Cash flow management is a significant issue in the management of a building or construction firm. This paper steps back from the well researched area of poor cash management and its relationship with failure, to focus on the funds which are generated through operations, and the positive benefits...

Basic embodied-energy intensities of building construction materials/systems by various units and building types are shown to produce conflicting results and are not directly applicable at a national policy-intervention level. Using building construction and the allied sectors in South Africa,...

This paper has the objective of improving on the issue of forecasting new housing construction, and highlights differences between space demand and investment demand in housing markets. Further, it indicates how these differences will affect construction decisions. The first step is to identify...

This paper reports the findings of a study that examined five projects in which implementation of constructability concepts was viewed as a schedule reduction tool. The study attempted to determine the benefits, success factors, and implementation barriers across the case studies. The data...

Many developing countries are now attempting to finance new infrastructure projects through private sector participation. This paper outlines a methodology based on financial and risk analyses that a government or a government utility can use to analyse the viability of private sector...

The purpose of this paper is to describe a systematic framework of stochastic modelling and prediction of financial default risk of construction contractors. Net-worth-to-asset ratio is identified as an index for default process modelling. The default condition is defined as when the ratio...

Future skill requirements and training initiatives designed to meet them, are highly topical issues in the construction industry. The pace of change affecting the structure of training generally has created considerable confusion among employers in the construction industry. In the mind of the...

The internationalization of British construction companies is not a new phenomenon. A recent stated aim of some of the larger companies has been to increase their overseas activities in an attempt to counteract some of the problems within the domestic construction market. This paper examines the...

Clients' needs are inadequately evaluated in project schemes. Without a precise establishment of clients' preferences, the essential criteria for project implementation and especially contractor evaluation cannot be appreciated fully. It is not surprising therefore that subjective decisions have...

A new approach to the forecasting of construction cost indices in Taiwan is presented. Construction cost indices have always been used to assess the variations in construction labour and material costs. These indices have been traditionally based on historical statistical information in Taiwan....