assessment basis in the design phase of construction projects.

Structure for the classification of disassembly applied to BIM models.

ABSTRACT To consider disassembly from project inception is becoming an essential part of the design process. This approach enables the reuse and recycling of materials at the end of the life cycle of buildings, reducing the need for raw materials to produce new products whilst increasing a building's flexibility during any potential reconfiguration. Above all, disassembly contributes to sustainability within the sector. Little is known however about designing for future disassembly. In general, the design phase of construction projects tends to focus efforts on constructability, with the value of disassembly only becoming apparent during the decommissioning of a building. The construction sector is unfamiliar with the disassembly approach and the comprehensive information management process, linking design and decommissioning for over 60 years. Regarding this, advances in Building Information Modelling (BIM) research offer opportunities for further developing the field of design for disassembly (DfD) in construction projects. Addressing this knowledge gap, this research explores the structuring of DfD information enabled by BIM to support integrated design decision-making in construction. This applied research project is inherently exploratory and based on design science research. DfD principles were identified through a literature review. Primary data was collected through case-study research, informing the development of an integrated DfD information model for measuring disassembly levels, restricted to the most common materials and construction systems used in Brazil. This research presents both a contribution to practice, by developing an information model structure to support DfD and integrated design, also to DfD knowledge by proposing a disassembly classification system.

BDM–MDM integrated solution concept for scheduling information-driven projects

PurposeScheduling in information-driven design phase of construction projects is challenging due to multiple entity types (teams, components, deliverables, activities or parameters) and their dependencies/linkages. Established techniques such as dependency structure matrix (DSM), beeline diagramming method (BDM), multiple domain matrix (MDM), etc. have been independently utilized in past to model information dependencies/linkages and associated iteration. However, there has not been a holistic solution yet for scheduling multiple entity types and their relationships. Hence, an integrated solution needs to be developed that schedules information-driven projects accurately.Design/methodology/approachA case study data collection approach is utilized. With data from two projects, i.e. hostel design and highway design, a BDM–MDM integrated solution was developed and applied to the same. Feedback from experts was obtained for refinements.FindingsThe proposed solution is efficient for scheduling multiple entity types and their information dependencies/linkages.Practical implicationsThe proposed integrated solution enables the project participants to schedule information-driven projects systematically. Application to two distinct design cases emphasizes that the concept is generic and can be applied to any information-driven project with multiple entity types.Originality/valueThe BDM–MDM integrated solution concept is investigated for scheduling multiple entity types in any information-driven projects. This study also explored the terminologies such as multiple entity types and information-driven scheduling.

Bina Projelerinde Tasarım Aşaması Toplantılarının Değişiklik Emirlerine Etkisi

Management of the design phase of construction projects affects the success of the projects. Generally, architects are the main actors who dominate the whole process of the building constructions. In this study, the architects’ design experiences in terms of the effect of design phase meetings on change orders in building construction projects are investigated. As a result of the study, it is concluded that there is no relationship between the frequency of meetings and requested and realized project changes in the design phase. It is also observed that, except for the architects, if the formation of the stakeholders participating in the design meetings can be varied, this can minimize the project changes and possible problems due to conflicting interests, and the participation of different groups to the design phase meetings could be a way of keeping the requests of changes in design and construction stage to a minimum.

An ensemble method to improve prediction of earthquake-induced soil liquefaction: a multi-dataset study

Evaluation of earthquake-induced liquefaction potential is crucial in the design phase of construction projects. Although several machine learning models achieve good prediction accuracy on their particular datasets, they may not perform well in other liquefaction datasets. To address this issue, we proposed a novel hybrid classifier ensemble to improve generalizability by combining the predictions of seven base classifiers using the weighted voting method. The applied base classifiers include back propagation neural network, support vector machine, decision tree, k-nearest neighbours, logistic regression, multiple linear regression and naive Bayes. The hyperparameters and weights of the base classifiers were tuned using the genetic algorithm. To verify the robustness of the classifier ensemble, its performance was tested on three datasets collected from previous published researches. The results show that the proposed classifier ensemble outperforms the base classifiers in terms of a variety of performance metrics including accuracy, Kappa, precision, recall, F1 score, AUC and ROC on the three datasets. In addition, the importance of influencing variables was achieved by the classifier ensemble on the three datasets to facilitate the future data collecting work. This robust ensemble method can be extended to solve other classification problems in civil engineering.

An Assessment of Lean Design Management Practices in Construction Projects

Evidence exists for the application of lean management practices in the design process. However, there is no systematic review of this type of practice that links the design management practices to the lean construction principles. There is no tool to assess the level of use of lean design management practices in construction projects either. Therefore, this paper aims to assess the lean management practices that are performed at the design phase of construction projects. The research was divided into a literature review of design management practices; a validation of lean design management practices with a practice–principle relationship, based on an expert survey; the devolvement of a tool (questionnaire) to evaluate the lean design management practices; and an assessment in 64 construction projects (coherence, reliability, correlation, and descriptive analysis). It is concluded that evidence exists for the implementation of 19 lean design management practices. These practices are grouped into three categories: stakeholder management, planning and control, and problem solving and decision making. Additionally, in the assessment of the 64 projects, it can be observed that the lean design management practices are at initial levels of implementations, so there is a significant development gap. This research proposes a tool to assess management practices in the design phase of construction projects; then, the study identifies implementations gaps, it provides benchmarks with other projects, and it improves the design process through a taxonomy of lean design management practices.

Risk Assessment at the Design Phase of Construction Projects in Ghana

The study was carried out exclusively in Ghana to explore the approaches employed by consultants in risk assessment at the design phase of projects in Ghana. One hundred and fourteen (114) consultants were selected out of a population of one hundred and eighty six (186) from three main professional associations in Ghana made up of the Ghana Institute of Architects, Ghana Institution of Engineers and the Ghana Institution of Surveyors (Quantity Surveying Division) practicing in Ghana for the study. Both primary and secondary data were collected. A descriptive survey was also used to observe and describe the presence, frequency or absence of characteristics of a phenomenon as it naturally occurred, in order to gain additional information. A questionnaire was also designed to collect data from the architects, engineers and quantity surveyors. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Scientists (SPSS) 17.0. Descriptive and inferential statistics, such as frequency tables, percentages and cross tabulations were used in the data analysis and summaries. Simple tests of associations were undertaken by using Chi square and Cramer’s V statistics to compare relationships between variables. Again, relative importance index was also used to analyze some of the data by computing to deduce their rankings. The relative importance index was used to analyze some of the data by computing to deduce their rankings. The research revealed that majority of consultants had an average knowledge of risk management. Based on the findings it was recommended that consultants undergo advanced training in risk assessment. It was therefore suggested that consultancy firms should develop a set of laid down procedures for consultants to use in risk assessment in order that the use of intuition employed by majority is lessened. The challenges observed in risk assessment and the remedial steps suggested curtailing the detrimental effects of risks would be of wide importance to many developing economies.

A swarm intelligence-based machine learning approach for predicting soil shear strength for road construction: a case study at Trung Luong National Expressway Project (Vietnam)

Determining the shear strength of soil is an important task in the design phase of construction project. This study puts forward an artificial intelligence (AI) solution to estimate this parameter of soil. The proposed approach is a hybrid AI model that integrates the least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) and the cuckoo search optimization (CSO). A dataset of 332 soil samples collected from the Trung Luong National Expressway Project in Viet Nam have been used for constructing and validating the AI model. The sample depth, sand percentage, loam percentage, clay percentage, moisture content, wet density of soil, specific gravity, liquid limit, plastic limit, plastic index, and liquid index are used as input variables to predict the output variable of shear strength. In the hybrid AI framework, LSSVM is employed to generalize the functional mapping that estimates the shear strength from the information provided by the aforementioned input variables. Since the model establishment of LSSVM requires a proper setting of the regularization and the kernel function parameters, the CSO algorithm is utilized to automatically determine these parameters. Experimental results show that the prediction accuracy of the hybrid method of LSSVM and CSO (RMSE = 0.082, MAPE = 14.841, and R2 = 0.885) is better than those of the benchmark approaches including the standard LSSVM, the artificial neural network, and the regression tree. Therefore, the proposed method is a promising alternative for assisting construction engineers in the task of soil shear strength estimation.

Effects of Inputs from the Preconstruction Activities on the Design Phase of Construction Projects

Success of the design of a project would depend on the adequacy of its inputs. The adequacy of inputs from the preconstruction activities is important to achieve effective delivery of a design and then the construction project. This study focused on identifying the relevant preconstruction activities and analyzing the adequacy of use of the outputs of preconstruction activities as inputs to the design of construction projects. Thirty eight design phase related preconstruction activities were identified through literature review. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire regarding the adequacy of the inputs from the identified preconstruction activities to the design phase from the professionals involved in construction projects in the industry. The data was analysed by multiple regression analysis and using the best fit, a model to predict the Relevance and Adequacy/Inadequacy of outputs of preconstruction activities (as inputs to the design phase) was proposed. Exponantial relationship between Relevance (x) of the preconstruction activity and Adequacy (y) of the output of the of the carried out preconstruction activity (as the input to the design phase)was found as the best fit of the multiple regression analysis in the form of “y = 2.6916e0.024x”. Also, % of Inadequacy (z) = 100% - % Adequacy. Hence, a model to predict % Inadequacy,z = 100% - y = 2.6916e0.024x”, was proposed to find out the inadequacy of the use of output of a relevant preconstruction activity.

Design iteration in construction projects – Review and directions

Design phase of any construction project involves several designers who exchange information with each other most often in an unstructured manner throughout the design phase. When these information exchanges happen to occur in cycles/loops, it is termed as design iteration. Iteration is an inherent and unavoidable aspect of any design phase which requires proper planning. Till date, very few researchers have explored the design iteration (“complexity”) in construction sector. Hence, the objective of this paper was to document and review the complexities of iteration during design phase of construction projects for efficient design planning. To achieve this objective, exhaustive literature review on design iteration was done for four sectors – construction, manufacturing, aerospace, and software development. In addition, semi-structured interviews and discussions were done with a few design experts to verify the different dimensions of iteration. Finally, a design iteration framework was presented in this study that facilitates successful planning.

Process Integration Framework for the Design Phase of a Residential Building

In Peru, the design phase of construction projects is frequently plagued by inefficiencies and poor coordination. These include clients’ failure to communicate project goals; architects’ and designers’ frequent lack of understanding of said goals; and the failure to communicate learning loops from previous projects promptly to improve design quality. As such, it is argued that Building Information Modeling (BIM) helps to improve communication and visualization during the design process and opens a door to continuous improvement. However, the transition from traditional tools to a BIM-enabled process in the design phase is a challenging task. Many organizations are not prepared at the operational level to deploy BIM in synergy with current practices in the context of multiple stakeholders such as clients, designers, key suppliers, and constructors. The aim of this research is to develop a process-integration framework to improve visualization and communication in the design phase, aligning BIM, Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) areas (including scope, communication, and stakeholder management), and the learning loops of the Lean Project Delivery System (LPDS). The data collection is done by means of a case study in a residential building in Lima. Direct observation during the design phase will help to understand the process alignment. Lessons learned, barriers, opportunities, and guidelines for future research are discussed.

User-inspired design methodology using Affordance Structure Matrix (ASM) for construction projects

Traditionally, design phase of construction projects is often performed with incomplete and inaccurate user preferences. This is due to inefficiencies in the methodologies used for capturing the user requirements that can subsequently lead to inconsistencies and result in non-optimised end-result. Iterations and subsequent reworks due to such design inefficiencies is one of the major reasons for unsuccessful project delivery as they impact project performance measures such as time and cost among others. The existing design theories and practice are primarily based on functional requirements. Function-based design deals with design of artifact alone, which may yield favourable or unfavourable consequences with the design artifact. However, incorporating other interactions such as interactions between user & designer is necessary for optimised end-result. Hence, the objective of this research work is to devise a systematic design methodology considering all the three interactions among users, designers and artefacts for improved design efficiency. In this study, it has been attempted to apply the theory of affordances in a case project that involves the design of an offshore facility. A step-by-step methodology for developing Affordance Structure Matrix (ASM), which integrates House of Quality (HOQ) and Design Structure Matrix (DSM), is proposed that can effectively capture the user requirements. HOQ is a popular quality management tool for capturing client requirements and DSM is a matrix-based tool that can capture the interdependency among the design entities. The proposed methodology utilises the strengths of both the tools, as DSM compliments HOQ in the process. In this methodology, different affordances such as AUA (Artifact-User-Affordance), AAA (Artifact-Artifact-Affordance) and DDA (Designer-Designer-Affordance) are captured systematically. Affordance is considered to be user-driven in this context that is in contrast to prevailing design methodologies. The initial feedback from industry on the proposed ASM-based design methodology is encouraging.

건설 설계VE의 효율적 문제해결 아이디어 도출을 위한 비즈니스 창의성 코드(BCC) 활용방안

변화와 혁신의 가속화로 산업과 비즈니스에 대한 창의적 접근에 대한 관심이 높아지고 있으나 공공의 영향을 받는 건설산업은 상대적으로 이러한 창의적 접근에 대한 연구가 미비하다. 설계VE 역시 효율성 증대를 위한 창의적 접근에 대한 연구가 진행되고 있으나, 기법제안에 그친 경우가 많아, 실무적용 가능성에 대한 실증적 연구가 필요하다. 본 연구는 새로운 아이디어 창출 방법으로 BCC(Business Creativity Codes)사고체계를 소개하고, 이를 반영한 개선된 설계VE 아이디어 창출 프로세스를 제시하였다. 또한, 실무 종사자를 대상으로 BCC의 11가지 창의코드를 활용한 VE모델 분류실습과 설문 및 집단면접 등을 통해 BCC사고 체계의 유용성과 활용 가능성을 검증하였다. Although the importance of creative thinking is rapidly increasing in the new century, the generation of creative ideas and its application in the construction industry have been considered relatively difficult. Thus there have been a few studies on the subject that how to apply creative thinking tools with empirical evidence in the construction industry. Value engineering(VE) has been widely applied in the design phase of construction projects due to the government regulation, Brainstorming has been the most prevalent idea generation techniques in the VE activities during the past several decades. Contrary to popular belief, the performance of brainstorming is not so good. It is known as the brainstorming myth. This paper proposes the business creativity codes(BCC) as an alternative idea generation tool in the design phase VE of construction projects. In order to examine the effectiveness of the BCC, 50 successful field cases awarded in the design VE competition of government agency are used. The result shows that the BCC can be used as an effective idea generation tool in the design phase VE construction projects.

Implementation of Scrum in the Construction Industry

The way in which construction projects are managed has not changed significantly in the last decades; however, stakeholders, materials, competition, and user requirements are continuously changing. This creates a gap between the current managerial view on how construction projects are conducted and how they could be managed to increase efficiency.The construction industry could use new frameworks for action in the project and product management, and learn from the experiences of other industries. With this background in mind, some construction companies are enhancing the performance of their project teams to improve their competitiveness and increase the added value to their clients and themselves.This paper investigates the implementation of a framework from the IT sector into the construction industry: Scrum. Conducting a case study, the implementation and application of Scrum was analysed through the evaluation of its different artifacts. This research covers the following questions: Can Scrum be implemented in the design phase of the construction industry? What adaptations are needed to use Scrum to improve the design phase of construction projects? How and where could Scrum, or parts of it, be used by the design and planning departments of construction companies?The results from this study show that Scrum has great potential in the design and planning departments of construction firms. From the analysis of the applications of Scrum in the case study, tangible benefits and weaknesses of the implementation, and its different artifacts, were identified. Finally, this paper gives recommendations about the use of Scrum in the design phase and proposes an outlook to implement Scrum in other phases of construction projects.

Optimization of overlapping activities in the design phase of construction projects

Abstract A well-known practice to accelerate construction projects is to overlap the design phase activities. For a typical construction project, a number of overlapping strategies exist during the design phase which all can result in timesaving. However, the cost of these strategies varies significantly depending on the total rework and complexity they generate. A favorable overlapping strategy is one that generates the required timesaving at the minimum cost. To find such a strategy, the question “Which activities have to be overlapped and to what extent to reduce the project duration at the minimum cost?” should be answered. This research aimed at answering the question through generating an overlapping optimization algorithm. The algorithm works based on the principles of genetic algorithms (GAs). The algorithm explained in the paper is unique compared to previous algorithms and frameworks available in the literature, as it can optimize multi-path networks and can handle all types of activity dependencies (i.e. finish-to-start, start-to-start, and finish-to-finish). It also takes both critical and non-critical activities into account and follows the critical path if the critical path changes or new critical paths emerge. A computer tool was also developed to run, examine and validate the overlapping optimization algorithm. This paper introduces the algorithm and the computer tool in detail and explains the results of their validation through optimizing a real-world project schedule.

BIM기반 공사비 산출을 위한 부위별 유형 조합 DB 프로토타입 시스템 개발

From feasibility or design phase of construction project, it is very important to estimate project cost accurately. In the early stage of construction project, there is not enough time and information of design, quantity and cost data, and it is very difficult to make accurate cost estimate. In order to predict accurate project cost without enough project information, historical cost database and quick calculation method to quantify the size and quantity of current project design are required. Currently, BIM(Building Information Modeling) can be useful to estimate them. however, it is required to do preliminary cost estimate in early stage with simple model and minimum effort. In order for this, we tried to develop the prototype system of BIM based preliminary estimate using building elements combination database.

Relative Importance of Factors Affecting Construction Hazards in the Design Phase

dentifying the root causes of construction accidents has indicated that not only contractors but designers and architectures are capable of influencing construction workers safety. The aim of this study is to investigate and prioritize factors affecting construction hazards in the design phase. To achieve the aim of this study, a questionnaire survey was distributed among respondents randomly selected from construction sites within Malaysia. Relative Importance Index method was used to prioritize factors in order of level of effect on construction hazards. The results indicated that Lack of designers safety knowledge, Lack of designers knowledge about construction processes and Late involvement of constructors in the design process have the highest level of effect while Lack of safety organizations which evaluates the safety level of design and Few application of components' prefabrication have the lowest level of effect on hazards in the design phase of construction projects.

A methodology for scheduling overlapped design activities based on dependency information

The practice of overlapping activities is becoming a requirement for fast-tracking complex construction projects. The amount, timing, and nature of the information exchanged between pairs of activities determine the degree to which pairs of activities may be overlapped. This paper presents a four-step process for scheduling the design phase of fast-tracked construction projects while taking into consideration information exchange among project activities. The process starts with capturing and quantifying this exchange of dependency information. A contemporary scheduling tool, the dependency structure matrix (DSM), aids in generating the shortest (overlapped) schedule based on dependencies among the different design disciplines. An algorithm is designed to calculate the shortest possible schedule for the design phase of a construction project. The developed scheduling algorithm is unique as it includes information exchange alongside task durations. The algorithm is validated in the context of a real-world case study, a fast-tracked multi-billion dollar educational facility project in the Arabian Peninsula.

Measuring information flow in the detailed design of construction projects

Waste in engineering design has many facets, from partial utilization of the solution space, to wasteful management of design resources, and creation of erroneous and ineffective design documents. In the detailed construction documentation design phase of construction projects with teams comprising multiple independent designers, slow and interrupted information flows lead to significant waste. Applying lean principles, such as reducing batch sizes, cycle times and work in progress inventories, to the management of information flows may improve processes and reduce waste in this phase of the design process, but the lack of a method for measuring the volume, rate and effectiveness of information flow is an obstacle to research. This study proposes measuring the flow of information in the process of detailed design where construction documents are prepared. Measures and indices of flow were formulated based on examination of empirical data compiled by monitoring flows of design information in the detailed design stage of each of fourteen construction projects. Data describing the flows was drawn from the database logs created through practitioners’ use of a project extranet service. Indices for identifying information flow bottlenecks, large batch sizes and accumulation of work in process were computed and validated for four of the projects by comparing them with the results of independent observations of design coordination meetings. An index for measuring rework was also computed but could not be validated. The indices and information flow graphs are intended to assist in identifying faults or bottlenecks in the process either as they happen or in retrospective study, indicating disruptions in the information flow. As such, they are important tools for research of engineering design and may be of practical use in design management if incorporated in future online design management tools.