Currently, skills shortages are prompting the UK government to introduce initiatives intended to break down notions of stereotyped employment and attract women to non-traditional, male-dominated industries such as construction. Thus, it seems timely to revisit a study of the lived experience of...

Increasing demands are made on maintenance programmes to provide tools that will support maintenance planning. Among of the most important parameters affecting the efficiency of maintenance management are the precision and the reliability of the predicted service life (PSL) of building...

Globalization of the world economy demands that performance comparisons are undertaken at an international level. A new research protocol has been developed for comparing contractor performance internationally by combining the appropriate characteristics of two established approaches in order to...

John Raftery (1993), in his Inaugural Lecture at the University of Greenwich, suggested that project cost estimates be presented in the form of cumulative probability functions (termed here 'Raftery curves') rather than the current practice of single-point estimates. This paper describes a...

One of the most effective tools for evaluating the success of a quality management programme is the measurement of quality costs (prevention, appraisal and failure costs). The application of the concept of quality costs originated in the manufacturing industry in the early 1950s. As increasing...

A theoretical framework is proposed for determining the minimum number of bidders in competition for projects in the construction industry. This is based on the neo-classical micro-economic theory for price determination in construction and the assumption of random contractor-selection....

Construction time performance (CTP) and flexibility in approaches to project time planning have been shown to be significantly associated. This raises interesting questions about how effective planning and control to facilitate flexibility in overcoming unexpected problems may be achieved. Case...

This paper proposes a radical change in industry practice that will improve the quality of the construction process and the levels of customer satisfaction derived from it by evaluating the quality performance of the contractor. An alternative theory is developed of what constitutes quality,...

The objective of this study is to show that the core competence approach has validity when applied to construction. The focus is on the analysis of the fit between market strategies of firms in the building industry and their core capabilities. Certain strategies require specific core...

Two-envelope fee bidding is used frequently in allocating commissions to willing consultants such as architects, engineers and surveyors. Consultant fees and technical scores are normally aggregated to form a total score. The consultant obtaining the highest total score is usually awarded the...