Knowledge management (KM) is of increasing interest to a number of leading UK construction organizations. Companies are keen to find out what other organizations are doing both within the construction and other industry sectors. There are important lessons to be learned from Canadian oil and gas...

Clients need to be informed in advance of their likely future financial commitments and cost implications as the design evolves. This requires the estimation of building cost based on historic cost data that is updated by a forecasted Tender Price Index (TPI), with the reliability of the...

Current research and practice in the field of risk management focus almost exclusively on the downside of risk, meaning that many opportunities for improved performance go unmissed. There is substantial evidence that opportunities demand a different management approach to problems and, that...

The costs of building maintenance, particularly in high-demand public sector facilities, can account for a significant proportion of the whole life cycle costs. The ability to accurately predict these maintenance costs can provide an essential management tool during the operational stages. A...

Singapore announced its Construction 21 Blueprint in 1999, which included quality improvement as one of the many initiatives aimed at making the construction industry more competitive and efficient. This has culminated in the development of the National Productivity and Quality Specification...

The role of competency-based performance management is growing in significance in many industries and sectors. Unlike functional competences, which measure performance against predetermined minimum occupational standards, competency-based systems are founded on the key behavioural competencies...

Previous research suggests that a characteristic of the construction industry is a lack of technological innovation. Since this is seen as a problem, much theoretical development within construction management focuses on explaining the lack of innovation. Less effort has been expended on using...

Being one of the major housing developers in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) carries out a large number of construction and demolition projects. As a result, a large amount of construction and demolition waste is produced. As for demolition projects, demolition wastes usually...

Contractor selection is one of the main activities of clients. Without a proper and accurate method for selecting the most appropriate contractor, the performance of the project will be affected. The multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) is suggested to be a viable method for contractor...

The hook times of mobile cranes are processes that are of non-linear and discrete nature. Artificial neural network is a data processing technique that lends itself to this kind of problem. Three common artificial neural network architectures - multi-layer feed-forward (MLFF), group method of...