The briefing process is critical to the successful delivery of construction projects. Although a number of briefing guides have been developed, attempting to address the problems of briefing, they are often criticized as being too general and implicit. This paper describes a structured framework...

Despite the increasing popularity in the use of the public-private partnership concept as a procurement strategy, there have been reported cases of problems associated with the initial stages of the process in terms of unduly high bidding costs and pre-contract time overruns due mainly to the...

Construction projects involve numerous stakeholders, and their satisfaction could directly influence the performance of subsequent projects. Driven by a desire to improve project success, the critical satisfaction factors pertinent to the construction management process should be identified. In...

The building industry is using a considerable amount of resources, but if the life cycle of the material on site is closely examined, it is generally known that there is a relatively large portion of the materials being wasted because of poor material control on building sites. The problem of...

The US construction industry has witnessed a drop in real wages since 1970. The decline in real wages may be attributed to a combination of socio-economic factors like migrant labourers, fringe benefits, safety procedures, union membership and worker skills. Another factor that may be impacting...

The majority of public works contracts undertaken in developing countries have a total cost of less than US $15 000. They include the provision of enhanced water and sanitation, access ways and pavements, small community buildings and solid-waste related construction. These are termed...

The archives of the Building Industry Communications Research Project (BICRP) 1963-66 are reviewed. Established by important construction interests, this project explored problems of co-ordination in UK construction. The research was undertaken by the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations. The...

Since the early 1990s, there has been a growing interest in four-dimensional computer aided design (4D CAD) for construction project planning. Commercial 4D CAD applications are becoming more accessible and the use of this technology allows the construction planner to produce more rigorous...

A remarkable disagreement/deviation between the rate of ISO 14001 registration and the rate of implementation of environmental impact assessment in the Chinese construction industry indicates that the contractors there might not have really applied environmental management (EM) in construction...

Government aid offered to Wales, and largely spent on attracting foreign direct investment, has yet to provide tangible benefits in terms of relative economic prosperity and sustained job creation. The present policy focus is therefore now concerned with creating innovative solutions led by...