Journal of Construction Engineering, Management & Innovation

Teshale Teshome Alemu Mohindra Singh Thakur

It is a fact that most experts agree that looking at the causes of construction delays in terms of construction life cycle can help solve the problem at all levels. With this in mind the major delay factors identified from the review of previous research works of selected countries, including Malaysia, Egypt, Hong Kong, and Jordan categorized into the project life cycle defined for this paper. Subsequently, the aggregate average relative importance was calculated for each phase and it was found that on the average the major delay factors play significant role in planning and design phase.

https://doi.org/10.31462/jcemi.2021.04187197

İlker USTABAS Hatice Sarı Seda Fandaklı

The construction sector is a sector that employs a significant amount of employees in Turkey and appeals to many branches of work and professions. In Turkey, the construction sector ranks first in the statistics of occupational accidents, with the highest fatality every year. In this study, how the construction workers choose their profession in Turkey, whether they have professional qualification certificates, the relationship between career choice and job satisfaction, and the perceptions of workers in the construction sector about occupational accidents were determined through questionnaires. The questionnaires were applied to 72 construction workers working at four different construction sites. The prepared questionnaires are determined how the construction workers' choice of occupation affected their job satisfaction using a five-point Likert scale (strongly disagree, disagree, undecided, agree, strongly agree). The average and standard deviation of the answers given by the construction workers to the questionnaires were found. The relationship between job choice and job satisfaction, between job satisfaction and occupational accident, was determined by correlation analysis. As a result of the study, it has been determined that other people choose a significant portion of the construction workers in Turkey. The job satisfaction of the construction workers who desire a profession is higher. Most of the construction workers working in Turkey perceive work accidents as death or severe injury that will require hospital treatment.

https://doi.org/10.31462/jcemi.2021.04198209

Sadik Yigit Beliz Ozorhon

Designers aim to build nearly zero energy buildings and positive energy buildings to comply with regulations. However, due to many variables affecting the energy performance of buildings, energy-efficient building design is a challenging task. Among the proposed methods, simulation-based systems are promising. The proposed simulation-based systems are not suitable for the construction sector because of the long optimization periods. The primary goal of this study is to emphasize the necessity of standalone software packages in solving usability problems and to provide a tool for designers and architects to incorporate into their daily works. To demonstrate the advantages of standalone software a test study was conducted to find a cost-optimal configuration for a typical residential building. In addition, the obtained cost-optimal design was compared to the energy-optimal design obtained in previous studies and it was seen that the outcomes are in parallel with the results of previous studies. It was observed that the optimum insulation thickness obtained from the case study is significantly higher than the limiting values in the national regulation. The results of the parametric analysis demonstrated that wall type, window area, and window type have the highest influence on thermal performance. The results of the study have confirmed that stand-alone software performs optimizations faster overcomes the shortcomings of simulation-based optimization systems comprising integrated multiple software packages.

https://doi.org/10.31462/jcemi.2021.04210228

Serkan Yıldız Serkan Kıvrak Gökhan Arslan

The construction sector is one of the sectors where productivity is low compared to other production sectors. Studies have shown that drone technologies can increase productivity in construction. Thus, the use of drones in construction sites has increased in recent years, especially in developed countries. Although drones are technical aerial vehicles, this study focused on non-technical aspects of the use of drone technologies such as current and possible usage areas, advantages and disadvantages of using a drone, issues that should be considered while procuring a drone for a construction site and legal regulations related to the use of drones. In this context, a narrative literature review was conducted and articles examining the use of drones in construction sites were investigated. In addition to the studies in the literature, practical applications were also discussed. The study indicated that drones might make significant contributions to construction management activities. It is expected that this study serves to increase the use of drone technology in construction project management by introducing it in a comprehensive way to the stakeholders.

https://doi.org/10.31462/jcemi.2021.04229244

Gulbin Ozcan-Deniz Carolina Ramirez

Value engineering (VE) has been widely used in a variety of industries to analyze the function of systems and services to provide the best value for the money spent while maintaining a qualified product. It has been common to use VE in construction projects, majorly in an attempt to achieve cost savings. Considering the know-how and resources required to set up a proper VE system, construction companies have been evaluating their resources to decide whether or not to implement VE. This study aims to analyze the most common reasons why and how General Contracting (GC) companies implement VE and understand whether VE improves collaboration and efficiency in the construction process. The methodology includes reviewing local case studies to understand the VE processes from GC companies’ perspectives with strengths and weaknesses. Results of this study identified the most common reason to adopt VE as cost savings, as expected. The secondary reasons were identified as life cycle savings, added value to the company, and better collaboration with the design team, which emphasized that VE is expected to improve collaboration and efficiency. This study contributes to the VE body of knowledge by presenting why and how GC companies should implement VE by emphasizing project performance success parameters. The results highlighted that, although the cost savings mainly were less than 25%, the majority of the companies believed that VE had improved both collaboration and efficiency in their construction projects.

https://doi.org/10.31462/jcemi.2021.04245255

Gül Polat Tatar

It is commonly acknowledged that the competition is very fierce in the construction industry. The business continuity of contractors is mainly dependent on the success -of the completed projects. The success criteria of construction projects can be described as finishing the construction work on time, within the budget and meeting the desired quality level. Since the cost of materials constitutes nearly 40% of the overall project budget, delivery of the right amount of materials on the right time and with the desired quality is crucial for the overall project performance. In this context, selecting the right supplier is one of the most important decisions in the construction management field. Therefore, supplier selection has attracted considerable attention in construction. The previous studies that deal with the supplier selection problem in construction projects can be categorized into two main groups, which are; 1) the studies that identify either the supplier selection criteria or their importance levels, and 2) the studies propose various multi-criteria-decision-making (MCDM) techniques for solving the supplier selection problem. All these studies have substantially contributed to the construction supply chain management body of knowledge. However, there were no studies that simultaneously investigated how the studies, which focus on the supplier selection problem, evolved in terms of both the considered supplier selection criteria and the employed MCDM techniques over the years. In order to fulfill this knowledge gap, this study reviews the previous studies on supplier selection in construction projects from this perspective. It was found that although cost, time and quality have been considered to be the primary supplier selection criteria, the remaining criteria are specific to project/company/case in question and they are specified by the experts, who are responsible for the selection process. Also, in recent studies, the MCDM methods extended with fuzzy numbers, grey numbers, rough numbers, etc. have been preferred in order to cope with the uncertainty and vagueness in the preferences of the decision makers.

https://doi.org/10.31462/jcemi.2021.04256266

Zafer YILMAZ Fatih Yesevi OKUR

Engineering softwares running on object-oriented programming language have been extensively used in structural modelling past 20 years. Taking their ease of use and large area of utilization into account, these softwares will be used by engineers. Moreover, number of these softwares increases and many enhancements take place. Considering the developments in modelling softwares, data transition is much needed for model updates. Data transition between these softwares is widely studied and many methods have been developed. However, if engineering model is inaccessible or not created in the first place, available data reports can be used to create an object-oriented based model. In this study, it is aimed to utilize Interactive Database Editing interface on SAP2000 in order to create model by using data tables.

https://doi.org/10.31462/jcemi.2021.04267273