United States Construction Research Articles

Clearing the Path: Overcoming Barriers to Prevention through Design (PtD) Utilization in the US Construction Industry

The construction industry presents significant high risks of injury and fatality to its workforce. Adopting prevention through design (PtD) principles is reported to have high potential for mitigating such risks and improving safety outcomes. PtD seeks to assess and reduce workplace hazards during the design phase, minimizing unsafe construction conditions. Despite its potential benefits, the construction industry encounters challenges in effectively utilizing PtD. Thus, the implementation of PtD in the US construction industry is limited, and designers’ awareness remains low. This evident lack of utilization warrants further examination of the contributing factors. The goal of this study is to identify and rank PtD utilization barriers in the United States (US) construction industry. This study pinpointed 12 pivotal barriers to PtD implementation through a systematic literature review. These barriers were categorized into industry-, project-, designer-, and client-related domains. Furthermore, they were grouped into three clusters based on their influence on PtD implementation from the most to the least influence, based on an expert matter questionnaire. This study also compared the experts’ rankings of the identified barriers with their citation frequencies in the reviewed articles. Among other observations, this study found that the lack of PtD professional training and formal education for project stakeholders negatively impacts the likelihood of PtD utilization and exacerbates several other barriers. Therefore, it is advisable to prioritize addressing this barrier by allocating the necessary resources and efforts to efficiently address it. Construction industry stakeholders with a vested interest in advancing PtD applications are encouraged to leverage the insights this study provides to expedite the adoption of PtD.

Gathering and disseminating lessons learned in construction companies to support knowledge management

The importance of knowledge management (KM) in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry has risen with the improvement of information and communication technologies. However, the construction industry still struggles to capture and disseminate lessons learned. The present research explores this issue by using interviews and an online questionnaire, to provide updated information on lesson-learned procedures and their challenges in United States (US) construction companies. To do this, the authors have gathered industry professionals’ perceptions about lessons learned and methods used in their companies for harnessing and disseminating the knowledge generated by them. Our findings indicate that post-project evaluations are frequently conducted, utilize a two-step approach (review of materials followed by meetings), and are mainly organized by project managers. Most often, only key project team members are present in meetings to create a safe environment for discussion. Moreover, our findings echo previous research on the dissemination and reuse of lessons learned, indicating that these procedures are scattered and, most of the time, the information is not effectively reutilized. This suggests that US construction companies still need to revisit how information from lessons learned is currently being harnessed, stored, and especially shared (within and between companies) so that information can be effectively transformed into knowledge that can advance the AEC industry's productivity.

Identification of Desired Qualifications for Construction Safety Personnel in the United States

Construction is a hazardous industry with a high number of injuries. Prior research found that many industry injuries can be prevented by implementing an effective safety plan if prepared and maintained by qualified safety personnel. However, there are no specific guidelines on how to select qualified construction safety personnel and what criteria should be used to select an individual for a safety position in the United States (US) construction industry. To fill this gap in knowledge, the study goal was to identify the desired qualifications of safety personnel in the US construction industry. To achieve the study goal, the Delphi technique was used as the main methodology for determining the desired qualifications for construction safety personnel. As a result, a panel of 15 subject-matter experts was selected, and 4 rounds of surveys were carried out. The findings of the study led to the identification of the desired qualifications for three construction safety positions (safety entry, safety professional, and safety manager). The present study contributes to the body of theoretical knowledge on construction safety and presents practical guidelines to assist industry stakeholders select qualified safety personnel for their projects. The selection of qualified safety personnel is expected to improve workplace safety performance and positively reflect on other project outcomes. Construction stakeholders should pay attention to three key aspects (namely, education, experience, and certification) when determining the qualifications for a safety leadership position and take into consideration the type of position intended to be filled. This study fills the gap in knowledge by identifying the desired qualifications and criteria on how to select safety personnel in the US construction industry.

Analysis of the effectiveness of the OSHA steel erection standard in the construction industry

Regulatory intervention is one of the most influential factors in preventing occupational safety in the construction industry. In 2002, the United States (US) Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) revised the steel erection standard, which is designed to protect employees from steel erection related hazards. The purpose of this study was to examine a measurable impact of the revised OSHA 29 CFR 1926, Subpart R using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This study identified four safety measures: fatality rate, days away injury rate, normalized fatality rate, and normalized days away injury rate. Descriptive and interrupted time series analyses were conducted to examine impacts of the revision of the standard on the safety of structural iron and steel workers. The findings indicate that fatality and days away injury rates of the structural iron and steel workers declined by 22.2% and 53.7%, respectively, after the implementation of the standard revision. In addition, two normalized safety indicators revealed that the reductions of fatality and days away injuries of the structural iron and steel workers were greater than those from the overall construction workers. This study provides evidence for the effectiveness of the revised standard in preventing overall occupational injuries in structural iron and steel workers in the US construction industry. In addition, the findings of this study demonstrate that the revised standard was more effective on preventing days away injuries than fatalities, which can guide future directions for policy makers and researchers.

DIFFERENCES IN CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES’ PREFERENCES IN MAKING BID/NO BID DECISIONS

In today’s competitive business environment, bid/no bid decision is crucial for a construction company, as poorly made bidding decisions can have bad consequences. Given the fact that longevity of construction companies partly depends on how they make bidding decisions, determining the key factors for bid/no bid decisions has been the topic of research since mid-1950s. However, there is not much literature on how much value/weight different construction companies put on those factors, and more specifically if there are differences between different companies’ valuation of those factors. The purpose of this study is to investigate how differently the construction companies in the United States (US) value the key factors that are commonly utilized to make bid/no bid decisions. For this purpose, first, 14 key factors were determined based on the literature. Then, a survey instrument was sent to the US construction companies with different demographics such as size, revenue, sector, etc. to gather data to determine the values/weights they assign to those factors. For this, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used. AHP enabled pairwise comparisons to be made between the key factors that affect bidding decisions to deal with the complex relationships among those key factors. As a result of the AHP process, the weights for the key factors for bid/no bid decisions were determined for each company. The AHP results were combined with the demographic data of the construction companies and Kruskal-Wallis test was conducted to identify whether there is a statistically significant difference between the weight of importance of the key factors based on the contractor type, contractor sector and contractor size. The preliminary results showed that there is a statistically significant difference between the general contractors and subcontractors for weighing the importance of the owner identity key factor. Another significant difference was found within the contractor sector in the determination of the weight of importance of the project type key factor.

Sustainable recycling approach: an understanding of designers' and contractors' recycling responsibilities throughout the life cycle of buildings in two US cities

ABSTRACTDespite the surge of interest in construction sustainability, the rate of construction recycling is still trailing behind that of other industries. Extensive recycling, for instance, is limited to a few types of construction material. This paper analyzes recycling situations across the United States (US) and identifies common obstacles to recycling in the context of the US construction industry. Through a set of interviews with industry practitioners, obstacles are classified into six factors: social, environmental, economic, material, participant and regional. The obstacles are then tested on a recently demolished building in the San Antonio, TX, area, and compared with a hypothetical scenario in San Diego, CA. The study found that designers, and contractors (to a lesser extent), play a crucial role in achieving higher recycling rates. Specific practices that designers can use include collecting information on materials lifetime and recyclability in the region, reducing the number of materials used and component sizes, using two‐stage building systems and recording changes during construction and operation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Outsourcing And Off-Shoring: Options For The US Construction Industry

The construction industry relies on the skills of structural engineers for all projects. There exists a large volume of design and detailing work for structural engineering in the United States (US) and there are insufficient numbers of qualified designers in the US to do the work. Recent changes in the telecommunications sector make off-shoring structural design work to developing countries like India and China a realistic possibility. Economics of outsourcing is a key reason for this possibility to be realized. It is logical to consider the effects of outsourcing in the design sector and its effects on the construction industry. The manuscript will present the authors finding based on detailed case-study model research with two companies that are outsourcing work to India from the US. The author conducted detailed interviews with principals in US structural design firms and then traveled to Bangalore, India to interview their Indian counterparts. Results from these interviews are presented. The author will present an empirical model for outsourcing construction activities. Processes in the construction industry that are most suited for outsourcing and off-shoring are presented. Issues surrounding outsourcing such as training, economics and logistics are discussed.