Construction Engineering Commons^™

Grey Forecasting Of Construction Demand In Hong Kong Over The Next Ten Years, Yongtao Tan, Craig Langston, Min Wu, Jorge Ochoa

Craig Langston

The Hong Kong construction industry since 1997 has experienced a difficult time in regard to construction output until recently. The future of the local construction industry remains uncertain. Forecasting of future development would be attractive to parties in the industry. Based on past data of the local construction industry, a grey forecasting model is developed to predict the annual growth of construction demand for Hong Kong over the next ten years. With the implementation of ten large infrastructure projects and further collaboration with the Pearl River Delta region, there will be many potential opportunities for the local industry, especially in …

Internationalization Of The Construction Industry, Weisheng Lu, Huan Yang, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

Extract: With the globalization of the world economy, today’s construction business is fast becoming an internationally interdependent marketplace. Construction yields on the order of USD4.6 trillion annually and contributed 6.6% to the global gross domestic product (GDP) in 2011 (Davis Langdon 2012). A significant part of that total is attributable to international contractors. With the rise of modern industrialized countries, more and more complex civil engineering projects are being procured, and the increased scale of these projects has provided a launching pad for international construction. For instance, data published by Engineering New-Record (ENR) shows that ENR’s top 225 international contractors …

Performance Measures For Construction, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

Extract: The global construction industry is highly competitive, fragmented and cyclical and frequently operates on low margins (Loosemore 2003). Yet construction accounts for a significant portion of economic activity and is a catalyst for many other sectors. The industry is also labour intensive and project specific and involves team relationships that form and disband on a regular basis. It is not surprising, therefore, that construction performance and reform have dominated research within the industry for more than 50 years.

Refining The Citibloc Index, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

Extract: The previous chapter investigated the performance of selected high-rise construction projects completed between 2003 and 2012 in the five largest cities in Australia and the United States. Part of this research required the conversion of cost data into a comparable form. Cost conversion is critical to international performance comparisons. A reliable method for doing this is necessary. Purchasing power parity (PPP) is generally accepted as the appropriate philosophy, but there are a number of detailed approaches for determining indices. Which one should be used? How can we be sure that cost conversion using currency exchange rates is unreliable? How …

Measuring Good Architecture: Long Life, Loose Fit, Low Energy, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

Good architecture is something that we all seek, but which is difficult to define. Sir Alexander John Gordon, in his role as President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, defined ‘good architecture’ in 1972 as buildings that exhibit ‘long life, loose fit and low energy’. These characteristics, nicknamed by Gordon as the 3L Principle, are measurable. Furthermore, life cycle cost (LCC) provides a method for accessing the economic contribution or burden created by buildings to the society they aim to serve. Yet there is no research available to investigate the connection, if any, between 3L and LCC. It might …

Making Better Decisions About Built Assets: Learning By Doing, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

Climate change presents significant challenges to society (e.g. Stern, 2006; Bouwer and Aerts, 2006). Many have concluded that climate change is the most important problem facing humankind, and indeed other life on Earth. The construction industry, which contributes 5-10% of national GDP globally, has a prominent role to play in meeting this challenge given that the built environment demands 40-50% of global resources and generates a proportional amount of waste (Langston and Ding, 2001). Climate change adaptation is about human response to this challenge, thus mitigating the impacts of a changing climate (Burton et al., 2005).

Identifiying Adaptive Reuse Potential, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

How to adapt existing building stock is a problem being addressed by local and state governments worldwide. In most developed countries we now spend more on building adaptation than on new construction and there is an urgent need for greater knowledge and awareness of what happens to commercial buildings over time.

Sustainable Building Adaptation: innovations in decision-making is a significant contribution to understanding best practice in sustainable adaptations to existing commercial buildings by offering new knowledge-based theoretical and practical insights. Models used are grounded in results of case studies conducted within three collaborative construction project team settings in Australia and …

A Casual [Causal] Relationship Between Building Maintenance Market And Gdp: Hong Kong Study, Yong-Tao Tan, Liyin Shen, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the causal relationship between the building maintenance market and GDP in Hong Kong. Design/methodology/approach: The Granger causality test is used to investigate the lead-lag relationships between the maintenance and repair work and GDP in Hong Kong. With regression analysis, the future trend of the maintenance market is forecasted. Findings: The results show that the growth of the economy will lead to the growth of the maintenance market, not vice-versa. And the building maintenance market in Hong Kong will keep increasing with the economy growth. Originality/value: This paper shows that the growth …

Validation Of The Adaptive Reuse Potential (Arp) Model Using Iconcur, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

This paper aims to focus on the adaptive reuse of existing buildings that have become obsolete, an important strategy for sustainable development and a pertinent response to excessive resource usage resulting from typical destruction and redevelopment.

Contractors' Competition Strategies In Bidding: Hong Kong Study, Yongtao Tan, Liyin Shen, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

Selecting an appropriate competition strategy in bidding is the ambition of most contractors. The multiple requirements of clients encourage contractors to consider other strategies to deliver additional benefits besides offering a low-price bid. Offering low bids will reduce contractors' profits and potentially make development less attractive. Contractors need to understand their specific resources that generate competitive advantage and accordingly develop strategies to win contracts. This paper reports the findings from a recent survey on competition strategies in the Hong Kong construction industry. Thirteen typical bidding strategies, their used frequency in bidding, and their effectiveness for winning contracts of different types …

Construction Project Selection Using Fuzzy Topsis Approach, Young-Tao Tan, Li-Yin Shen, Craig Langston, Yan Liu

Craig Langston

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to introduce a quantitative method for assisting contractors to select appropriate projects for bidding by considering multiple attributes and integrating decision group member opinions.

Design/methodology/approach - The fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method is used to help contractors make decision on project selection and the linguistic terms are defined for representing the triangular fuzzy numbers for ratings of alternatives and weights of criteria.

Findings - The selection of appropriate projects for bidding is a multiple attribute group decision-making exercise. In a real decision process, there are …

Building Capability For Disaster Resilience, Lynn Crawford, Craig Langston, Bhishna Bajracharya

Craig Langston

All levels of government recognise the widespread devastation of communities by natural or other disasters. They have responded with emergency management arrangements and policies to enhance government and community capacity to anticipate, withstand and recover from disastrous events. Although the construction industry has a significant role to play, particularly in recovery and reconstruction, it has not generally been considered as a key stakeholder in building capability for disaster resilience. One barrier to more active involvement of the construction industry in disaster response and management is that traditional methods of construction project management have been criticised as too time consuming and …

A Fuzzy Approach For Assessing Contractors Competitiveness, Yongtao Tan, Li-Yen Shen, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

Purpose – Proper assessment of contractors' competitiveness is important for assisting contractors in taking internal analysis and for assisting clients in selecting suitable contractors. This paper seeks to address this issue.

Design/methodology/approach – With previously identified contractor key competitiveness indicators (KCIs), this study presents a fuzzy competitiveness rating (FCR) method for measuring contractor competitiveness with reference to the Hong Kong construction industry. A set of linguistic terms is used for facilitating the assessment process.

Findings – For illustration, an example is used to show the application of the FCR method. The results provide valuable information for helping contractors in the …

Workplace Strategies And Facilities Management: Building In Value, Rick Best, Craig Langston, Gerard De Valence

Craig Langston

This book provides comprehensive coverage of issues that facility managers in the property industry need to understand and apply in the pursuit of value for money over the life span of built facilities. The authors introduce the fast-growing discipline of facility management, examine the core competencies that facility managers should possess and study different contemporary drivers of change. The book emphasises the need to consider facilities management issues at the pre-design stage of the construction process, rather than only when the building is completed, in order to maximise value for money.

Evaluation Of Construction Contractor Performance: A Critical Analysis Of Some Recent Research, Rick Best, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

International comparisons of construction industry performance are notoriously difficult. A recent comparative study, extensive in scope and using an innovative approach, is reviewed and questions raised regarding various aspects of the methodology adopted, the validity of the conclusions drawn and manner in which outcomes were reported. Particular areas of concern include the unequivocal statement of conclusions that are based on a small sample, and the use of data from that sample that are, in fact, no more than estimates of project performance. Attention is drawn to the limitations of the research reported and the reliability of the methods used, and …

Exploring Intersectoral Linkages Between Real Estate And Construction, Yu Song, Chunlu Liu, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

Even though linkages have attracted a lot of research interest, few researchers focus on the intersectoral linkages between two specific sectors. This research therefore proposes an indirect intersectoral linkage measure model to explore linkages between the real estate and construction sectors using the Hypothetical Extraction Method (HEM). Using the OECD input-output tables, the direct, total intersectoral linkages and the proposed indirect intersectoral linkages are explored and tested respectively for seven OECD countries over twenty years. The findings describe that the intersectoral linkages from construction to real estate are larger than those from real estate to construction. The statistical testing results …