Modeling the Dynamics of Heavy Equipment Management Practices and Downtime in Large Highway Contractors

Thanapun Prasertrungruang1 and B. H. W. Hadikusumo2

Introduction
In the construction industry, the tangible benefits of using machinery are obvious as greater productivity, performance, cost reductions, and improved competitiveness for contractors can be obtained. This is particularly so in highway construction organizations where a variety of construction equipment has been heavily deployed as a major resource in generating work production. However, managing construction equipment effectively is not an easy task since the contractor is required to dynamically interact with various parties and activities. Highway contractors are thus invariably plagued by a number of equipment management problems. Downtime resulting from machine breakdown during operations is of prime concern in views of contractors (Prasertrungruang and Hadikusumo 2007). Indeed, equipment practices and policies are some of the most important factors that affect machine downtime significantly (Elazouni and Basha 1996). Variation in practices regarding the flow of factors (e.g., spare parts, operators, equipment, mechanics, and information) over time is claimed as a major cause of the dynamics of downtime (Nepal and Park 2004). Nevertheless, to date, little efforts have been made to study the effect of less tangible factors (e.g., equipment management practices) on downtime, which control the dynamic behavior of the system, particularly in the construction context (Edwards et al. 2002). Hence, this research attempts to address this issue by exploring and highlighting key dynamic structures of equipment management practices and downtime inherent in each particular stage of machine lifecycle and then uses them as a framework in building a system dynamics (SD) simulation model. Scope of this study covers merely on large highway contractors with five types of heavy equipment for highway construction (see Table 1) as machine weight is one of the major indicators of downtime and maintenance cost (Edwards et al. 2002). It is noted that weight interval for each equipment type is also assigned in order to allow for machine generalization.

Applications of SD in Construction Decision-Making

By nature, construction project management is considered as a complex system (Richardson and Pugh 1981). Several researchers have adopted a SD methodology to model construction project.
For instance, Richardson and Pugh (1981) introduced a SD model for project management. This model concentrates on schedule overrun controlled by the magnitude of the workforce and rework. Subsequently, large-scale projects using fast-track procurement were modeled using the SD approach (Huot and Sylvestre 1985). The results reveal that the major problems in project failure are problems of quality, productivity, and worker morale. The SD was also used to model rework in construction (Love et al. 1999). Results show that rework is predominantly attributable to designer’s errors, design changes and construction errors. To solve this problem, teamwork between design and construction people, training, and skill development must be emphasized.

In the context of construction equipment management, the use of SD in modeling the dynamics of downtime is highly promising (Nepal and Park 2004). It was proposed that downtime and its consequences on construction equipment are significantly influenced by many factors: equipment-related factors, site-related factors, project-related factors, company’s policies, crew-level factors, site management actions, and force majeure.

Equipment Management Practices and Downtime
As the challenge of selecting, managing, and maintaining the equipment asset becomes more complex and costly every day, effective management of these assets directly fuels the success for business by significantly minimizing direct and indirect costs of equipment while still concurrently ensuring high availability of equipment productivity. Realizing the right practices on equipment management is dependent on where the machines are in their lifecycle. Indeed, equipment management practices can be categorized into four groups: machine acquisition, operations, maintenance, and disposal. Key practices in each particular stage of machine lifecycle include, for example, procurement decision approach (equipment acquisition stage), safety and training programs (equipment operational stage), schedule PM inspection and standby repair-maintenance facilities (equipment maintenance stage), equipment economic life and replacement decisions (equipment disposal stage) (Prasertrungruang and Hadikusumo
2006).

When the machine fails during operations, it is said to be “down or unavailable” which means that it is waiting for repair and thus incurring downtime (Nagi 1987). Typically, downtime duration consists of three major components, including (1) administrative time: time required for communication flow from user to manufacturer, time required for commercial formalities, and hours necessary to report a machine failure and give work directions for maintenance; (2) supply time: time when repair is delayed due to non-availability of spare parts and materials necessary to perform maintenance; and (3) active repair: time when technicians are working on the equipment to actually commission it including both preventive and corrective maintenance (Komatsu 1986). To minimize the consequential impact of downtime, contractors may opt to seek for substitute equipment, wait until the repair finished, accelerate work pace, modify work schedule, or transfer crews to other works (Nepal and Park 2004).

The research methodology was divided into two parts: data collection and data analysis. For the Data Collection, the research uses data collected from face-to-face interviews with five large highway contractors located in Bangkok and the surrounding provinces in Thailand. An equipment manager with at least 10 years work experience was selected as the interviewee for each of the participated contractors. A convenience sampling technique was used in identifying not only the sample contractors but also the interviewees. The interview checklist is in a semi-structured format in order to cover both open and closed-end dialogs. During the interviews, causal relationships between each pair of variables were disclosed and confirmed by the interviewees. For the data analysis, data collected from all five large contractor cases was administered using within-case as well as cross-case analysis approaches (Eisenhardt 1989). First, within-case analysis was employed to reveal the data characteristics for each particular contractor case. Then, attempt was made to draw the integrated picture among all contractor cases regarding the generic feedback structures of equipment management practices and downtime using cross-case analysis approach. The generic feedback structures were rechecked again with experts for validation until they are satisfactorily valid. Next, the generic feedback structures were used as a foundation in constructing the generic SD simulation model, using Powersim software. During this step, a number of stock and flow diagrams, which are all connected together in the generic SD model, have been identified. “Stock” represents accumulated quantities that change over time, while “flow” controls the changing rate of quantity going into or out of the stock (Sterman 2000). After data from each of the five contractor cases was input separately into the generic SD model, five applied SD models could be launched. Each of the applied SD models was then subjected to a number of validation tests to ensure that the model is structurally and behaviorally valid. Upon passing all validation tests, the generic SD model is deemed valid in representing the equipment management system as related to downtime of large contractors.

Conclusions
The aim of this paper is to give an insight into the dynamics of equipment management practices and downtime in large highway contractors. The dynamics of equipment management practices and downtime are presented through five generic feedback structures: machine acquisition, operations, maintenance, disposal, and downtime. Each of the feedback structures is interrelated and used as a framework in constructing the generic SD simulation model. A number of validation tests were used to ensure that the model is structurally and behaviorally valid.

To be successful in managing downtime, equipment management practices must be perceived as a combination of multiple feedback processes, which are interrelated to machine downtime. Indeed, downtime is interdependent and stimulated by three reinforcing cycles: schedule disruption and acceleration, operator schedule pressure creep, and mechanics’ schedule pressure creep. Even though downtime can be tackled through adoption of three balancing cycles (i.e., repair outsourced adjustment, operator skill adjustment, and mechanics’ skill adjustment), their expected benefits are always delayed, which retard or sometimes deteriorate the scenarios if contractors opt to stop the improvement processes. In addition, downtime is partly minimized through the reduction of disruption of work sequences by activating another two balancing cycles (i.e., rental machine adjustment and subcontractor adjustment). With high downtime, PM efforts are eroded, which in turn even worsen the scenarios as the reinforcing cycles of operator schedule pressure creep and mechanics’ schedule pressure creep have now been activated. However, contractors can mitigate this problem through adoption of balancing cycle of dealer maintenance services adjustment and the reinforcing cycle of management commitment in proactive maintenance.

Future work could be directed toward studying the interactions among equipment policies that have been addressed in the study. This would be useful especially when there are multiple performance tradeoffs involved among the stated policies (e.g., adopting participatory multi-skilled training policy may cause more fatigue to equipment operators and thus reduce the operator’s effort in performing the autonomous maintenance policy). Additional case studies are also needed to validate the effectiveness and practicability of the proposed system and make further adjustments for a more reliable system.

This paper is part of the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Vol. 135, No. 10, October 1, 2009. Full paper is available upon request.

Abstract is copied and posted.

Abstract: Machine downtime is invariably perceived as one of the most critical problems faced by highway contractors. Attempts to reduce downtime often result in failure due to the dynamic behaviors between equipment management practices and downtime. This paper is thus intended to highlight the dynamics of heavy equipment management practices and downtime in large highway contractors and utilizes them as a framework in constructing a simulation model using a system dynamics approach. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with equipment managers from five different large highway contractors in Thailand. The finding reveals that, to be successful in alleviating downtime, contractors must view their practices on equipment management as an integration of multiple feedback processes, which are interrelated and interdependent with downtime. Based on various validation tests, the simulation model is deemed appropriate in representing the equipment management system as related to downtime of large highway contractors. The research is of value in facilitating better understanding on the dynamics of equipment management practices and downtime as well as their interdependency.

DOI: 10.1061/_ASCE_CO.1943-7862.0000076

CE Database subject headings: Maintenance; Dynamic models; Construction equipment; Contractors; Systems management; Construction industry; Thailand; Contractors; Highway and road construction.


1Researcher, Construction Engineering and Infrastructure Management,
School of Engineering and Technology, Asian Institute of Technology,
Pathumthani 12120, Thailand (corresponding author). E-mail:
st101533@ait.ac.th

2Associate Professor, Construction Engineering and Infrastructure
Management, School of Engineering and Technology, Asian Institute of
Technology, Pathumthani 12120, Thailand.

4DCAD-Safety: visualizing project scheduling and safety planning

Damrong Chantawit, Bonaventura H.W. Hadikusumo, and Chotchai Charoenngam

Construction Engineering and Infrastructure Management, Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand

Steve Rowlinson

Department of Real Estate and Construction, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Introduction
Safety is considered as one of the project’s success factors. Poor safety management may result in accidents that impact on human, economic, and legal issues. The human impact involves both physical and psychological pains suffered by worker and his family. The economic impacts increase direct and indirect costs of the organization. In addition, there is the legal impact that relates to a breach of safety regulations. Therefore, it is necessary to consider safety and health as a project success factor along with other project success factors, such as time, project and quality.

Safety management covers from planning to implementation. Safety planning must be conducted prior to a construction activity for determining safety measures needed. The planning is the first fundamental step for managing safety. However, there is a problem with the conventional safety planning in construction project management.

The problem is related with loose relationships of plans: safety plan, project scheduling, and project drawings that are in 2D representation. This problem causes difficulties in using and analysing safety plans. For this reason, Kartam (1997) integrated safety plan with project scheduling. However, project design (i.e., drawings) was not included in his study. Without integrating project design, safety engineer will have difficulties in visualizing how the site will look; and this is important in determining safety hazards occurring.

This paper discusses our 4DCAD-Safety research that aims to integrate 4DCAD (i.e., 3DCAD objects and project time schedule) and construction site safety plan for assisting users in analysing and utilizing safety plans in terms of what, when, where, and why a safety measure is needed. This paper explains how a 4DCAD-Safety application is designed, developed, and tested.

Construction safety planning
Safety planning plays its important roles in construction project management for reducing unnecessary cost and delays related to undesired accidents. Safety planning ensures that safety will be taken into account along with costs, schedules, quality and other important job goals.

Safety planning includes identifying all potential hazards and hazardous operations and safety measures. This safety planning can be enhanced into safety risk management system by adding more tasks: identifying safety hazards, classifying risks, controlling the risks and monitoring the implementation. Among these tasks, safety hazard identification is the most important, since failure to identify safety hazards means safety measures are not adequately investigated.

Safety planning is traditionally managed separately from project planning/scheduling task. However, there must be a method to link these planning tasks. There are two reasons for explaining why the link is important. First, the safety plans must be linked with the construction schedule because safety engineers need to identify when safety measures on the safety plans must be used. Secondly, the safety engineers have to use construction drawings for developing the safety plans because these drawings have the information related to why and where safety measures are chosen. Kartam (1997) has developed Integrated Knowledge Intensive System for Construction Safety and Health Performance Control (IKIS-Safety System) that integrates safety and health requirement (i.e., safety plan) into a CPM-based project schedule. This integration provides a way to manage safety and health performance proactively rather than reactively, and alert construction manager and all involved parties when reviewing the CPM schedule (MacCollum 1995: 130; Kartam 1997). IKIS-Safety system helps users to know when a safety measure (i.e., what) is used since it is integrated with project scheduling; however, IKIS-Safety does not support adequate information for analysis. In our study, we consider that providing adequate information for safety engineers to analyse a safety plan in terms of why, when, where a safety measure (i.e., what) is important.

In order to provide adequate information, integrating the safety plan with 4DCAD, i.e., 3D object plus scheduling, is crucial. The 3D object should be used because it provides What- You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) benefit. In conventional construction project, most of the objects are represented using 2D drawings. Collier (1994) noted that this 2D representation is a bottleneck since engineers have to convert this drawing into 3D mental picture which is a tedious task. Since creating this 3D mental picture is already a tedious task, combining the 2D drawing with safety planning increases the difficulty. As a solution, 3D model computer representation can be adopted.

4DCAD technology for managing construction projects
Koo and Fischer (2000) defined Four-Dimensional Computer Aided Design (4DCAD) as a result of integrating 3D objects to the fourth dimension, time. The 3D and time integration allows users to run a visualization of the planned construction process of the project. The first idea was conceived in 1986–1987 when Bechtel collaborated with Hitachi Ltd to develop the Construction CAE=4D Planner software (Simons, 1988 cited in Rischmoller, 2000). The 4D model aims to overcome deficiencies of the traditional planning and control, such as bar charts and network diagrams, that do not effectively represent and communicate the spatial, temporal, and non-precedence information.

In conventional project planning, a contractor has to abstract the visual description of a project design into a textual description of activities and construction schedule. Later at the construction stage, engineers have to visually conceptualize the sequence of construction, and the 3D mental model of construction objects for construction purposes. In 4D environment, this tedious process is eliminated since the 4D model explicitly represents the relationship between the description of a facility (3D object) and the construction schedule (McKinney and Fischer, 1998).

4DCAD facilitates 3D construction products to be visualized along with construction processes on a computer screen therefore users need not to interpret construction products and processes in their minds. In other words, users can visualize the construction processes, as they would be actually carried out in reality. Potential benefits of 4DCAD have been extended by adding additional dimension, such as resources constraint management (Sripasert and Dawood, 2002), and nD-modelling (Rowlinson and Yates, 2003; Lee et al., 2004).

The benefit of 4DCAD can also be used for safety planning purposes in which the 4DCAD technology can be integrated with safety plan for providing safety engineers for analyzing what, when, where, and why a safety measure is needed. This integration is called 4DCAD-Safety.

4DCAD-Safety

System functionalities
4DCAD-Safety application is designed to facilitate safety engineers to analyse and utilize a safety plan. For this purpose, necessary information, i.e., 1) what safety measures are needed, 2) why, 3) where, and 4) when they are needed, must be provided. The information related with type of safety measures can be stored in a database, so that engineers can retrieve this information when they need it for planning safety measures in a project. When the engineers have to determine type of safety measures need to be used, their decision is influenced by two aspects: the physical condition of the project, represented in project designs; and the project progress, represented in a project schedule. The physical condition affects engineers’ decision in terms of where and why the safety measures are needed. Similar tasks conducted in different conditions may need different safety measures, e.g., constructing a column at the perimeter of a building has different hazard exposure compared to constructing a column at the centre of the building. This means safety engineers need to know where the safety measures will be used in order to analyse why they need to be used. The other aspect, project progress, also affects the reason for why a safety measure is needed because project progress may temporarily create different safety hazards.

In order to include what, why, where, and when aspects, the 4DCAD-Safety is equipped with three main components: 1) 4DCAD simulator, 2) safety library and plan, and 3) 4DCAD-Safety simulator. The 4DCAD simulator is used to simulate the project progress for a specific date. The safety library and plan are used to determine what types of safety measures are needed. Finally, the 4DCAD-Safety simulator is used to simulate specific safety measures chosen for a specific project progress. In other words, the simulation generates the project progress at a specific date and safety measures related; and this is useful for the engineers to analyse what safety measures are needed, why, when and where they are needed.

A case example for illustrating the 4DCAD-Safety is presented below.

4DCAD simulation. The 4DCAD simulation engine aims to generate, manipulate and simulate the 4DCAD model. Before generating the 4DCAD model of the whole project, all subschedules from the subcontractors need to be combined into one main schedule otherwise some construction products may not be shown during the simulation. Hence, the first feature provided in this function is to combine subschedules of subcontractors into a main schedule of a contractor. (Note: this feature is optional.)

The 4D simulation can be obtained by making the 3D objects visible or invisible according to the construction scheduling. Ongoing and completed 3D objects are set as visible while the rests are set as invisible. The ongoing objects are represented in blue colour, while the completed objects are in green.

Safety library and planning function. A safety plan contains safety measures to prevent accidents. In order to generate a safety plan, 4DCAD-Safety is equipped with two safety features: safety library and safety planning.

A safety library contains several safety data collected from regulatory standards and safety engineers’ experience, e.g., installing a guardrail to protect workers from falling from an open slab. Due to the nature of a library as a storage function, the safety library may have a lot of safety data; and this creates difficulties for a user to find the specific safety data in the safety library. For solving this problem, a keyword system is used to filter safety data. For example, when a user filters the safety library with the ‘Piling’ keyword, every safety data holding this keyword will be shown, such as 1) use earmuff, 2) use safety helmet, and 3) use eyes protection.

A safety plan is created by assigning the safety data, compiled from the safety library, into an activity. The relationship between construction task (or activity) and safety data is illustrated in Figure 1.

System architecture
4DCAD-Safety system architecture consists of four parts (see Figure 2): 1) MS ProjectTM, 2) AutoCADTM or AutoDesk Architecture DesktopTM, 3) Database, and 4) the 4DCAD-Safety application (i.e., an interface application). The construction project scheduling is created using MS ProjectTM software. The advantage of using MS ProjectTM is in its ability to export a schedule file to a database file using an ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) function; and therefore the construction schedule developed using MS Project can be easily converted into a MS Access database. The system database is designed to store three categories of data: 1) safety plan, 2) imported construction schedules, and 3) 3D objects group. For visualizing construction products, AutoCADTM software is used for developing the 3D computer objects as well as displaying them for 4D simulation purpose. Reasons for choosing AutoCAD or AutoDesk are: 1) it supports functions that can be accessed using programming languages, such as Visual Basic, and 2) this software is commonly used in the AEC industry. One important function for the purpose of 4D simulation is ‘visibility’ property of AutoCAD in which this property can be turned-off to hide an object, and turned-on to display an object. In addition, rendered images in the AutoCAD can be saved in DFX file which then can be open as 3D objects using WorldUpTM, a virtual reality software. Viewing 3D objects in World Up facilitates a better visualization since user is provided with sophisticated walkthrough mechanism to explore the 3D objects. The last part, 4DCAD-Safety interface, developed using Visual Basic programming language, aims to integrate the system database and AutoCADTM or AutoDeskTM. ADO technology that connects objects (e.g., a list box, a combo box, and so on) to the system database through MS Jet OLEDB 4.0 Provider is adopted in this application. In relation to the connection between the 4DCAD-Safety interface and AutoCADTM, this study utilized ActiveX technology to control every object, method, property, and event of AutoCADTM.

Database design. The 4DCAD-Safety system database was developed using a relational database by using MS Access application. Its data can be mainly categorized into three main groups: products, processes, and safety plan. Figure 3 illustrates the database structure of 4DCAD-Safety system that consists of main tables (i.e., entities): ‘Group’, ‘4DLink’, ‘Task’, ‘SafetyLink’, ‘SafetyLibrary’, and ‘SafetyKeyword’.

‘Task’ table is needed to store main scheduling data from the MS project: TaskID, WBS, Task Name, Start Date, and Finish Date. From MS project schedule, this data must be exported to a MS Access database file. All construction activities in the MS Access database must be assigned into groups because some of the activities are not represented in the 3D models. For example, constructing column activity is usually elaborated into four activities: installing rebar, installing formwork, concreting, and stripping off the formwork; and this four activities can be grouped together to represent ‘constructing column’ activity which is linked into a 3D model of the column (see Figure 3). In order to group tasks from the ‘Task’ table and assign them to relate with a group of 3D objects, an additional entity so called 4Dlink table is created. In this 4Dlink, the relationship between ‘Group’ and ‘Task’ table is set as ‘a group can contain many tasks, but one task can be a part of a group only’.

The ‘Group’ table stores data of 3D objects such as group name, WBS, and work area. One group might contain one or more 3D objects that are similar and must be built at the same time, for example, a group of second floor slabs, which represent slabs from different areas.

In relation to safety planning, the ‘SafetyLibrary’ table is created as the library of safety data. It stores records of predefined safety measures collected from regulatory standard and safety engineers’ experience. For example, install a guardrail to protect workers to fall from an open slab. This safety library is used to create a safety plan stored in a composite entity, ‘SafetyLink’ table. This table relates several safety data in the library with a construction task in ‘Task’ table. This enables safety measures in a safety plan to be displayed along with construction products and construction processes being simulated in the 4D simulation. For example, the roof truss installation task needs some safety measures such as equipping a safety helmet, and providing a safety belt. When the 4D simulation reaches roof objects (construction products) and roof truss installation tasks (construction processes), these safety measures will be displayed.

The last table, ‘Safety Keyword’ aims to assist users to list the specific records of safety library based on their keywords, e.g., list all records of safety library related to a task, then users can choose suitable safety measures displayed. For example, when the users use ‘excavation’ keyword, the database will suggest safety helmet and install a temporary shoring, then the user may choose which measures are suitable.

4DCAD-Safety interface. The 4DCAD-Safety interface, developed using Visual Basic programming language, is designed for integrating system database and AutoCADTM or AutoDeskTM. The interface is mainly divided into three parts: 1) 4DCAD interface (see area 1 in Figure 4), 2) safety interface (see area 2 in Figure 4), and 3) viewing part (see area 3 in Figure 4).

The 4DCAD interface is designed for controlling the 4D components consisting of object groups, related tasks, and lists of tasks for providing the 4D generating function and the simulation function. The 4D generating function aims to generate relationships between the object groups and their related tasks, while the simulation function aims to run 4DCAD-Safety simulation. These two functions are the main objective of this application.

The safety interface is created for communicating a safety plan to user when its related 4DCAD model is being simulated (i.e., being constructed in real world). Moreover it also enables a user to develop a new or modify an existing safety library as well as integrate safety plans with 4DCAD model.

The viewing part, AutoCADTM or AutoDeskTM application, is to display 3D objects and 4D simulation. Each interface is designed to work consistently with others. For example, when, according to the scheduling, fourth columns are on being constructed (in the section 1 of Figure 4), the viewing part will display the columns being constructed (in the section 2 of Figure 4) as well as the safety measures related (in the section 2 of Figure 4).

The 4DCAD system can be further expanded into a virtual reality visualization by exporting the simulated 3DCAD into a virtual reality object (Figure 5). User can easily does a walkthrough to any location in the simulated construction progress. This virtual reality visualization can magnify the benefits of 4DCAD safety in terms of analysing and interpreting safety measures in terms of what, why and where the measures are needed. In addition, the visualization can also be used as a material for group discussion within safety engineers for safety knowledge socialization.

Testing and evaluations

Respondents’ opinions
In order to validate that the system can achieve the system objectives and benefits the construction industry, tests were conducted by two senior project managers and one senior project management consultant. The testers used the 4DCAD-Safety application, and then they were asked to answer a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire addressed two main issues: functionality, usefulness of the 4DCAD-Safety; and operability, easiness to use the system.

From Table 1, the result showed that the application is useful to assist users in analyzing construction sequence, informing spatial information and scheduling information. Moreover, the respondents were very satisfied with the application that provides them information to analyse safety planning information in terms of what, when, where and why safety measures are needed. They also considered that the application is relatively easy to use, except for generating a 4DCAD model. Generating the 4DCAD model is not easy because 1) it is difficult to develop a 3D model of a large-scale construction project, and 2) the process to link a construction scheduling and the 3D model is quite difficult. This is addressed for further research development.


System benefits and limitations
4DCAD-Safety provides general and specific benefits. The general benefits are related with the 4DCAD simulation features that have been investigated by previous researches. The specific benefits are uniquely related with the 4DCAD-Safety developed in our research.

The general benefits of 4D simulation are 1) the 4DCAD-Safety application visualizes 3D objects of a construction project, the disparity in participants’ experience or knowledge that lead to different interpretation is less significant and communication among participants can be improved (Koo and Fischer, 2000), and 2) the application can be applied to visualize and interpret construction sequence on a computer display rather than in their mind. This allows users to better understand construction sequence and detect potential problems in construction drawings as well as schedules prior construction starts (McKinney and Fischer, 1998; Kang et al., 2002).

There are two specific benefits related to the 4DCAD-Safety application. First, related with safety planning function, when construction activities are progressing according to the project calendar, the application can display safety measures that are required to carry out specific works. Secondly, since the displayed safety plan is related to the construction activities represented in 3D model, the application facilitates safety engineers to visualize spatial and physical information of construction activities and their products. This facilitates safety engineers to know and analyse what safety measures are needed to be installed, prepared, or provided for current activities and where, when, as well as why they are needed. For a better quality of visualization, 3D image rendered in AutoCAD can be saved as DFX file since this file format can be opened using World UpTM. One significant benefit of viewing 3D objects in World Up is that user can have a better walkthrough mechanism for exploring the objects (Hadikusumo and Rowlinson, 2001; 2003). As an additional benefit, the 4DCAD-Safety application has a feature for combining subcontractors’ schedules and a contractor’s schedule as well as their safety plans. This combination allows all safety plans from one organization to be communicated to other organizations since they might interact directly or indirectly in order to perform their jobs.

There are two limitations of the system: 1) the 4DCAD uses early start and finish for the simulation purposes. This must be further researched to include late start and finish, and 2) the 4DCAD uses scheduling information stored in MS Access database which is created by exporting the MS Project file to MS Access file. Therefore, the system does not support real time updating of the construction schedule.

Conclusion
4DCAD is an emerging powerful technology to manage construction projects. Several researchers have identified its advantages in terms of betterment of 1) project representation which reduces design interpretation among project members, and 2) understanding of construction sequences.

This 4DCAD technology can also be utilized to manage construction site safety. In this research, the 4DCAD is further developed into 4DCAD-Safety which supports information to safety engineers for analysing and utilizing what safety measures are needed, when, where and why they are needed.

The 4DCAD-Safety consists of four main components: AutoCADTM, Microsoft ProjectTM, Database, and 4DCAD-Safety Interface. The AutoCAD is used for modelling and displaying the 3D objects that represent the physical condition of a project. Microsoft Project is used for scheduling construction activities. Thus, by integrating the scheduling into the 3D objects, the 4DCAD technology is achieved. The database is used to store project scheduling exported from Microsoft Project, safety library and safety planning. Finally, the interface is developed to integrate the three components. The integration allows a safety plan to be simulated according to the 4DCAD simulation. Additional technology, Virtual Reality, can be added to create a virtual walkthrough mechanism. This technology facilitates users to be flexible in observing the virtually real site condition progress from any positions; and therefore a better understanding of what safety measures are needed, when, where and why they are needed is obtained.

This paper was published in the journal for “Construction Innovation 2005; 5: 99–114”. Full paper is available upon request.

The abstract is also copied and posted.

Abstract: Safety planning in construction project management is separated from other planning functions, such as scheduling. This separation creates difficulties for safety engineers to analyse what, when, why and where safety measures are needed for preventing accidents. Another problem occurs due to the conventional practice of representing project designs using two-dimensional (2D) drawings. In this practice, an engineer has to convert the 2D drawings into three-dimensional (3D) mental pictures which are a tedious task. Since this conversion is already difficult, combining these 2D drawings with safety plans increases the difficulty. In order to address the problems, 4DCAD-Safety is proposed. This paper discusses the design and development of 4DCAD-Safety application and testing its usefulness in terms of assisting users in analysing what, when, where and why safety measures are needed.

Key words: accident prevention; computer aided simulation; computer graphics; hazards; Safety

Address for correspondence: B.H.W. Hadikusumo, Assistant Professor, Construction Engineering and Infrastructure Management, Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand. E-mail: kusumo@ait.ac.th

Virtual Construction Negotiation Game – An Interactive Learning Tool for Project Management Negotiation Skill Training

Charnkurt Yaoyuenyong (*) ; B.H.W. Hadikusumo (*) ; Stephen O. Ogunlana (*) And Sununtha Siengthai (**)

Introduction

Negotiation is an important aspect of construction projects. Negotiation can take place at any stage of a construction project. Hence, the ability of engineer-managers to negotiate effectively is crucial for success or failure of the project. In spite of this importance, proper negotiation-skill training is not well addressed within the construction industry. Negotiations are an important activity but they receive little research or educational attention (Dudziak and Hendrickson, 1988). Engineering managers seem to learn negotiating skills only through experience and observation (Smith, 1992).

The purpose of our research is to develop a new and innovative computer tool for training negotiation skills. Therefore the system called Virtual Construction Negotiation (VCON) was developed. It is an internet multi-user game that allows users to play the game across the Internet so that trainees can freely play a simulated contract negotiation of a construction project with other users under an engaging and dynamic virtual environment.

In this paper, fundamental knowledge of negotiation is briefly reviewed. Following that, the VCON system – Virtual Construction Negotiation game – is introduced. Discussion on system design is also included. Finally, the testing of VCON system, conducted with a selected group of construction management students in order to evaluate the operability and playability of the game, is presented.

Fundamental Knowledge of Negotiation

Negotiation is defined as a joint decision-making process of two or more parties working together to reach a mutually acceptable agreement over one or more issues (Cohen, 2002). Negotiation can be classified into two broad categories: distributive negotiation (positional bargaining) that usually results in a win-lose situation and integrative negotiation (interest-based) that results in a win-win situation (Raiffa et al., 2002).

Any negotiation takes place at two levels. First level involves negotiation of the substantive issues (e.g. contract price). The next level of negotiation refers to the procedure for dealing with the substantive issues (Fisher et al., 1991). This ‘upper’ level dictates how one and the other party play the game of negotiation. For instance, one can negotiate by hard positional bargaining, by cooperative approach, or by some other methods (Fisher et al., 1991).

When dealing with substantive issues, negotiation can be represented as shown in Figure 1. If the highest price the buyer is willing to pay is greater than the lowest price the seller can accept (b > s), then the agreement is possible, otherwise no agreement would be possible. The range in the middle between these two reservation prices is referred to as ZOPA (Zone of Possible Agreement). The problem with ZOPA is that both parties usually have an imprecise reservation price and make no formal attempt to assess probabilistic information about the other’s reservation price (Raiffa et al., 2002).

Figure 1 - Zone of Possible Agreement (adapted from Raiffa et al., 2002)

Fisher et al (1991) argued that BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement) concept can also be used as an effective way to establish the reservation price. By establishing a realistic reservation price based on BATNA prior to a negotiation, not only can it increase the likelihood of a successful deal, but also improve one’s confidence and bargaining power on the negotiation table. The negotiation process will become more complex if several issues are included in the negotiation because negotiators are now required to establish not just one but several reservation prices for all issues. In this circumstance, a careful preparation and systematic planning must be carried out prior to the negotiation.

Additive scoring system can be used to plan the negotiation process. The negotiator is urged to prepare a template for the up-coming negotiation similar to Table 1. This template lists all issues to be negotiated, importance of each issue, and potential alternatives. The negotiator can systematically convert negotiating elements of subjective nature into quantitative figures. For instance, since issue no.6 is the most important for John (Table 1), he would rather go from A to E than go from worst to best on any other issue. In addition, using scoring template, the negotiator can determine the minimum acceptable score (i.e. the reservation point).

Table 1 - Additive Scoring Template (Adapted from Raiffa et al., 2002)


Virtual Construction Negotiation Game (VCON)

One of the most widely used methods is classroom simulations in which students are assigned to take different roles in pre-defined negotiations (Raiffa et al., 2002). The negotiations are normally simplified so that inexperienced students do not get confused with the subject matter. Prior to the negotiation, they are given common information about the scenario as well as issues to be resolved. Each side is also supplied with confidential information regarding their reservation prices on negotiating elements. After the deal is reached, each student is evaluated according to a pre-defined scoring system. A notable research regarding simulated negotiations was conducted by Dudziak and Hendrickson (1988). In their work, they developed a paper-based game of simulated contract negotiation between a gas company and a design-and-build construction firm. The concept applied in this research was similar to classroom simulations discussed earlier.

Without a doubt, this kind of paper-based simulated negotiation represents a highly effective tool for training negotiating skills. Nonetheless, such training method is still conducted under a conventional classroom environment in which there are several limitations that should be improved. This research therefore tries to further enhance the effectiveness of aforementioned paper-based negotiation simulation by alleviating current limitations.

Conventional classroom environment is normally perceived as boring and might not have enough motivational power to persuade the trainees to participate actively. This is primarily due to the fact that most students of the younger generations are more familiar with TV shows and digital entertainment such as computer games and the Internet. By converting a simulated negotiation into a digital game and adding key elements of a game such as fun, competition, and win/lose, it can enhance attractiveness and enthusiasm of the trainees towards the training contents through the concept of “learning by playing”. This would result in an innovative training tool that offers greater motivational power than other learning methodologies, especially conventional classroom teaching (Prensky, 2001). If properly designed, game-based training programs would provide a highly engaging environment for learning, while simultaneously delivering the substance that they are intended for (Filipczak, 1997).

Another obvious disadvantage of a conventional classroom setting involves time and place limitations. By contrast, utilizing a digital game by incorporating web technologies can surpass these boundaries and promote greater exposure to cultural diversity.

Given the reasons in the preceding paragraphs, it is highly recommended that the idea of on-line multi-player game should be adopted as a new and innovative tool for training negotiating skills. Hence, VCON – Virtual Construction Negotiation game –has been designed to incorporate many advantages of on-line multiplayer game (see Table 2 for a summary of key system features) while still maintaining the essence of negotiation. In the following sections, the paper discusses the development of VCON, overview of VCON, how it can be used to improve negotiating skills, as well as system testing to evaluate the effectiveness of VCON as a training tool.

Table 2 - Key Features of VCON Game


VCON Development: Requirement Identification

Development of the VCON game can be classified into four major phases, namely: game requirements identification, system design, software development, and system testing. In this paper, only the identification is discussed.

Information necessary for the development of VCON game was formulated. This phase was done in order to ensure that the contents of contract negotiation included into the game were accurate and practical. Therefore, interviews and questionnaires were conducted to gather necessary information from the construction industry. The main purpose was to identify the important elements usually discussed during contract negotiation for building projects. Several interviews were organized with experienced practitioners who had been involved in contract negotiations. Results from these interviews were used in developing the questionnaire for assessment of contract negotiation.

To collect data from the industry, a total of 202 questionnaires were randomly distributed to local contractors, consulting firms, as well as property developers in Thailand. In addition to paper-based questionnaire, an on-line questionnaire was developed in order to gather more data from construction firms in other countries. It was found that a total of 39 respondents (19.3%) returned the paper-based questionnaires, while additional 5 respondents participated in the on-line survey. Data collected was classified into two groups: contractors and owners (including consultants). To simplify the analysis, only data from respondents involved in contract negotiations of building projects were considered. In the questionnaire, respondents were asked to rank the importance of each negotiating elements (e.g. contract price, payment terms, etc.) according to their actual preferences of the most recent project. As a result, the rankings of elements according to their importance from owners’ and contractors’ perspectives were formulated as in Table 3 and 4 respectively.

Table 3 - Importance Ranking of Negotiating Elements from Owners’ Perspective

Table 4 - Importance Ranking of Negotiating Elements from Contractors’ Perspective


From the tables, it is obvious that both owners and contractors felt that time, cost, and quality were the three most important elements during the contract negotiation, while contract type and payment schedule were also fairly important. These were crucial issues that both sides are likely to compete over. It was also found that there were some elements important for one side, but were not so important for the other side (e.g. warranty period). Such elements offer an opportunity for trading of value between both sides. In summary, negotiating elements can be classified into four types according to their relative importance (see Table 5).

Table 5 - Classification of Negotiating Elements



Overview of the VCON Game

By utilizing web technologies, the game creates a virtual construction market comprising project owners and contractors (see Figure 2). Users can freely choose to play the role of either an owner or a contractor. They are encouraged to continually engage in simulated contract negotiations with other players by following the playing sequence as illustrated in Figure 3. The primary reason for creating a virtual market is to promote the realism of the game so that the users would be more encouraged to actively participate in simulated negotiations. They can try different strategies and learn from the outcome of negotiations. It is possible that a player may employ an aggressive strategy with little regard towards relationship, but later find out that such positional bargaining seriously hampers his or her long-term business relationship with other players. Ultimately, the more realistic and engaging environment in the virtual market would result in a far more effective learning experience.

By repeatedly playing these simulated negotiations, VCON users can develop four key skills:

􀂃 Ability to plan properly: Before each negotiation, trainees are required to carefully read necessary information given to them in a clear and systematic way (e.g., score sheet). Negotiation will only commence after both sides have notified VCON system that they are ready.

􀂃 Ability to identify ZOPA: Negotiation is pre-defined so that ZOPA exists for all negotiating elements. It therefore depends largely on the ability of trainees to find possible solutions within ZOPA that maximize the satisfaction of both sides.

􀂃 Ability to apply value exchange and value creation concept: Trainees should be able to improve attractiveness of the deal, where applicable, by trading values between parties.

􀂃 Ability to recognize and respond effectively to the other party’s tactics: The game keeps records of each trainee’s negotiating styles by asking the opponent ‘what do you think about his/her negotiation styles’ at the end of each game. The data can be used for future games. Users can review such information before they negotiate. Reviewing the other side’s style allows trainees to plan effectively how to respond the negotiating style (tactics) of the other party.

Testing of VCON Game

As a training tool, the VCON system should be able to fulfill its main objective of improving trainees’ negotiation skills. Moreover, it is crucial that the trainees must consider this game as both an effective and attractive tool that would help them in learning negotiation. Testing of VCON system was conducted through a workshop with 28 graduate students in the field of construction management. The workshop consisted of a brief introduction to the concept of negotiation and its importance in the construction industry, an introduction to the VCON game, and a negotiation playing session.

Case-Based Testing

The hypothetical case study given to students was a contract negotiation of a two-storey residential housing project (see Table 6). All students were asked to form pairs of two persons in which one student played the role of the owner, while the other took the contractor’s role. Before the negotiation, both sides were instructed to carefully review all the information given to them. Each player was given: 1) shared information (e.g. project profiles) known to both sides, 2) confidential information known only by each player, and 3) scoring template listing all issues and possible solutions for each issue.

As seen from Table 7, the scoring template was designed in a way that there were issues important to both sides (e.g. price and duration), and also issues of differing interests tradable between players (e.g., warranty and supplier list). Such scenario opens the door for a win-win situation whereby players can mutually reach an agreement that satisfies both sides. Once both sides reviewed all the information provided, they were allowed to play a simulated negotiation. During the negotiation, the VCON system provided a user interface that allowed players to negotiate under a real-time, highly interactive environment (see Figure 4). When the deal was reached, the system automatically calculated the scores and displayed the results on each player’s screen (Figure 5). Each player’s score depended largely on his or her ability to negotiate effectively. VCON system also provided a joint rating indicating how well both players performed in achieving a win-win agreement.

Users’ Experience on VCON System

After the workshop, all student participants were requested to complete an evaluation form. The questions generally asked about their opinions and experience towards the game in three major aspects including: 1) the game’s effectiveness in enhancing negotiating skills of the trainees, 2) the game’s applicability as a negotiation training tool, and 3) the game’s functionality (see Table 8).


From the evaluation results, it was found that students who attended the workshop generally agreed that their overall understanding of negotiation improved after this workshop. They strongly felt that they learnt how to systematically plan for negotiations. They also agreed that the game was an effective training tool for learning key negotiation concepts such as ZOPA, value exchange concept, and negotiating strategies and tactics.

In regard to the applicability of the game, students were asked to rate their opinions on several aspects, including appropriateness, effectiveness, efficiency, and attractiveness. According to the results, most students strongly felt that this game was a highly applicable tool for training negotiation in regards to the game’s appropriateness, effectiveness, and attractiveness. However, they seemed less convinced on the efficiency of the game. This might be because they needed some basic knowledge in negotiation to take full advantages of the game.

During the workshop, one interesting issue was experienced by students who were paired with people from other nationalities. They observed that cultural differences might have an impact on negotiating styles of the players. While some nationalities had a compromising style, others tended to be more aggressive and demanding. Another interesting fact was experienced by one pair who failed to reach a deal mainly because both sides employed hard bargaining strategies, while all other pairs were able to reach an agreement.

Conclusion

The primary aim of this research is to develop a new and innovative tool for training negotiation in the construction industry. To achieve the goal, the system called “Virtual Construction Negotiation Game (VCON)” was developed. It is an on-line game which utilizes internet technologies that enhance the capability of ordinary computer-based training tools. In this game, trainees can freely practice their negotiating skills with other users under an engaging and dynamic environment in which the simulation of contract negotiations is used as the training material. Several features are incorporated into the game including: realistic negotiation scenarios, real-time multi-player system, well-established and consistent player scoring system, adaptive scenarios based on level of difficulty, on-line user database, and on-line voting system. VCON can be effectively used to train users how to plan systematically for the negotiation, and also how to apply ZOPA and value exchange concepts. For further research, BATNA concept can be added to the VCON game.

Further study on impacts of cultural differences on negotiating styles is also possible by organizing negotiation workshops with carefully selected groups of international students and then utilizing information gathered from the VCON game and the questionnaires.

This paper was published in the “International Journal of Business & Management Education, Volume 13(2) 2005 ISSN 1832-0236 35”. Full article is available upon request.

The abstract is copied and posted.

Abstract
The ability of construction managers to negotiate effectively influences project performance. Although there is a lot of literature in the area of negotiation skills training, a little attention has been dedicated to the development of an interactive computer-based negotiation game. This paper proposes an innovative tool for negotiation skills training by developing an on-line multiplayer game which allows users in different remote areas to play the game under a highly attractive and entertaining learning environment. The result of our study shows that this on-line negotiation game is an effective and useful tool for training negotiation skills. By repeatedly playing the game, users can develop key negotiation skills particularly in planning the negotiation systematically, identifying Zone of Possible Agreements (ZOPA) and understanding value exchange concepts.

Key words: Game, Negotiation, Training


(*) School of Civil Engineering
(**) School of Management Asian Institute of Technology, Pathumthani, Thailand

Strategic Assets Driving Organizational Capabilities of Thai Construction Firms

Piyanut Wethyavivorn1; Chotchai Charoenngam2; and Wasan Teerajetgul3

Introduction

Globalization presents formidable challenges to developing countries as they struggle to compete in the world market. A firm’s success is less dependent on the attractiveness of its industry or country’s environment, and more on firm specific factors that determine its competitive advantage (Hawawini et al. 2004). Firms need to extend their thinking beyond national borders when it comes to competition, capabilities, and customers.

In the construction industry, globalization together with the improved knowledge-based economy and information revolution has fundamentally altered the market (Chinowsky and Meredith 2000). The client’s needs in the industry have moved toward a greater emphasis on speed of delivery and value-based services (Yisa et al. 1996; Jaafari 2000). Innovative construction procurement methods such as design-build, build-own-operate-transfer, and design-build-finance-operate have therefore emerged in response to these shifting needs. In addition, protocols of the World Trade Organization have lowered barriers to entry into previously insulated markets, resulting in ever more intense competition (Ngowi et al. 2005). In order to secure long-term competitiveness in this new scenario, managers of construction firms must shift their focus from a project level to an organizational strategic direction, simultaneously aligning all project goals along with the firm’s overall strategy. Since the early 1990s, processes of adopting strategic management in the construction industry have been discussed by many scholars, such as Betts and Ofori (1992), Warszawski (1996), Price and Newson (2003), and Cheah et al.
(2004).

Based on literature in the field of strategic management derived from resource-based theory, strategic assets leading to sustainable competitive advantage are characterized as: valuable, scarce, difficult to trade, difficult to imitate, and difficult to substitute (Barney 1991; Peteraf 1993). Due to the nature of these characteristics, tangible resources such as capital and construction equipment, despite being essential, can hardly contribute to enhancing competitive advantage. Rather, intangible resources such as human resources, knowledge, reputation, customer loyalty, valuable relationships, and technological as well as managerial competencies are necessary as complementary sources of enhancement. However, some studies further suggest that firms with comparable tangible and intangible resources still perform differently due to a particular asset called organizational capability, which is the firm’s mechanism of transforming its tangible and intangible resources for the purpose of delivering services (Stalk et al. 1992; Teece et al. 1997; Eisenhardt and Martin 2000). In the construction industry, several capabilities have been proposed as increasing competitive advantages: innovation capability, learning organization, strategic partnering, information management, and the ability to provide project finance.

During the last decade, the Thai government has continuously invested in large infrastructure projects such as the Bangkok Sky Train lines, underground train lines, cable-stayed bridges, and the renowned Suvarnabhumi International Airport. These projects required high technological capabilities which could not be fulfilled solely by local contractors. As a result, a number of international engineering and construction firms from Europe, United States, Japan, and China entered the region to undertake these sophisticated projects. Furthermore, following Thailand’s free trade agreements with many countries, a number of foreign investors began investing in large capital projects such as power plants, manufacturing plants, luxury hotels, and residential projects throughout the country in alarming numbers. Local contractors who wished to survive in this new environment or enter into the emerging market in the region needed to successfully craft effective strategies and quickly develop the required resources and capabilities to seize upcoming opportunities (Ogunlana et al. 1996; Tam 1999; Teerajetgul and Charoenngam 2006; Waroonkun, T., and Stewart, R. A. (2007). “Modeling the international technology transfer process in construction projects: Evidence from Thailand.” J. Technol. Transf.).

This study therefore aims to identify strategic assets driving a construction firm’s capabilities in enhancing their competitive advantage in the Thai construction industry. From this, owners and managers can comprehensively evaluate their firm’s capabilities and focus on the strategic assets that need strengthening in order to compete successfully in the market.

Strategic Assets and Competitiveness of Firms

Organizations possess various resources and competencies in some key routines and activities. However, the lack of capability to effectively deploy these resources and competencies seems to be a critical problem. The resources in this study are human resources, physical resources, marketing resources, and technological resources. Competencies refer to a specific skill or ability used to perform a specific task. Capability here is defined as a firm’s capacity to deploy integrated resources and competencies to operate the business. Different capabilities require different combinations of resources and competencies. The competitiveness of a firm is the result of the performance of these capabilities when compared to its rivals.

To understand how competitive advantage in construction firms develops, a framework adopting the concept of strategic assets driving organizational capability to achieve organizational goals was proposed, as shown in Fig. 1. A firm’s resources and competencies can be sources of competitive advantage if they are matched with strategic industry factors (Amit and Schoemaker 1993). These strategic industry factors are industry-specific. They are determined at a market level and as a result of complex interactions among external stakeholders including clients, competitors, suppliers, and government regulations. A firm can identify its strategic assets by analyzing its sources of competitive advantage, and then craft an effective strategy to compete in the future target market to achieve organizational goals.

In the construction industry, several intangible resources and capabilities have been considered to provide a competitive advantage. Innovation capability through knowledge management was emphasized by Egbu (2004), whereas an ability to develop a learning organization through strategic alliances was stressed by Holt et al. (2000). On the other hand, some studies have highlighted project management capability through particular aspects such as project information technology (Stewart 2007), speed of delivery (Mahmoud-Jouini et al. 2004), environmentally-friendly building processes (Ngowi 2001; Wenblad 2001), and value creation to clients (Abidin and Pasquire 2007). Finally, many studies, especially with reference to the large-scale public-private participation sector, have stressed that the ability to raise funds serves as an advantage for contractors operating in this particular market (Hassan and McCaffer 2002).

Capability Framework

The capability framework used to investigate strategic assets driving the competitiveness of a firm was developed from earlier studies including the explanation of organizational capabilities by Ansoff (1965), the generic value chain by Porter (1985), the classification of resources by Grant (1991), and the core capabilities model of Rangone (1999). Additionally, classification of a construction firm’s resources by Warszawski (1996) was reviewed to incorporate capabilities particularly essential for construction business operations. A framework of six organizational capabilities, namely marketing, project procurement, construction, financial, business management, and learning and innovation, was established. Then resources and competencies supporting each capability were gathered from previous literature in order to design the survey instrument used to identify strategic assets.

Conclusions and Managerial Implications

The competitiveness of a firm greatly depends on its capability to transform its resources to create a unique value in the target market. Through factor analysis, 14 strategic assets driving the six organizational capabilities, which enhance a firm’s competitive advantage within the Thai construction market, were identified. Most construction firms in Thailand attempt to build strong relationships with various stakeholders such as bankers, suppliers, subcontractors, designers, etc., in order to gain a competitive advantage. Since these relationships are attached to key individuals, the benefits from these relationships are often limited. For a construction firm to reap the full benefits of these relationships, the firm must focus on developing three essential strategic assets: explicit strategic management, excellent human resources management, and continuous development and innovation.

First, a construction firm should set a realistic vision and a corresponding set of long-term goals. This vision must be constantly communicated to all employees. The firm should develop an effective performance evaluation system and constantly conduct SWOT analysis in order to craft an effective strategy.

Second, the firm should put more emphasis on recruiting and retaining competent staff. Management must carefully craft an appropriate promotion policy together with an attractive salary structure and fringe benefits. Staff knowledge and skills should be expanded continuously through an efficient learning system. This eventually provides firm ground for continuous development and innovation within the firm.

Finally, management should more aggressively seek business partners such as international design and construction firms with the superior technology required to achieve the firm’s strategy. The firm must develop a policy to support continual monitoring and trial of new products, equipment, and other up-to-date technologies. Development of these three essential strategic assets could help to develop the other strategic assets more efficiently. The findings hereof should provide the insights required to comprehensively understand a construction firm’s capabilities. Further study could explore the relationships among these assets in order to understand the mechanism of these assets in driving the competitiveness of construction firms in Thailand.

This paper was published in the “Journal of Construction Engineering and Management”, Vol. 135, No. 11, November 1, 2009. Full article is available upon request.

Abstract is also copied and posted.

Abstract: This research study aims to identify strategic assets which currently drive and enhance the organizational capabilities of construction firms. There were 258 sets of questionnaires assessing the level of importance given to 106 substantial resources underlying six organizational capabilities of Thai construction firms that were analyzed. Using factor analysis, these 106 items were reduced to 14, which were termed strategic assets. These 14 strategic assets were then classified based on their influence on the six organizational capabilities. The results indicate that Thai construction firms concentrate mostly on developing excellent reputation, creating strong bargaining power with suppliers and subcontractors, and strengthening the firm’s financial stability. However, they do not give much importance to effective risk and investment management, continuous development and innovation, and explicit strategic management. These findings provide in-depth insight to comprehensively understanding a Thai construction firm’s capabilities. These 14 strategic assets should thereafter be used to develop a practical tool for managers of construction firms to evaluate their firm’s strengths and weaknesses as well as to identify strategic assets required to enhance competitiveness in the market.

DOI: 10.1061/_ASCE_CO.1943-7862.0000091
CE Database subject headings: Assets; Construction companies; Organizations; Thailand; Business management.

1Lecturer, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Kasetsart Univ., 50 Phaholyothin Rd., Bangkok 10900, Thailand _corresponding author_.

E-mail: fengpyv@ku.ac.th

2Associate Professor, School of Engineering and Technology, Asian
Institute of Technology, P.O. Box 4, Klong Luang, Pathum Thani 12120, Thailand.

3Lecturer, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Srinakharinwirot Univ.,
Rangsit-Nakhonnayok Rd., Nakhonnayok 26120, Thailand.

Heavy equipment management practices and problems in Thai highway contractors

Thanapun Prasertrungruang and B.H.W. Hadikusumo


Introduction

Highway construction business is a sector that relies primarily on high utilisation of machinery. Equipment is thus one of the key factors for improving contractor’s capability in performing their work more effectively and efficiently (Day and Benjamin, 1991). By utilising machinery, an extensive volume of work can be completed in a shorter period of time and within the project schedule. However, in managing construction equipment, contractors are invariably plagued with several difficulties such as huge capital investment in the acquisition phase, which usually constitutes a major financial burden. Procurement of major construction equipment not only costs as high as 36 per cent of the total construction project cost, but also causes a high delivery time uncertainty, which may disrupt the construction schedule (Yeo and Ning, 2006). In the operational phase, contractors are often faced with problems relating to high rate of equipment breakdown and accident resulting from unskilled operator abuse (Stewart, 2000; Edwards and Holt, 2002; Edwards and Nicholas, 2002). Poor training of equipment operators is often claimed as a major cause of equipment-related accidents (Gann and Senkar, 1998). In the maintenance phase, proper maintenance management of construction equipment is never over-emphasised since the cost and time that exceed the designated budget or schedule on projects are often resulted from poor machine maintenance practices. However, over-maintenance of equipment is undesirable as well (Vorster and De La Garza, 1990; Edwards et al., 1997). In the disposal phase, determining equipment economic life and timing for replacement is often problematic because such decision is influenced by various factors such as machine obsolescence and efficiency (Vorster, 2005).

Effective equipment management practices not only increase production time and equipment availability, but also maximise the company profit by reducing several costs such as those from costly downtime (Edwards et al., 1998a). However, researches in the field of equipment management practice, particularly in the construction context, have been rare (Edwards et al., 1998b). This research was conducted in order to investigate current practices and problems on equipment management as well as to identify practices that are capable of mitigating equipment management problems from Thai highway contractor’s perspectives. Since machine weight is one of the major indicators of equipment downtime and maintenance cost (Edwards et al., 2000a, b; Edwards et al., 2002), only five types of heavy construction equipment were selected in this study (refer to Table I). It is believed that a study on heavy equipment management practices would contribute great benefits for highway contractors in helping them manage heavy equipment successfully.

Contractor heavy equipment management practices
In this research, contractor heavy equipment practices have been categorised into four significant stages based on machine lifecycle, i.e. acquisition, operations, maintenance and disposal.

Equipment acquisition practice (EAP)

It is generally accepted that smart acquisition practices fuel company success. Contractors always have vested interest in ensuring that their invested equipment are properly used, maintained and managed (Mitchell, 1998). In practice, capital conservation is a major factor for most companies in deciding to buy, lease, or rent on an installment plan (Sutton, 2003). Most companies, regardless of size, tend to prefer a purchasing strategy than other alternatives (Stewart, 2002a). To fulfill short-term equipment demand, most contractors realise the importance of rental machine utilisation (Stewart, 2002b). In the case of high workload during a peak construction cycle, leasing approach, which may come as a package with maintenance services from dealers, may be deemed appropriate (Stewart, 2002c).

Equipment operational practice (EOP)

An equipment operator is the person in the construction organisation who has the most influence on equipment costs (Stewart, 2001). Quality output can be partly achieved through skilful operators working with machines that are in good operational condition, thus educating equipment operators is one of the most important policies and thus holds great cost-saving potential (Wireman, 1999). Better channels of training can be obtained from various sources such as dealers (Stewart, 1998) and external agencies (Edwards and Holt, 2002). Systematic record-keeping is another practice that can generate valuable management guidelines, particularly in equipment planning and maintenance strategy (Marquez and Herguedas, 2004). Contractors must continually evaluate machine records in order to determine what actions are needed.

Equipment maintenance practice (EMP)

Maintenance of equipment is essential to contractor’s profitability because it not only extends the useful life of the equipment but also controls the machine availability at a minimum cost. Nevertheless, equipment maintenance is the most neglected aspect. Successful maintenance management can be achieved through well-developed maintenance programs (Tavakoli et al., 1990; Shenoy and Bhadury, 1998). Maintenance programs can be classified into several forms based on their complexity such as corrective maintenance, preventive maintenance and predictive maintenance (Gopalakrishnan and Banerji, 1991). Maintenance should not be viewed as a cost, but as an investment that can be linked to the company’s future revenue growth (Sutton, 2001).

Equipment disposal practice (EDP)

The last stage of machine lifecycle is disposal stage, in which two major decisions concerning equipment have to be made, i.e. timing of replacement and equipment economic life expectancy (Douglas, 1975). There are various factors affecting the timing of replacement: machine efficiency, capital availability, investment costs, commencement of new projects, profits accrued from use, tax expense, depreciation, economic analysis, obsolescence costs, and downtime cost (Hinze and Ashton, 1979; Schexnayder and Hancher, 1981; Tavakoli et al., 1989).

Research method

Data collection
This research involves a questionnaire survey by mail to collect the necessary data on equipment management practices and problems of highway contractors in Thailand. According to the Department of Highways (DOHs) of Thailand, highway contractors can be categorised into five classes (i.e. extra first, first, second, third, and forth classes) based on construction experience and company resources (i.e. equipment, finance and workforce). For the sake of data analysis, it was decided to reclassify contractors into three groups (i.e. large, medium and small). Large contractor group represents the companies registered in the extra first class, medium contractor group includes those registered in the first and second classes and small contractor group comprises of companies registered in the third and forth classes.

At the first stage of the questionnaire development, a pilot test, using a semi-structured questionnaire, was conducted to test for the applicability of the tool. The selected samples for the pilot test comprise of equipment managers from ten different companies (i.e. four large, three medium, and three small contractors). Once the pilot test was completed, a valid questionnaire was then prepared and data collection was started. The questionnaire has been divided into three parts. The first part is an introductory section that includes questions related to the respondents and their company profile. In the second part, the respondents were asked to give a score on the frequency level for each of the 73 variables concerning equipment management practices (see Table I). Responses are on a four-point scale (never = 0, seldom = 1, often = 2 and always = 3). In the third part, the respondents were asked to specify the impact/significant level for each of the 20 equipment management problems that actually affect their companies on a five-point scale (not significant = 0, somewhat significant = 1, moderate significant = 2, significant = 3 and very significant = 4). Questionnaires were mailed to the respondents on a basis of random stratified sampling technique.

Conclusion

To some extent, heavy equipment management practices vary considerably among different highway contractor sizes. Large firm’s practices tend to be much different from those of the smaller firms, whereas medium and small contractors’ practices are more likely to be similar. Large contractor’s practices tend to be more successful in minimising equipment management problems. In order to diminish equipment problems, particularly downtime, the importance of performing preventive maintenance should be strictly emphasised. Adoption of professional services (e.g. maintenance and training) from external agencies such as dealers is also recommended if such tasks are not the company’s core competency. Moreover, equipment should be disposed of or replaced once it becomes inefficient or generates less productivity with high repair cost.

The foregoing practices could be considered effective because it significantly reduces major equipment management problems. Therefore, adaptation and implementation of such practices by contractors are strongly suggested. Nevertheless, this research focuses only on equipment management practices and problems of several types of large heavy machines for highway construction. Practices and problems relating to small machines or even equipment utilised in other industries are probably different from this study and thus could be the area for future research.
This paper was published in the journal “Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management Vol. 14 No. 3, 2007 pp. 228-241”. Full article is available upon request. Abstract is also posted.

Abstract

Purpose – This study is intended to investigate the current practices and problems in heavy equipment management as well as to identify practices capable of alleviating equipment management problems for highway contractors in Thailand.
Design/methodology/approach – Equipment management practices were identified and analysed by SPSS using a questionnaire survey. ANOVA test was used to reveal significant differences in equipment management practices among different contractor sizes. Relationships between equipment management practices and problems were also revealed.
Findings – The equipment management practices vary, to some extent, among different contractor sizes. While practices of medium and small contractors tend to be similar, practices of large contractors are different from those of smaller contractors. Large contractors often put more emphasis on outsourcing strategy for equipment management. Moreover, large contractors frequently dispose of or replace equipment as soon as the equipment becomes inefficient before incurring high repair costs. Conversely, smaller contractors tend to mainly emphasis on the company finance and the budget availability as they often rely on purchasing strategy, especially buying used machines. Overall, equipment practices of large contractors were found to be more successful than smaller contractors in minimising equipment management problems, including long downtime duration and cost.
Originality/value – This research is of value for better understanding practices and problems relating to heavy equipment management among different contractor sizes. The study also highlights practices that are capable of reducing problems relating to heavy equipment management for highway contractors.
Keywords Construction equipment, Construction industry, Thailand
Paper type Research paper

MPM2 HCM - Final Project Study Presentation Examination

Mr Hoang Ngoc Anh made a presentation on "New Urban Zone Infrastructure Development Project Risks - A Case Study of An Phu Tay Residential Project"

Mr Hoang Don Dung made a presentation on "Quality and Safety Management for Construction Temporary Support Structures With Reference of Regulation and Contract in Vietnam"

Ms. Thanh Truc Nguyen Thi made a presentation on "Claim Management and Analysis"

Mr Bui Giang Nam made a presenation on "Safety Management System for Steel Fabrication and Construction"

from left to right: Dr Greg Chiu, Dr Hadikusumo and Dr Chotchai are examining Professional Master Students' Final Project Study.

Dr Chotchai, Dr Hadikusumo, Dr Greg Chiu and Dr Huynh Truong Luong came to Ho Chi Minh City on 28-29 November 2009 to examine 21 profesional master students in project management in construction.

1. Nguyen Canh Toan
2. Nguyen Huynh Trung Hai
3. Bui Van Cuong
4. Le Khac Bao
5. Phan Hong Hoan
6. Hoang Ngoc Anh
7. Hoang Dong Dung
8. Bui Giang Nam
9. Nguyen Thi Thanh Truc
10. Nguyen Hoang Anh Chuong
11. Tran Hong Quan
12. Le Hoai Viet
13. Nguyen An Khe
14. Nguyen Anh Kiet
15. Phan Vu
16. Nguyen Phong
17. Pham Thi Ngoc Hien
18. Tran Thi Nguyen Cat
19 Huynh Nhat Thong
20. Nguyen Huu Phuc
21. Nguyen Duc Hung