Early Stages Of Project Development Research Articles

Optimisation of rock mass quality parameters for the initial geotechnical investigation of a vertical shaft: Gosowong Gold Mine Project Case Study - North Halmahera

This article presents a case study that highlights the importance of a thorough geotechnical assessment at an early stage of project development. Shaft ventilation is one of the critical elements in underground mines, providing oxygen and ensuring air quality for breathing, removing noxious gases from equipment and explosions, reducing the natural temperature of the rock, and more, so stability analysis is required for design and strategy prior to shaft opening. Through extensive field surveys, drilling and laboratory testing, the project team has gathered data to assess rock quality parameters, including rock strength, geological structure and hydrogeological characteristics. The McCracken and Stacey (MS) method is one such empirical approach to assist shaft development risk assessment. The results of this analysis allowed the identification of potentially unstable zones. It was concluded that 45% of the planned ventilation shafts have stability problems due to rock mass variations. The risk value of the shaft development plan was obtained with a high failure risk of 25%, a medium failure risk of 33% and a low failure risk of 42% based on the raise bore quality index (QR).

Exploring Pre-Construction Activities in Infrastructure Projects That Can Benefit from Contractor Involvement

The pre-construction phase of public infrastructure projects is characterized by significant uncertainty as crucial decisions are made with limited information. This early stage of project development is influenced by a multitude of factors and input from various stakeholders. While early contractor involvement (ECI) offers potential benefits for both clients and projects, the timing and selection of tasks for involving the contractor are critical to achieving these benefits. This study seeks to identify key pre-construction activities in public infrastructure projects and pinpoint the activities that stand to gain the most from ECI. The research methodology involved conducting semi-structured interviews, organizing seven workshops, and conducting the literature and document studies. Through these efforts, the study identified a total of 20 pre-construction activities, among which 5 activities emerged as the most favorable candidates for ECI, while 5 others were deemed less suitable. The findings underscore a consensus that involving contractor expertise during the Brief Development sub-phase holds significant promise. Notably, activities associated with planning, environmental considerations, and technical aspects related to the scope clarification, were found to be highly amenable to ECI. Activities addressing uncertainty management received particular attention, with clients valuing contractors’ practical experience in risk assessment and mitigation. Additionally, contractors’ insights into planning, activity dependencies, and their contributions to health, safety, and environmental plans were highly regarded. However, activities, categorized under the more technical sub-phases of Concept Development and Detailed Engineering yielded mixed results, while those falling within the predominantly social and political domain and involving political processes and societal impact, were viewed as less suitable for early contractor involvement. These findings emphasize the need to adopt a systematic and consistent approach to pre-construction activities, highlighting that ECI should not be applied as a one-size-fits-all solution. The interview results somewhat contrast with the literature findings, which indicate that the early conceptual phase is most beneficial as the contractor impact is highest. To some extent, the client, contractor, and consultant still see their benefit and strategy before the good of the project.

Integrated team approach to decommissioning Environment Plan development

The offshore oil and gas industry is facing a significant transition period in the coming decades due to the evolving energy market and aging oil and gas infrastructure. Industry has over 1000 offshore wells to plug and abandon, 57 fixed facilities and over 8000 km of subsea lines to decommission over the coming decades. Most of this significant portfolio is regulated by NOPSEMA (National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority) with the expectation that decommissioning involves the full removal of equipment as per Section 572 of the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 (Cth) (OPGGS Act). However, other options may be considered if the titleholder can demonstrate that an alternative decommissioning approach delivers equal or better environmental and safety outcomes compared to complete removal. Integration of environment and engineering functions primarily occurs during the process of developing an Environment Plan (EP) and, specifically, the process of identifying environmental hazards (Environmental Hazards Identification, ENVID) and mitigation measures. This paper proposes that improved stakeholder, regulatory, cost and environmental outcomes could be achieved through an earlier integrated approach to planning decommissioning activities. Specifically, co-designing an approach to decommissioning at the earliest stages would inform, for example, approvals strategy and equipment selection. This would ultimately result in improved outcomes without the application of mitigating control measures. The paper will discuss some of the current challenges and outline the value of early identification and understanding of key environmental values and sensitivities to ensure site-specific information is considered during planning stages, later streamlining EP development. A multi-disciplinary decommissioning team in the early stages of project development enhances problem-solving capabilities and ultimately improves environmental and safety outcomes.

Evaluating and Incorporating Utility Coordination Practices into the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Project Development Process

Utility relocations have been identified as one of the leading causes of delays in transportation projects. Over time, national perceptions about how state transportation agencies (STAs) should work with utility companies (UCs) have changed. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC), like other STAs, faces many challenges related to utility work. This paper presents the findings of a research project funded by KYTC, which aimed to evaluate the current KYTC utility coordination process to identify opportunities for improvement and propose a new approach for enhancing the alignment of this process and the highway design process. Researchers crafted this new approach based on the findings of a literature review, an evaluation of the current alignment between the utility coordination and highway design processes, and experiences and lessons learned from other STAs. This approach was developed iteratively in consultation with the project’s Study Advisory Committee. Research findings suggest viewing utility coordination as an opportunity to partner with UCs. In addition, the early identification of potential utility conflicts and minimizing utility-related project risks during the early stages of project development by avoiding, minimizing, and mitigating all utility conflicts when feasible are encouraged. Project findings were used to develop a guidance document to assist the implementation of a new approach and an associated Utility Coordination Training Program. This guidance document includes suggestions for identifying, managing, and mitigating utility-related risks using utility conflict management, provides information on the strategic use of subsurface utility engineering, and offers recommendations for managing consultant-led utility coordination.

Early Highway Construction Cost Estimation: Selection of Key Cost Drivers

Cost estimates in the early stages of project development are essential for making the right decisions, but they are a huge challenge and risk for owners and potential contractors due to limited information about the characteristics of a future highway project. Whereas previous studies were mainly focused on achieving the highest possible estimation accuracy, this paper aims to propose cost-estimation models that can provide satisfactory accuracy with the least possible effort and to compare the perspectives of owners and contractors as the key stakeholders on projects. To determine cost drivers (CDs) that have a high influence on highway-construction costs and require low effort for their establishment, a questionnaire survey was conducted. Based on the key stakeholders’ perceptions and collected data set, cost-estimation models were developed using multiple-regression analysis, artificial neural networks, and XGBoost. The results show that reasonable cost-estimation accuracy can be achieved with relatively low effort for three CDs for the owners’ perspective and five CDs for the contractors’ perspective. Additional inclusion of input CDs in models does not necessarily imply an increase in accuracy. Also, the questionnaire results show that owners are more concerned about environmental issues, whereas contractors are more concerned about the possible changes in resource prices (especially after recent high increases caused by COVID-19 and the Russia–Ukraine war). These findings can help owners and potential contractors in intelligent decision-making in the early stages of future highway-construction projects.

Pull Request Decisions Explained: An Empirical Overview

<italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Context</i> : The pull-based development model is widely used in open source projects, leading to the emergence of trends in distributed software development. One aspect that has garnered significant attention concerning pull request decisions is the identification of explanatory factors. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Objective</i> : This study builds on a decade of research on pull request decisions and provides further insights. We empirically investigate how factors influence pull request decisions and the scenarios that change the influence of such factors. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Method</i> : We identify factors influencing pull request decisions on GitHub through a systematic literature review and infer them by mining archival data. We collect a total of 3,347,937 pull requests with 95 features from 11,230 diverse projects on GitHub. Using these data, we explore the relations among the factors and build mixed effects logistic regression models to empirically explain pull request decisions. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results</i> : Our study shows that a small number of factors explain pull request decisions, with that concerning whether the integrator is the same as or different from the submitter being the most important factor. We also note that the influence of factors on pull request decisions change with a change in context; e.g., the area hotness of pull request is important only in the early stage of project development, however it becomes unimportant for pull request decisions as projects become mature.

QUANTITATIVE VIEW ASSESSMENT (QUVIAS) METHOD FOR WINDOW VISIBILITY ANALYSIS UTILIZING BIM, GIS AND WEB ENVIRONMENTS

The developers of the construction project assess the economic feasibility of the project at the early stages of project development and analyse possible alternative solutions. This research focuses on the assessment of property attractiveness and building location problems at an early stage of project development and proposes the original method for visibility analysis based on the utilization of Building Information Modelling (BIM), Geographic Information System (GIS) and Web environments. The proposed Quantitative View Assessment (QUVIAS) method allows to assess the view mathematically and presents it as a quantitative parameter. The proposed method considers the mathematical shape of the view as a sphere and utilizes spherical coordinates that remove distortions and increase the accuracy of the analysis. The presented approach determines quantitative view coefficients for alternatives of windows, premises and buildings, including their comparison. The way of determining the view proposed in the QUVIAS method can help decision-makers to make more accurate decisions during the selection of a project development strategy. The experimental analysis proved the usefulness of the proposed QUVIAS method in the assessment of the rational building location and prediction of project revenues as well as potential usefulness in the estimation of property attractiveness.

Conceptual estimation of construction duration and cost of public highway projects

State Highway Agencies (SHAs) and Departments of Transportation (DOTs) allocate their limited resources to thousands of competing projects in multi-year transportation programs using expert judgement for the expected construction costs and durations. Such estimates overlook influencing parameters known in the planning phase and the importance of building reliable databases to support decision making. Meanwhile, it is possible to generate meaningful predictions in early stages of project development based on historical data gathering and analysis. The present research introduces a newly developed method for conceptual cost and duration estimation for public highway projects utilizing an ensemble of machine learning (ML) models and data collected for projects completed between 2004 and 2015 (roads, bridges, and drainage projects). Unlike previous studies, the proposed method includes project parameters that affect construction durations and costs and were not studied simultaneously before. The parameters considered are facility type, project scope, highway type, length, width, location, level of technical complexity, and new parameters pertinent to payment and procurement methods. The developed method was tested using 29 and 56 randomly selected projects, and the results yielded a Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) of 7.4% and 4.5% for the duration and cost, respectively, which are lower than the estimation errors of methods reported in recent literature. Additionally, the generalization abilities were assessed by the Mann-Whitney test, and the developed method is found to successfully handle diverse projects. Thus, machine learning models can assist agencies in the review process of competing projects from a high-level management perspective to ultimately develop better management execution programs.

An Optimal Cost Estimation Practices of Fuzzy AHP for Building Construction Projects in Libya

This paper analysis and reviews the construction projects in Libya. In Libya, construction projects often face challenges due to the lack of proper information and data in cost-estimation methods. The primary goal of this paper is to demonstrate the estimation of construction costs using various methods. An optimization strategy based on a well-known robust algorithm The Fuzzy AHP technique is used to estimate the best roof structure choice based on cost rank among one or two-way flat slab, post-tension slab, pre-tension slab, waffle slab, and hollow core slab. The roofs were created employing five main factors that were implemented in a real-world situation in the Libyan building industry. The cost of materials, labor, machinery, transportation, and trash on site were all considered. Research findings show that the models can assist decision-makers in determining the cost rank of roof selection. When a range of methods are applied and compared to guarantee that this is the best option. This research study must be taken seriously when estimating and managing the contract and length of highway construction projects in the early stages of project development so that the time difference at the end of the project can be kept to a minimum by decision-makers when choosing the roof with the lowest cost. Doi: 10.28991/CEJ-2022-08-06-08 Full Text: PDF

Comparative evaluation of the performance of different asphalt concrete road pavements on reinforced concrete road structures

Comparative design of structures allows at an early stage of project development to assess their behavior and predict service life. Approximate numerical methods, for example, the finite element method, are widely introduced to simulate the operation of pavements on road structures. The variety of modern asphalt concrete poses the problem of finding the most effective design solutions based on the results of comparing the performance indicators of road pavements. The article presents the results of modeling by the finite element method of the work of road pavements, consisting of a two-layer asphalt-concrete package, on a reinforced concrete slab of bridge. Various options for combinations of asphalt concrete are considered. The well-known American method of the Asphalt Institute was used as a methodological basis. For the criterion of the limiting state, the indicator of accumulated fatigue cracks in the amount of 10% of the wheelpath area is taken. Preliminary recommendations are given on the field of application of the considered road pavements on reinforced concrete bridges in the conditions of the Syrian Arab Republic.

Quality of construction materials as an indicator of the design of railway transport facilities in Russia

The purpose of the research is to assess the global quality of project design documentation for capital construction at the preliminary stage of investment projects in the context of the properties and qualities of applied construction materials. The problem of the assessment of the quality of construction and finishing materials in the subdivisions of Russian Railways, the largest Russian company, raises fundamental issues of regulatory and methodological support during the choice of engineering solutions and reasonability grounds of investments in the construction and reconstruction of transport infrastructure facilities. According to the formal indicators for the assessment of the properties of materials in the company, the authors used a method based on a separate analysis of the regulatory and methodological support of the construction preparation process. The main quality criterion was adopted in the form of deviations in documentation by the internal examination service of the company projects due to the unreliability in the determination of the physical properties of material resources. The main tool to influence the design process is the formalization of requirements for accounting construction materials, especially innovative ones, in project design documentation. These requirements are reflected in the proposed methodology for the generation of documentation at the early stages of investment project. A retrospective analysis of the verification results of infrastructure projects in the company showed that after the introduction of uniform requirements for the applied materials and the introduction of the basic provisions of materials science in the methodological documents, a positive trend has occurred during internal verification. The decrease in the number of incorrectly determined values of the need for construction materials indicate that cost certification has become more explicit and accessible to developers. It is proved that the tool for the management of the quality of construction materials by specifying the structure of documents justifying the main design decisions is the most effective. The idea is confirmed that the greatest responsibility for the efficiency of the applied material resources falls on the early stages of project development. The efforts made by the Company in this direction lead to positive changes.

Usage of Local Knowledge in International Project Management: Case Study of Regional Waste Management Centre in Subotica, Republic of Serbia

International project management can largely depend on the initial parameters that international companies face when entering to new and unknown markets. Observing and using local knowledge in early stages of project development can minimize potential risks. This paper thus presents an example of the impact of perceiving or disregarding local knowledge during project implementation, as well as during the trial period of Regional Waste Management Centre (RWMC), executed by the international joint venture, in regards to the impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of the project cycle per Contractor. Through a causal loop diagram (CLD) the study shows that local knowledge should be an integral within the project implementation adding its success. This is mainly shown trough the parameters capability to enhance the reinforcing dominance of the system in a positive direction. By doing so a base of local knowledge can be formed whose inclusion or elimination from the project has direct influence of the overall success of said project. The data collected and analysed within this study, thus shows applicability to a new international project and serves as an inspiration for future project developments.

The Canary in the Cage: Community Voices and Social License to Operate in Central Eastern Europe

This paper is the product of SRK Exploration Services UK through the EU funded Horizon 2020 INFACT project and research undertaken as part of the doctoral study by an associate consultant. It marries European wide research through INFACT with doctoral research into the mining sector and communities in Serbia, to illustrate general and country specific issues around social license to operate. The paper illustrates how gaps are created in the extractive industries conceptualization of host communities and how that precipitates social licence to operate failures. It challenges the extractive industries use of the stakeholder concept and questions how equipped the sector is to engage and assess community-based business risk. Solutions to social licence failure in the extraction industry involve engaging with the conflict and enabling dissenting voices at an early stage of project development, rather than quelling them. Resolution to social licence issues is more likely if local communities are supported to retain control of and articulate potential conflict, rather than the conflict being captured and utilized by external actors.

Stage-Gate Escalation

In this article, we review resource allocation at former handset maker Sony Ericsson. Three observations reveal how innovation projects can escalate through a stage-gate process that is meant to minimize initial commitment. First, uncertainty makes business cases hard to disconfirm in the early stages of project development. Second, as information that can be used to disconfirm business cases becomes more readily attainable in later stages of development, an increasing focus on project completion discourages the updating of business cases. Third, if business cases are revised negatively, the heightened organizational attention appears to make discontinuations less likely. We contextualize these three findings, replicate them with data from a second company, and discuss their potential implications for organizing innovation under uncertainty.

Model-based Simulation and Verification on Typical Function Scenes of High-Speed Maglev Vehicle Operation Control System

Under the new situation, high-speed maglev transportation has gradually become the new development direction of the railway field in the future. Its vehicle operation control system (VOCS for short) as a key subsystem has a great impact on the safety and stability of the entire high-speed maglev train control system. The high-speed maglev VOCS has the characteristics of complex system structure and frequent interaction between its modules. Finding hidden safety hazards and design errors in the system design and development process and ensuring the safety and efficiency of system design and development has become an important task of related projects. On this background, modelling and simulation of typical scenarios of high-speed maglev VOCS are absolutely necessary in the early stage of project development, drawing on the traditional wheel-rail vehicle system simulation verification research results, with the help of advanced computer simulation methods. Using Simulink / Stateflow tools for the parking point stepping functional scenario as an example, the validity and correctness of the high-speed maglev VOCS were verified to ensure the operation safety of the high-speed maglev train through.

Preferred risk allocation in Egypt’s water sector PPPs

As Egypt suffers from water scarcity and limited public funds, increasing investments in unconventional water supply projects through the public-private partnership (PPP) scheme is considered a necessity. Meanwhile, risk allocation is considered critical to the implementation and success of PPPs. This paper captures, presents and discusses the risk allocation preferences for domestic wastewater treatment and Seawater Desalination PPPs in Egypt. Face-to-face structured interviews were conducted with experienced practitioners and a preferred risk allocation scheme was developed using the ‘majority opinion’ approach. Results were compared to similar findings in China; a mature water sector PPP market. The research findings enable developing an efficient risk allocation framework for water sector PPPs in Egypt in the early stages of project development. The comparative study enables foreign investors to adjust their investment strategies by considering the similarities and differences in Egypt and China.

Playing for the Future: Using Codesign Games to Explore Alternative Sanitation Systems in London

Public participation is viewed as a best practice in planning, and yet most people who participate in it (planners included) often feel that it is a cynical box-ticking exercise. Citizen participation rates are usually low, implying that they may feel this way too. There are two good reasons for this feeling: On the one hand, public consultation often only occurs when it is a mandatory exercise required by government for development approval; on the other, when public consultation occurs it is after much time and effort has been invested by professionals to develop a scheme therefore change is made reluctantly or not at all. These factors create a reactionary and adversarial atmosphere during consultation. These structural limitations mean that there is no time to find alignment of interests between project developers and the public, or to develop trust and collaborations. This article explores how codesign games as a form of public participation can be done at an early stage of project development to contribute to finding alignment of interests and collaborations between project developers and different public interests. The empirical case study is focussed on the possibilities for the retrofit of sustainable sanitation systems in London. Three future sanitation systems were developed by 14 workshop participants. They demonstrate new alignments of interests, from methods of collection and treatment, to new economies of reuse and production. It also established reasons why the current water-based sanitation systems are obdurate, and the work involved in keeping the status quo.

The secret ingredient - the role of governance in green infrastructure development: through the examples of European cities

The first signs of considering green infrastructure in the process of urban planning appeared long before WWII with the developments of Chicago and Paris, for example, in the late 19th century. In order to relieve the increasingly crowded centres of fast-growing cities, the afforestation of public spaces and the creation of more liveable existing spaces became increasingly important; this includes the development and renovation of parks and water surfaces to adapt to urban needs and requirements, making the development of urban green infrastructure more important than in the past. Over time, green infrastructure developments grew more detailed and complex; since the end of the 20th century, they have become one of the most important goals of urban development, focusing on the environment and healthy living conditions. In the early stages of project development, the needs of urban residents and the active utilisation of green areas are factors of growing importance; refining design and construction has also become a more intricate process. Significant changes to the original style of plans has taken place over the past decades, evolving with the needs of the era and technological advances, requiring suitable action to maintain pace with enhanced developments.

An Effective Approach to Input Variable Selection for Preliminary Cost Estimation of Construction Projects

Accurate cost estimates are vital to the effective realisation of construction projects. Extended knowledge, wide-ranging information, substantial expertise, and continuous improvement are required to attain accurate cost estimation. Cost estimation at the preliminary phase of the project is always a challenge as only limited information is available. Hence, rational selection of input variables for preliminary cost estimation could be imperative. A systematic input variable selection approach for preliminary estimating using an integrated methodology of factor analysis and fuzzy AHP is presented in this paper. First, the factor analysis is used to classify and reduce the input variables and their variable coefficients are determined. Second, fuzzy AHP based on the geometric mean method is employed to determine the weights of input variables in a fuzzy environment where the subjectivity and vagueness are handled with natural language expressions parameterized by triangular fuzzy numbers. Then, the input variables are suggested to be selected starting with those having high coefficient and high importance weight. A set of three variables, one from each group, can be added to the estimating model at a time so that the problem of collinearity can vanish and good accuracy of the estimate can be ensured. The proposed approach enables cost estimators to better understand the complete input variable selection process at the early stage of project development and provide a more accurate, rational, and systematic decision support tool.

Influence of corners in excavations on damage assessment

This paper provides guidance on quantifying the extent of corner effects in excavations and their impact on damage assessment. The corner effects’ extent is of great importance in making early decisions during project planning and preliminary design, particularly in relation to stakeholder engagement and placement of instruments. By using empirical relations, one is able to provide an equation, validated against the literature and additional numerical models, for estimating the extent of corner effects for a particular excavation geometry. Furthermore, two more equations for quantifying the damage of excavations to adjacent structures are presented and validated against two case studies in the literature. The proposed equations are also useful in the context of early stages of project development. Finally, a simple study shows the different effects of corners in sections parallel and perpendicular to a retaining wall. This highlights that corner effects may actually induce additional damage due to the introduction of a movement gradient, as opposed to the common previous perception that assumed that they were always conservative as they reduced absolute movements.