Knowledge Management in the Estimating Process in Construction Organizations

The price competition in construction is increasing day by day. Though the guiding concept of an estimator is accuracy, by its nature an estimate is uncertain in the most situations. The changing market condition, price of material, labor, availability of equipment natural factors etc. may increase the estimated cost having high level of accuracy. And it may be exceed the budget or overrun the estimated cost after the completion of the work. Also, time and location change the cost of construction.

Enhancing the reality, level of detail, completeness, documentation, the direct and indirect costs, and contingency demands the knowledge of probable evidence or what will occur. The procedure of operation in the workplace is taken into account in the estimating process. So the procedure of operation and use of several equipments that considered during estimation sometime fail to meet the present situation and the category of the work. If the budget fails to meet the estimated cost the work will not be considered to carry out at all (Carr, 1989).

Many organizations are unable to function as knowledge based organization, because they suffer from learning disabilities. Companies must innovate or die; and their ability to learn, adapt and change be comes a core competency for survival. The forces of technology, globalization and the emerging knowledge economy are creating a revolution that is forcing organizations to seek new ways to reinvent themselves (Asian Productivity Organization 2002: 1-4).

The maintenance of organization’s current assets and capabilities in a state of effectiveness for use in the actions which the organization is currently undertaking needs an effective knowledge management in the organization. Competence in bidding, cope with changing market, supporting the budget in the construction industry requires the high level of experience of the estimator or the estimating team. In course of time the lack of knowledge creation in the construction industry reduces the competency; consequently the organization may be ruined (Hurley, 2002, Lowe and Skitmore, 2001). Infact, the construction companies have to manage their knowledge for their survival in the competitive market as well as success in the various projects (Smith 1994:25, Kamara et al, 2002).

Mr. Mohammad Kamal Hossain made this research to (1) study what knowledge must be created to support the estimating process; (2) study about the different activities used to create knowledge i.e., how to create the knowledge related to the estimating process; (3) study about the effectiveness of the knowledge creating activities for creating knowledge to support the estimating process in the existing practice; and (4) find out the problems due to implementation of the knowledge creating activities.

Conclusions

1. Knowledge Creation for Estimating Process.

Survey and data analysis revealed that several kinds of knowledge were found to be created to support the estimating process. The feature of this knowledge creation is given below.

- Various types of knowledge must be created to support the estimating process.

- The most types of the knowledge represented to the respondents were considered by them to be created to support the estimating process. For example, “Knowledge of understanding and developing method of construction” was considered to be created by all the respondents.

- Only the ‘knowledge for preparing the preliminary estimate in various methods’ was not considered to be created to support the estimating process by the major portion of the respondents.

- The respondents were also asked about any kind of knowledge they considered out of the questionnaire, but they did not mention anyone.

2. The Knowledge Creating Activities Used in Construction Industries

There are various kinds of tool used for creating knowledge. After the interview and survey it was found that, in the existing practice Group Discussion, Training, Previous Project (following previous projects), and Recruiting were used to create these knowledge. It was observed that only these four activities were used to create knowledge for estimating process.

Against each type of knowledge related to the estimating process the usage of these four activities (which activities they used to create the knowledge) was calculated. The analysis shows that;

- To create the knowledge, some knowledge creating activities were used.

- Only certain types of activities (only four activities) were used by the companies.

- Different type of knowledge was created by using different activity.

- In most of the cases a company chose only a particular type of knowledge creating activities to create a particular type of knowledge.

- For any type of knowledge related to estimating process can be created by one activity or more than one activity. For example, according to this study “Knowledge of understanding and developing method of construction” can be created by Group Discussion, or, Training, or Previous Projects.

- For any type of knowledge the companies used only two or three types of knowledge creating activities. They can improve it by using more knowledge creating activities to create a particular type of knowledge.

A correlation test between the knowledge creating activities was also performed to observe the trend and behavior of these activities towards each other. The result showed that no activity was found as significantly positively correlated among the knowledge creating activities (between any two activities); but many of them were found as negatively correlated. It means if the companies used more an activity (of which activities were negatively correlated) then they trend to use less the other activity and vise versa. For example, for creating “Knowledge of understanding and developing method of construction”, the used activity Group Discussion and Previous Project is negatively correlated by their frequencies. This means the companies used more Group Discussion trend to use less Previous Project to create this knowledge and vise versa.

3. Effectiveness of the Knowledge Creating Activities

The effectiveness of the knowledge creating activities for creating any type of knowledge related to estimating process was measured by making correlation between the knowledge creating activities and the success factor of the companies. The frequencies of usage of the knowledge creating activities were correlated with the success factor of the companies. Which activity showed the positive correlation with the success factor was considered as the more effective means. Success factor of each company was determined by the cost ratio of some projects completed by the company. Success factor of different companies were not equal.

Different activity was found effective for different type of knowledge i.e., the effectiveness of these activities varies for different type of knowledge (see table 5.1). For example, “Knowledge of understanding and developing method of construction” can be created by Group Discussion, or, Training, or Previous Projects. But in this case, Previous Project is more effective than Group Discussion or Training.

For some categories of knowledge no activity was found as more effective activity among the activities used by the respondents in the current practice. But the knowledge is created by using some knowledge creating activities which was already determined.

If one of the knowledge creating activity is determined as more effective than others for create any type of knowledge then it is better to use the activity more to create the knowledge. In the given example as the activity Previous Project is more effective than others. So Previous Project can be used more by reducing the use of Training or Group Discussion to create that type of knowledge.

4. Problems Occurred due to Implementation of These Knowledge Creating Activities

Various types of problem occurred due to implementation of these knowledge creating activities. Some problems occurred by the employees of the companies and some problems occurred by the management body of the organizations. There were some problems for which either organization or the participants were not responsible. The problems due to all knowledge creating activities were listed separately. Problems occurred for each type of knowledge creating activities is given in the table below.

Problems occurred due to implementation of these knowledge creating activities varies with the different type of knowledge creating activities.

This means the problems occurred were different for different types of knowledge creating activities. Problem also varies with different type of knowledge also.
His thesis abstract is copied and posted.

Abstract

There is a risk in the estimation of construction project. To complete a project successfully on time and budget the risk has to be identified and minimized, and the estimate must be highly accurate. Since the estimate is one of the important parts of construction process, it is either the first step of toward a successful and profitable project or the first step towards the disaster. Therefore, to make a profit margin and survive in a competitive business market it is necessary to produce an estimate with high degree of accuracy. In such type of estimate with high degree of accuracy the sum of the money sets a bottom line for the firm to carry out the work and to reach an earn value of the project to make it profitable. To produce an accurate estimate the relevant persons involved with the estimating process must have the proper knowledge to support the estimating process. This knowledge to support the estimating process must be created throughout some knowledge creating activities undertaken by the construction organization.

Hence, the purposes of this study are to find out the knowledge which must be created to support the estimating process, the methods of knowledge creation, the effectiveness of the knowledge creating methods, and the problems occurred due to implementation of these knowledge creating methods. However, the research was limited only construction firms (contractors) located in Dhaka city area. The data collection was conducted using interview and questionnaire survey in the construction firms.

Rural Road Development and Poverty Alleviation in Lao P.D.R.

In general, organizations have their own particular project appraisal methods based upon their own transport management strategies. Cost-Effectiveness Analysis is the most popular method used for rural road projects. International organizations report diverse socio-economic impacts of their road intervention. However, when it comes to empirical evidence regarding the relationship between road and poverty, they have relied on inference and political implications due to regional contextual differences and political and organizational constraints. The existing research does not quantify the impact or specify the relation between road development and poverty.

The Community Road Model (CRM) is a management system used at the district level to develop and maintain rural transport infrastructure using Participatory Rural Transport Planning (PRTP). PRTP was designed as a simple, inexpensive and appropriate tool for rural road development planning based on ILO’s Integrated Rural Road Planning (IRAP). However, the CRM still is in need of development to adjust to a more sustainable perspective. There remain questions as to how well CRM affects sustainable poverty alleviation, how the approach is related to poverty alleviation and what particular indicator evaluates impact on poverty.

Mrs. Emi Doyle made a study that uncovered the factors, in the analytical relation between road development and poverty, and identify the indicators needed to evaluate the impact of rural road projects on poverty through CRM. Her objectives are as follows:

1. Develop an analytical framework to identify the indicators of project intervention on poverty alleviation;
2. Capture the CRM approach and issues in the Lao PDR;
3. Examine the impact of rural road development on poverty alleviation.

Conclusions

Public investment in the Lao PDR largely depends on Official Development Assistance. The ODA ratio is 18 percent of total GNP and 80 percent of total public investment.
The Lao-Swedish Road Sector Project II (LSRSP-II) also faced funding issues; funding finished in October 2004. After that, the project had to lay off two out of the four local consultants. The local consultants acted as key coordinators between the project office and the communities. Because of the lay-offs, the project assessment team could not access project sites in Luang Prabang and Khammouan Provinces. The project assessment was thus temporarily put on hold after October 2004. This highlights how funding and donor policies can strongly affect rural road development projects in the Lao PDR.

According to the country profile, accessibility and road conditions are related to the poverty gap and severity. However, the fiscal budget for rural roads is much smaller than that for national roads. Nevertheless, rural road development is one of main sectors in the Government’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. Unfortunately, local governments do not have enough financial capacity to continue with rural road construction projects if the donors pull out. Rural road interventions are thus uncertain and unsustainable. Funding needs to be more sustainable and requires a long term commitment.

Answers for the three hypotheses proposed in the questionnaire design
First, do roads influence poverty reductions or not? The villagers spend their saved transport time on agriculture activities and education. This shows that the road itself influenced poverty reduction. The regression model of impact on poverty reduction assumes there is a relation regarding the distance from the project site. This hypothesis could not be examined because all respondents were living in a community within 0-10 minute walk from the site. Therefore, the identification of this critical impact on poverty reduction was not defined. However, this hypothesis can be tested using GIS and GPS technology in the future.
Secondly, was the road project design effective or not? Each stakeholder has positive and negative impacts. The project is considered successful when the net impact is maximized amongst all stakeholders. The survey result revealed that the degree of impact were immeasurable. Also, many of the impacts cannot be converted into monetary terms because the value of money was different for local communities and donors. In conclusion, the total net impact is positive.

Through the impact matrix, we can see that the CRM approach proved not to be an effective intervention for poverty reduction economically. It is more related to the sustainability and the ownership of the road development project.

Finally, do road construction projects equally benefit the poor and the non-poor groups? Road interventions are supposed to be designed to give equal opportunity to all community members, especially for poor, ethnic minorities and vulnerable groups.

The rural road projects produced a benefit for accessibility and travel time reduction and other impacts: intensive employment, technical transfers, local economy and community participation. Rural road development using CRM is considered a direct intervention for poverty reduction compared with national and provincial road projects. However, the impact of small community level projects had a slight difference between poor and non-poor groups.

This leads to doubt whether international organizations can properly evaluate the impacts of large-scale infrastructure projects between poor and non-poor at the micro level. Socioeconomic development could bring a larger gap between the poor and non-poor groups. The gap creates a larger gap between the poor and non-poor in the community.

Therefore, the project team must consider equality carefully. Also, rural road projects need collaboration with other sector projects such as income generation or agriculture projects which offer more explicit impacts on poorer groups regarding sustainable poverty alleviation.

Her thesis abstract is copied and posted.

ABSTRACT

The Lao PDR falls within the category of Least Developed Countries. The percentage of the
population living in poverty is the highest in Mekong Sub-Region. The population is only 5.1 million, with 83 percent living in rural areas. Rural accessibility is poor, with half of Lao villages inaccessible during the rainy season. Accessibility and road conditions are related to the both the poverty gap and severity.

Rural road development is one of main sectors in the Government’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. However, the fiscal budget for rural roads is much smaller than that for national and provincial roads and mainly relies on donors. International organizations report various socio-economic impacts of their road intervention; however, existing research rarely quantifies the impact or focuses on the community impact.

This research hypothesizes that road development is a pre-requisite for poverty reduction through the development of an analytical framework.
Consequently, a community survey found that there were gaps between the impacts on poor and non-poor groups even through a community level project such as the Lao-Swedish Road Sector Project-II. The research also found rural road projects require community cohesion, consideration of transport modes for the poor and collaboration with other sector projects.

Strategic Management Process of Vietnamese Construction Organizations in Ho Chi Minh City

The 21st century has become more challenging for all industries due to various innovations. Most business players feel the uncertainties and Vietnamese construction industries are facing the same risks. After the open-door policy, Vietnamese construction industry is gradually changing day by day with many invested projects. The Vietnam government welcomes and encourages all investors to invest in condition of good relationship cooperation. That Vietnam policy is given but Vietnamese construction companies are not ready to undertake projects invested in Vietnam. In confronting the challenges, the projects thereby are taken over by foreign companies. Consequently, Vietnamese construction companies are forced to improve their capabilities for adapting to the new situation (Hung, 1995). Because of the limited attention to strategic management, the construction industry is poor compared with other sectors in terms of the economy.

The Vietnamese construction industry related to strategic issues receives less attention. Strategic management of construction organizations is taken place within the context of the fortunes of the construction industry. Furthermore, there are many factors affecting construction, for instance, the economy crisis occurs. These economic developments with the slow reforms of Vietnam’s investment climate have prompted many foreign multinational corporations to leave (Haley, 2000).

Quang et al. (2000) showed several reasons that foreign business identified the current investment construction environment. Firstly, the legal framework is inadequate. Second, red tape and bureaucracy are unchanged big problem. Third, costing projects are unfair treated. Fourth, the problems of import/export tariffs are hard to accept. Finally, the corruption is always high. Those barriers make construction painful to take competitive advantages in obtaining project investment and domestic market. It is important for strategic analysis in Vietnamese construction organizations to understand the recent evolution of industry. Then they can reach a strategic management approach to implement in those barriers and the changing environment (Langford and Male, 1991).

Mr. Nguyen Huu Nghia made a study which major objective is to find the ways to improve the Vietnamese construction companies in relation to their understandings and practices of the strategic management. To achieve this major objective, three minor objectives were needed to accomplish as follows: (1) to investigate the understandings and practices related to strategic management in public and private sectors; (2) to analyze the critical problems in organizational strategic management context; and (3) to propose recommendations to improve the strategic management process applicable for the Vietnamese construction organizations.

Conclusion

The initial finding revealed the perception of Vietnamese construction manager that is paid substantially to strategic management application for their firms developing and competing in advance. The government backing seems to be the decisive factor for public contractor performance in strategic management. However, due to substantial attention and managerial knowledge, it is believed generally that Vietnamese construction companies used to practise fragmented which were the issues of this research. The followings are the major conclusions that derive from this study.

1. Strategy Formulation Process

Vietnamese contractors realize the necessity role of strategy formulation process for strategy success. Specifically, public contractors have strong awareness of strategy formulation. However, it is seemed that there is no significant difference awareness between public and private contractors in this stage except some few emergent factors. The main conclusions would illustrate general image of Vietnamese construction companies on strategy formulation.

2. Strategy Implementation Process

Strategy implementation is an important task in which strategies are made into actions. There are many things that must be done or changed. To facilitate this task, the set of programs, budget allocation and procedures should be developed. However, these do not seem to be performed formally in Vietnamese construction companies. Most of contractors have experienced unofficially on those issues. Besides, the important problems in strategy implementation that Vietnamese contractors usually have to confront are “financial requirement” and “external factor impacts”. After all, based on above findings, the deficiency is that Vietnamese contractors paid less attention on deploying tasks in official form for all personnel able to comply. Furthermore, the deficiency could be that the lack of managerial knowledge on strategic management created the serious problems instead of able to overcome if they were planned formally at the first time.

3. Strategy Measurement Process

Performance measurement is a key factor in ensuring the successful implementation of organization’s strategy. In general, Vietnamese contractors realize the importance role of strategy performance measurement that should be executed for the effectiveness of strategy. Public contractors have stronger awareness in pursuing measurement than private ones. The research also found some shortcomings that embrace in the current measurements of Vietnamese contractors. They admit their shortcomings in strategy measurement such as they do not identify how competitors are performing. Furthermore, their measurements fail to provide responsiveness and flexibility of the changes in construction environment. These could be the deficiencies because they cannot benchmark competitors for successful competition in business and lack the attention on environment to update and validate their strategic management appropriately.

Recommendation

According to this research, the findings and problems are found on current perceptions related to strategic management application of Vietnamese construction companies. They need to be improved for management in which they should pay more commitment and have to be trained. Therefore, recommendation of this study is produced to improve the problems that are caused by the most important factors in generally rather than by any possible influences of factors.

The research proposes the strategic management practice in Vietnamese construction companies. The critical problems are found out that indicate the fragmented situation of strategy application. It is believed that strategic management does not seem to be applied familiarly in practice of Vietnamese contractors. The survey found that there are a little number of contractors applying strategy concept formally for developing and competing. The call for improvement is very necessary to confront new changes of competitive environment. For increasing awareness of strategy application, professional learn and strong commitment are major requirements. Then, based on the evaluation of problems, construction companies should concern with broad factors to validate for strategy success.

His thesis abstract is copied and posted.

ABSTRACT

Strategic management has the positive meaning that aids to react with the various internal and external influences of an organization. It responds the current situation of competition state, predicts the needs of the future and consequently proposes the potential method for achieving competitive advantages. Strategic management benefits for companies to develop and compete especially in the changing environment of construction industry. However, Vietnamese construction companies do not know and apply well the strategic management. Therefore, the research would like to investigate their understandings and practices in strategic management issue, then to find the problems and finally to propose the solutions to improve the current situation. The survey is executed on thirty public and private contractors respectively in Ho Chi Minh City. The survey result indicates that there is a substantial perception on strategic management application at all levels in Vietnamese construction companies. As that result, all of them have performed unofficially on every practice of strategic management. Mission statement and objectives are not designed officially. They lack a mature analysis for generating strategies. In strategy implementation, they lack the formal plan and have to confront the problems of finance and external force impacts. Moreover, they mainly focus on financial and internal business for effectiveness of performance measurement and do not concern in other aspects for value contribution to strategy success. In order to reinforce the situation, Vietnamese contractors should change their perceptions by professional study and pay strong commitment to compete and accommodate with the changes of construction industry.

Case Studies of Solid Waste Collection in Karachi, Pakistan

Like in most of the Third world cities, Karachi's development authorities have also not been able to cope with the enormous population growth. For a city with a rapidly expanding population, the existing waste management capacity is far too inadequate and outmoded and needs to be improved; otherwise the problem of inefficient solid waste management services will continue to haunt those living in urban areas.

In order to improve the existing situation of solid waste management in the city of Karachi in Pakistan, there is a need to develop an effective linkage between the community, the informal sector and local government. One major problem is that the local authorities are reluctant to collect garbage from the low-income settlements. In absence of municipal services for solid waste collection and disposal, low income families have been organizing themselves to collect and dispose solid waste.

Mr. Gill M. Rizwan made a study which major objective was to improve the SWM system in Karachi through enhancing the participation of NGO and CBO. The sub- objectives were to: (1) identify the existing situation regarding current SWMS in Karachi and to evaluate the effectiveness of the role of KMC to overcome these challenges; (2) assess the roles of CBOs & NGOs in SWMS in the study areas and identify the main problems they are facing; and (3) propose the potential solutions and specific recommendations to KMC to solve out these problems and effectively improve the SWMS in Karachi.

Conclusions

Conclusion 1
The survey results showed that the average satisfaction level of the users regarding the performance of the different organizations was very low. However, each socio-economic level had different perceptions about the performance of KMC, CBO and their combined performance. The priority consideration of KMC for SWM was found to be varying as per the income level of an area. Higher socio-economic level group portray high community initiatives as well as high consideration by KMC eventually maintaining a well-managed solid waste management system.

Conclusion 2
Regarding the performance ranking by the management team i.e. by KMC, CBO and NGO, each party of management team ranked them as operating at their best but ranked the other two and their combined performance as less satisfactory. This portrays that each of the party is not satisfied with the performance of the other indicating poor co-ordination and communication. However, after the involvement of private sector the performance of individual teams especially KMC was ranked to be significantly improved.

Conclusion 3
Regarding the existing problems in private sector involvement in solid waste management in overall Karachi area, five major types of problematic areas were enlisted to be ranked by each of the management team. Overall, the most problematic area was the management aspect and then financial aspect. However, the perceptions of each management group about the different problematic area vary except for the management aspect since each of the party realized it as being the most problematic area.

Conclusion 4
The underlying factors for each of the problematic aspects were also ranked.
a. Regarding the factors causing, Low community participation, low willingness to pay was the major factor identified in the survey. The other important factors include low willingness to participate in the cleanliness program and low willingness in keeping areas clean.

b. Inefficient Management was mainly caused due to lack of accountability to the community and low willingness to manage. This clearly shows the lack of proper legislative definition of responsibilities and ineffective controlling and monitoring device.

c. Problems in social operations were mainly caused by low salary of operators and low and bad working condition of workers. Unreliable service and space problems were also identified as the major issues which are the most important factors for a sustainable SWM system.

d. Major financial problem was caused by inadequate fee collection causing cost recovery problems.

e. Lack of co-ordination with municipality was mainly due to lack of assistance to be provided by municipality.

Conclusion 5
Solutions as suggested in open answers from each of the management team were grouped for each of the problematic aspects and listed in Table below as per the majority and priority of the respondents.

Recommendations

1. Increasing community participation from households
a. Education and Awareness
b. Provision of appropriate incentives and penalty
c. Develop a control system for periodic clean-up programs

2. Improving Managerial Aspect
a. Define Rights, Responsibilities and performance Control
b. Training and exchange visits for management Committee

3. Suggestions to improve Social operations
a. Consultation with local NGOs and opinion leaders
b. Official Recognition of Operators with additional facilities
c. Relate payment to performance plus division of collection areas and responsibilities
d. Integrate private entrepreneurs into the project

4. Suggestions to overcome Financial Problem
a. Fees based on income level
b. Change system of payment and give collectors more personal benefits
c. Add income generating recycling systems
d. Carry out Socio-economic feasibility study and improve financial control

5. Suggestions for enhancing the co-operation with Municipality
a. Involve local authority from the beginning and the structures facilitation of formal and informal co-operation.b. Extend the services to include secondary

Building an Innovation Management System in a Construction Multi-Business Corporation

The world today is changing rapidly and extensively that has been generating a highly competitive and turbulent business environment. Thus, organizations are greatly exposed to failure or bankruptcy unless they are able to innovate in order to cope with new challenging situations. Construction industry is often said that it is not very innovative in comparing with other industries such as aerospace or electronic. Construction multi-business corporations even have to face greater challenges for survival and growth. Since, they are usually relatively complicated entities. Furthermore, in construction multi-business corporations the communication in organization and coordination of activities, between different organizational levels, between different business units or divisions or departments as well as between projects’ sites are extremely complex. This complication generates many difficulties in encouraging, capturing and implementing innovation in each project and in the firm.

In Vietnam, the construction industry has been growing dramatically in recent decades. Under the condition of market economy, the private sector is getting stronger that create more competitive business environment. Moreover, the construction projects in Vietnam have been becoming much more sophisticated that are accompanied with more stringent requirements from the Clients, and fund providers. These sophisticated projects are often demanding technologies that are higher than the capacities of any Vietnamese contractors. Consequently, Vietnam construction industry has been becoming fertile land for foreign construction corporations to exploit. In order to survive in this competitive environment, Vietnamese construction corporations must find the ways to enhance and develop their competencies. Effective innovation development and implementation is considered as an essential method for such improvement. Hence, study innovation in the context of Vietnamese construction industry is completely necessary.

So, with all the challenges and problems that the construction multi-business corporations have to face and solve effectively in order to survive and thrive in present chaotic and unpredictable world, the importance of an innovation management system can not be overlooked. Mr. Nguyen Van Hoai made a study to find answers to the question on how to design an innovation management system that can be applied to promote and implement effectively the innovation in construction multi-business corporations. The main objective of his study is to build an innovation management system that is able to manage and the innovation in construction multi-business corporations so that the innovation is increased, promoted and implemented toward the organizational objectives’ achievement. In order to achieve his main objective, the following sub-objectives were established:

1. Develop and propose the theoretical framework with its critical attributes for Innovation Management System in Construction Multi-business Corporation.

2. Apply the proposed framework for investigating practical innovation in a Construction Multi-business Corporation in order to discover its strengths and weaknesses.

3. Finally, make recommendation to propose an appropriate and effective Innovation management system in Construction Multi-business Corporations.

Conclusions

Practical innovation scenarios in VINACONEX

The framework is used to design the questionnaire, which was applied to investigate the practical innovation scenarios in a construction multi-business corporation. VINACONEX has been selected for the investigation. A hundred of questionnaires have been sent out and 72 useable completed questionnaires have been received. The data analysis has revealed general innovation scenarios of VINACONEX including the strengths and weaknesses of the management control system.

Innovation implementation

It is concluded that VINACONEX has been implementing the product, process and administrative innovations. The product and process innovations were implemented more frequently and exerted greater impacts on the performance and development of the Corporation.

VINACONEX has used variety of information sources for innovation implementations, which are rival companies, government, management, consultants, clients and in-house R&D, research institutions, professional seminars, publications, conferences and meetings, and suppliers. However, the information flow from research institutions, professional seminars, publications, conferences and meetings is blocked in management level and not dispersed to the employees in the Corporation.

The innovation implementations in VINACONEX is usually obstructed by lack of qualified personnel, lack of technical equipment, lack of finance, lack of information about technology, high cost, high risk, and lack of management commitment. The top management in VINACONEX has not concerned and committed sufficiently to incremental innovation in the Corporation.

The innovation drivers in VINACONEX from external business environment include technology, construction market, government law/regulations, and economy at large.

The management system
The management system represented by management and leadership, strategies, structure, resources, culture and climate, and communication and collaboration is not strongly supportive to innovation implementation in the Corporation. Communication and collaboration is the strongest attribute in management system in which there are both strong and weak elements.

The second strong attribute of management system is the innovation strategies. The innovation strategies are included in the corporation strategies for the development of VINACONEX. They links with clear and measurable objectives, have long term focus and thrust.

Leadership is the third strong attributes of management system. The strongest elements of leadership are that the top management are emphasizing strongly on getting work accomplished and has clear vision to drive innovation implementation.

Regarding to resources, the strongest element is effective application of standard criteria for selection and recruitment personnel. The Corporation provides sufficient human resources, necessary tool and equipments for innovation implementation. In addition, the key person such as innovation leader, champion, innovator, gatekeeper and so on always present in the Corporation for innovation implementation. Time used for innovation implementation is also adequately allocated to the personnel doing innovation implementation. However, it is not clear that adequate annual budget is allocated and finance is always made available for innovation implementation in the Corporation. The training is also not provided sufficiently to the personnel of the Corporation.

Structure is the weakest attribute of management system. The Corporation has frequently applied cross-functional team for innovation implementations. The decision making is also decentralized to the lower level of management. Therefore, the structure of VINACONEX is relatively appropriate to facilitate the innovation implementation.

The other relatively weak element of the management system is culture and climate. It contains equally five strong elements and five weak elements. It is good elements for innovation implementation that all employees are encouraged to participate in generating new ideas and high priority is given for learning and experimenting new ideas. In addition, in the Corporation conflicts are handled effectively by resolving the issues openly among involving parties with or without higher level supervisor.

The operational level

At the organizational level, the innovation implementation can be initiated by project size, business plan, project execution difficult conditions, project challenging scopes, project complexity, project types, the desire improvement of project personnel, and availability of new technology. Innovation implementations in VINACONEX are also significantly influenced by the project constraints, which include cost, quality, time, technology, and design. Availability of technology and stringent quality requirements from clients promote the innovation implementation in the construction projects. However, limited time and budget allocated to the project execution will hinder the innovation implementation in the construction project.

Project team is a relative strong attribute of VINACONEX in supporting innovation implementation in construction projects. For innovation implementation in construction project, the Corporation attempts to integrate as early and completely as possible the project parties as a team. In addition, the Corporation always endeavors to integrate the high efforts from project parties in order to achieve the success of innovation implementation.

Regarding to communication and collaboration, a formal procedure of communication and collaboration is always applied for any construction project executed by VINACONEX. Therefore, communication and collaboration are very effective within project team and among the project parties. Nevertheless, multi-directional and informal communication and collaboration are not strongly encouraged in construction project.

Recommendations

Based on the strengths and weakness that has been drawn in earlier sections, the recommendations for improvements are proposed as following.

Regarding scale of innovation, it has been mentioned that radical innovations have much higher impact on the development of the Corporation than incremental innovations. It is recommended that the management level should give sufficient attention and stronger committed to incremental innovations and the employees should involve more significantly to radical innovation implementations.

For the information sources for innovation implementation, it has been indicated that suppliers, education and research institutions, and professional seminars, conferences, publications, and meetings are very imperative information sources for innovation implementation. Since, in practice huge load of innovation information and knowledge flows to the firms from these sources. Hence, the Corporation should create facilities or mechanism for the information from these sources dispersing wider and deeper within the Corporation. This will definitely promote the innovation implementation in the Corporation.

In concerning toward the communication and collaboration in the Corporation, it is identified that innovation strategies are the strategies that promotes the innovation implementations in the Corporation. As a result, it is recommended that the Corporation should apply certain facilities such as brochure, handout and so on or mechanism such as meeting to communicate effectively the innovation strategies and performance measure, which will enhance the innovation implementation in the Corporation. In addition, the necessary information should also be made available and easily accessed by all personnel of the Corporation. This will promote better information flow and knowledge sharing in the Corporation.

On the issues of leadership, it is apparent that lack of adoption of consensus and shared approach of decision making and participative decision making style will block the bottom up flow of creative ideas, which will hinder the innovation implementation in the Corporation. Therefore, the decision makers in VINACONEX should change their decision making approach in order to utilize better the intellectual capabilities of personnel in the Corporation. The managers in VINACONEX should also provide better and more sufficient feedback to the employee so that they can improve their works related to innovation implementation.

Resources are critical for innovation implementation, especially financial resources, which allows the Corporation to purchase innovations, absorb failure, and bear the cost and so on. Trainings are necessary to enhance the capabilities of personnel in organization, which is beneficial to innovation implementation. This is due to the fact that success of innovation implementation relies essentially on the competencies of personnel. Insufficient and unsatisfactory training may inhibit the success of innovation implementation. Therefore, the Corporation should provide better trainings to the personnel.

Regarding to the structure of VINACONEX, it has been indicated that freedom or autonomy and empowerment librates the personnel. As a result, they are able to work more independently, more creatively and innovatively. Therefore, although the VINACONEX’s structure is still considered appropriate for innovation implementation, it should be changed to fit better with the present dynamic environment. The change should be moved toward a more flexible structure that is able to provide the personnel more freedom for creativity and innovation implementations.

Culture and climate has been identified to be crucial in promoting the innovation implementation. The culture and climate in VINACONEX is not strongly supportive to the innovation implementation. Thus, tolerating failure and mistake can generate the culture and climate that personnel are encouraged to experiment the new ideas, to work more creatively and innovatively. The Corporation should also encourage constructive criticism and support better the change initiation that will promote the innovation implementation in the Corporation.

His thesis abstract is copied and posted.

Abstracts

At present, construction multi-business corporations have to face great challenges from highly competitive and dynamic business environment. Innovation is considered as one of the best solutions to overcome those challenges for development and prosperity. Therefore, it is apparent that there is the demand of an appropriate management system, which is able to promote the successful innovation implementation in construction multi-business corporations. This study has been conducted aiming at to satisfy that demand. Firstly, a conceptual framework with its critical attributes has been developed for innovation management system in construction multi-business corporations through extensive literature review. Secondly, the conceptual framework was applied for investigating practical innovation in a selected construction multi-business corporation in Vietnam, which is VINACONEX. Based on the strengths and weaknesses revealed from the investigation, recommendations were made to propose and appropriate innovation management system in construction multi-business corporation.

Reliability-Based Optimal Inspection Interval

Infrastructure management in the past may not used the optimal planning for maintenance and rehabilitation. Many governments developed methods for the maintenance operation and rehabilitation planning. They concerned the three main processes. Those are, how to inspect the performance of the infrastructure, the appropriate frequency of inspection data, and the best way to find the maintenance and rehabilitation technique on the appropriate time.

Most development interest in the performance index such as condition index or roughness index, it is the method to optimize the maintenance and rehabilitation planning, and the optimal inspection time interval. The sample unit management in term of the number of sample unit and inspection interval does not have the optimal technique. This omission made many problems in every country about the inspection tradeoff between time, cost, and accuracy.

Mr. Dolyawich Nongpong made a study which main objective was to optimize the inspection interval for the pavement inspection. The secondary objectives of his study were to (1) develop the reliability functions that are derived from IRI data. This function can help deciding the inspection interval and pavement reliability, (2) show the percentage of inspection sample reduction based on the traffic volume of the pavement; (3) develop the modified model that is derived from the cost data. This function is developed based on the number of inspection sample; and (4) show the percentage difference of the inspection costs between the calculation cost and the actual cost.

Conclusions

The important conclusions for Mr. Nongpong’s research are:
1. The optimal inspection interval is related to the traffic volume and the pavement performance.
2. The current technique to collect IRI data every kilometer is not the optimal sample.
3. The most appropriate reliability function is the lognormal type.
4. The cost model is reliable to estimate the cost for inspection IRI data.
5. The reliability functions in this study are reliable and acceptable.
6. The optimal inspection intervals in this study are reliable and acceptable.
7. The cost model requires the development for more reasonable cost factor in the future work when the cost data is available.

His thesis abstract is copied and posted.

ABSTRACT

Highway agencies spend a large amount of budget in collecting the pavement condition data. Visual inspection is a time-consuming and expensive task. Most agencies sample the inspection areas and use the selected sample size to represent the condition of the entire area. Decreasing the number of sample size can reduce the total inspection cost and time, but it may jeopardize the overall data quality. Reliability can be defined as a probability of a non-failure over the specific time. The reliability of the pavement plays an important role in the life cycle cost analysis. It can be viewed as the subset of the pavement quality that satisfies the users’ requirement and can be used to determine the expected service life of the pavement as well.

This main objective of this research is to apply the reliability theory to determine the optimal pavement inspection intervals and the appropriate sample size for pavement inspection. The relationship between reliability values and the number of sample units is investigated. The analysis used in this study is based on the relationship between the number of sample units and their reliability values. Traffic volumes are grouped to investigate the sensitivity of different parameters on the reliability values. This paper presented the optimal pavement inspection intervals determined based on the developed reliability values and the appropriate inspection sample size for highway agencies to balance between data quality issue and inspection cost control.

Collaborative Solving Problems Between Consultants and Contractors

During the construction stage, many problems frequently arise especially in large-scale project. Moreover, those problems are extremely needed rapid decision making from the proper authority because the nature of construction projects is dynamic and fast moving. Consultants and contractors that act as center of project communications and collaborations should be able to solve or reduce the negative effects of those problems (Wickham, 1999). For effective and efficient projects, there are several reasons that need proper manners of consultants and contractors for enhancing collaborations especially when contracting problems arise.

In construction project, collaboration is a key for project success, especially when there are contracting problems such as change order, design-related, differing site condition and progress payment. The benefit of timely solving problems is located through all stakeholders. Every party has win-win attitude in for rapidly solved problems that occur during construction stage and lead projects to be effectiveness and efficiency.

Miss Wijittra Mahavarakorn made a study which main objective was to find out treatment methods for collaborative improvement when such problems arise. To achieve the major objectives, four sub-objectives was needed to accomplish such as follows:

1. to identify collaborative attributes related with contracting problems during construction stage;
2. to examine differences in perceptions between consultants and contractors regarding collaborations when contracting problem arise;
3. to investigate collaborative practices to find out between consultants and contractors causing by improper collaborations; and
4. to propose recommendations on how to enhance collaborative problem solving.

Conclusions

According to the collaborative matrix model, this research is logically summarized and divided into two sections that are collaborative perceptions through five collaborative attributes and six contracting problems. For more clarification, findings of consultants and contractors’ perceptions are summarized into the highest and lowest collaborations from collaborative attributes and contracting problems in followings.

Collaborative Perceptions through Collaborative Attributes

In overall, results found that consultants are higher perceptions in collaboration than contractors. Moreover, rationally utilitarian of logical reason in actions and decision making (Rationale) is the highest collaboration by collaborative attributes from consultants and contractors. Moreover, adaptability of consultants and contractors to change themselves in networks and information environment (Adaptability) is the lowest perceptions in collaboration.

a. Rationale: The highest perceptions of rationally utilitarian of logical reason in actions and decision making in contracting problems from consultants and contractors is negotiated price/unit price of varied works. The contracting problem of differing site condition is the lowest perceptions from consultants and contractors.

b. Goal-orientation: The highest perceptions of always concerned a goal in every pursuit in contracting problems from consultants and contractors is error and unclear drawings and specifications. The contracting problem of timely payment is the lowest perceptions from consultants and contractors.

c. Reactivity: The highest perceptions of timely responsive actions in contracting problems from consultants and contractors is differing site condition and timely payment from the owner. The contracting problem of negotiated extra quantities of milestone payment is the lowest perceptions from consultants and contractors.

d. Cooperation: The highest perception of social ability to interact with others in contracting problems from consultants and contractors is negotiated extra quantities of milestone payment. The contracting problem of timely payment is the lowest perceptions from consultants and contractors.

e. Adaptability: The highest perception to change themselves in networks and information environments in contracting problems from consultants and contractors is differing site condition. The contracting problem of timely payment is the lowest perceptions from consultants and contractors.

2. Collaborative Perceptions through Contracting Problems

In overall of contracting problems, results found that consultants are higher perceptions in collaboration than contractors. Moreover, the contracting problem of negotiated price/unit price of varied works is the highest collaboration from consultants and contractors. Moreover, the contracting problem in timely payment from the owner is the lowest perceptions in collaborations of consultants and contractors.

a. Negotiated Price or Unit Price of Varied Works
b. Evaluated Time or Cost Compensations from Change Order Impacts
c. Error and Unclear Drawings and Specifications:
d. Differing Site Condition of under or over Ground
e. Negotiated in Extra Quantities of Milestone Payment between Actual and Contact Document
f. Timely Payment from the Owner

In summary, consultants and contractors’ perceptions are identified into two main perspectives that are collaborations and contracting problems. Results found that rationally utilitarian of logical reason in actions and decision making (Rationale) and ability to change themselves in networks and information environment (Adaptability) are the highest and lowest collaborations from consultants and contractors respectively. For another perspective, the problem in negotiated price/unit price of varied works is the highest collaborations from consultants and contractors. Timely payment from the owner is the lowest collaborations in contracting problems from consultants and contractors. Moreover, consultants perceive in collaboration higher than contractors. There are different perceptions among them in all contracting problems. Therefore, different perceptions are required to treat by consultants and contractors in the proper implications to enhance collaboration among multi-parties.

3. Recommendations for Improvement

For achieving the final objective of this study, the last research objective is completed by proposing treatment methods for consultants and contractors’ improvement through contracting problems as illustrated in figure 1. In the previous section, collaborative manners are provided for both consultants and contractors according with collaborative attributes and contracting problems. In this section, treatment methods are recommended proper collaborations for inter-correlation among consultants and contractors during preplanning and construction stage. Details of treatment methods in six contracting problems for improvement are illustrated in table 1. Benefits of this survey are clearer understanding for consultants and contractors in the existing phenomenon of other perceptions when contracting problems arise. Furthermore, benefits of recommendations utilize for proactive implementations systems of consultants and contractors’ collaborations.

Her thesis abstract is copied and posted below.

ABSTRACT

Due to increasing demand from customers, construction projects are getting more complicated. Therefore, professionals in construction business are forced to enhance their construction skills and competencies in order to effectively deliver projects as customers’ requirements. For that reason, consultants and contractors are a center of collaborations among multi-parties in construction projects for running project smoothly. Therefore, the appropriate collaboration is one of the most essential success factors for project effectiveness. This research is aimed to find out how to enhance collaborations when contracting problems arise.

To achieve the objective of study, collaborative attributes are framed and used to explore existing perceptive practices in contracting problems including rationale, goal orientation, reactivity, cooperation, and adaptability attribute. Contracting problems are focused on change order, design-related, differing site condition, and progress payment. The hypothesis of this research is statistically analyzed by the T-Test method to find out similar or different perceptions among consultants and contractors. Consequently, questionnaire survey was applied from project managers of contractors and consultants’ companies. Additionally, interviews were conducted for in-depth information. The result of collaborative perceptions between contractors and consultants is depicted by Relative Index (R.I.) and the collaborative level.
Results were found that consultants assessed themselves to be more collaboration, when contracting problems arise, than contractors. The hypothesis was statistically tested and demonstrated that there are different perceptions among consultants and contractors in investigated contracting problems. Moreover, findings found that rationale and adaptability are the highest and lowest collaborations respectively. Negotiated price/unit price of varied works is the highest collaborations in contracting perspectives from consultants and contractors. Additionally, the contracting problem of timely payment from the owner is lowest collaborations. Therefore, this research recommends: (1) designing and implementing collaboration management systems for given projects’ environment; and (2) providing clear contracting clauses in contract document for enhancing collaborations for typical contracting problems.