Causes of delay in the global construction industry: a meta analytical review

The Creation of Construction Schedules in 4D BIM: A Comparison of Conventional and Automated Approaches

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is now a globally recognised phenomenon, though its adoption remains inconsistent and variable between and within the construction sectors of different countries. BIM technology has enabled a wide range of functional applications, one of which, ‘4D BIM’, involves linking the tasks in a project’s construction schedule to its object-orientated 3D model to improve the logistical decision making and delivery of the project. Ideally, this can be automatically generated but in reality, this is not currently possible, and the process requires considerable manual effort. The level of maturity and expertise in the use of BIM amongst the project participants still varies considerably; adding further obstacles to the ability to derive full benefits from BIM. Reflecting these challenges, two case studies are presented in this paper. The first describes a predominantly manual approach that was used to ameliorate the implementation of 4D BIM on a project in Paris. In fact, there is scope for automating the process: a combination of BIM and Artificial Intelligence (AI) could exploit newly-available data that are increasingly obtainable from smart devices or IoT sensors. A prerequisite for doing so is the development of dedicated ontologies that enable the formalisation of the domain knowledge that is relevant to a particular project typology. Perhaps the most challenging example of this is the case of renovation projects. In the second case study, part of a large European research project, the authors propose such an ontology and demonstrate its application by developing a digital tool for application within the context of deep renovation projects.

Impact of Political, Social Safety, and Legal Risks and Host Country Attitude towards Foreigners on Project Performance of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)

The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project was signed between China and Pakistan in the year 2013. This mega project connects the two countries to enhance their economic ties and give them access to international markets. The initial investment for the project was $46 billion with a tentative duration of fifteen years. Being an extensive project in terms of cost and duration, many factors and risks affect its performance. This study aims to investigate the effects of political (PR), social safety (SR), and legal risks (LR) on the project performance (PP) of the CPEC. It further investigates the significance of the host country’s attitude towards foreigners (HCA). A research framework consisting of PR, SR, and LR as independent variables, PP as the dependent variable, and HCA as moderator is formulated and tested in the current study. In this quantitative study, the Likert scale is used to measure the impact of the assessed risks. A questionnaire survey is used as a data collection tool to collect data and test the research framework and associated hypotheses. The partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is used to perform the empirical test for validation of the study, with a dataset of 99 responses. The empirical investigation finds a negative relationship between PR, SR, LR, and PP. It is concluded that PR, SR, and LR negatively influence the PP of CPEC. Furthermore, HCA negatively moderates the PR, LR, and PP of CPEC. In contrast, the value of SR and PP is positive in the presence of the positive HCA.

Critical Factors Affecting Contractors’ Decision to Bid: A Global Perspective

Given that project selection is a vital and recurring strategic decision for construction firms, there is a sizeable collection of studies that examine the factors affecting contractors’ decision to bid (d2b). With the aim to provide a global perspective of factors affecting contractors’ d2b, this study meta-analytically reviews 24 relevant studies published between 1988 and 2021. The results show that that there are 28 critical factors, and the top five factors are (i) project payment terms, (ii) financial capacity of client, (iii) client’s reputation in the industry, (iv) the history of client’s payments in the past projects, and (v) project size. The heterogeneity test results, which show no statistically significant heterogeneity across the included studies, reinforce the generalisability of the findings to a global context. The research findings have practical implications for construction clients in their procurement of construction services, highlighting the importance of good reputation and payment history. For contractors, they now have access to a list of critical factors from a global perspective in facilitating their d2b decision. There are methodological implications for the research community in guiding future efforts in replicating studies.