Construction has been perceived as a pillar industry in China’s economic revitalization (Han et al, 2001). Rapid economic expansion in China has resulted high volumes of construction activity. In the period 1990~1998, the strong construction industry and the rapidly growing construction industry were concentrated along the coast of China, but Han et al (2001) stated the construction industry contributed a higher proportion of GDP in the western and central provinces than the coastal provinces.
Yunnan province, as one of the above western provinces, has been developing at an amazing speed since 1980, especially during 1995~1998. Because Yunnan province shares a border of 4,060 km with Myanmar in the west, Laos in the south, and Vietnam in the southeast, accession to the World Trade Organization helped this province to draw considerable attention to its development of International Passageway connecting the South-Western China with South-Eastern Asia and South Asia.
After 2002, the government emphasized the development of inland regions by means of trickle-down economic growth from the coastal provinces and the improvement of urbanization. These development policies as well as the development of International Passageway provide a historic chance for the development of construction industry in Yunnan province.
However, it is also a challenge to the construction industry in Yunnan province to seize this opportunity of development. Generally, as Chen (1998) observed, the construction industry in China faces serious challenges and will require deeper reforms to address the remaining problem areas. He also indicated that construction management is still considered to be a serious problem in China. On the other hand, the government is keen to secure improvement in the performance of the construction industry through competitive bidding, management efficiency, training, increased labour productivity, quality control, advanced technology and great enterprise autonomy and accountability (Chen, 1998). That means the construction industry in Yunnan province has to deepen its reforms to achieve its goals under the government’s guide.
Effective motivation programs are considered as an approach to motivate employees toward organizational goals. On the other hand, unawareness of the motivation and performance of construction engineers will increase the difficulty of establishing effective motivation programs, which are based on understanding the behaviour of engineers. In other words, construction engineer motivation affects project productivity considerably so that researches on engineer motivation are required. However, in the construction industry, researchers commonly concentrate on the motivation of workers but ignore that of engineers.
Therefore, the study of engineer motivation is called for to facilitate the efficient use of engineers as project specialists. Especially, for project managers, the significant effect of engineers as team members deserves more consideration on “how to motivate them effectively” when project teamwork has become more and more important for construction productivity. Moreover, the study of engineer motivation might contribute to the effective motivation policies and programs which have been emphasized in China’s construction industry reforms.
Miss Dai Jiliang made a study to investigate the motivation of construction engineers in Yunnan province, China. Her three objectives were to: (1) explore construction engineers’ needs and their satisfaction on the corresponding needs; (2) determine the validity of the expectancy theory of engineer motivation, performance and satisfaction; and (3) address some recommendations for the methods applied to motivating construction engineers.
Conclusion
Below are the three important conclusions drawn from the findings of the study.
1. The exploration of construction engineer needs and their satisfaction on the corresponding needs not only illustrates the less satisfied engineers, but also facilitates more effective motivation policies such as the physiological needs and safety needs could be emphasized by the management to enhance satisfaction.
2. The validity of expectancy theory is not strongly supported by this study. But expectancy theory still provides a conceptual base for understanding the motivation of construction engineers in Yunnan province, China. The results of analysing the relationships predicted by expectancy theory imply that job clarify is useful to improve the expectancy of the engineers even though the expectancy has no strong relationship with effort and performance. Also, the results of analysis indicate that negative consequences of poor performance influence on effort more significantly than positive consequences for good performance do. The low motivation scores of the engineers suggest the present motivation policies might require improvement.
3. Job clarify could be achieved by the establishment and communication of clear performance goals. Negative consequence of poor performance might be considered by the management to influence effort expended by engineers. Important needs could be placed on the motivation agenda.
The result of this study implies that engineers’ general job satisfaction and intrinsic satisfaction are higher than satisfaction on the need factors. This means that engineers’ professions are attractive for them, but the outcome of work can not meet their needs successfully. The management might be in an external-internal embarrassment: decreasing profit margin caused by furious competition in the construction market and stagnant market-oriented reforms of the SOEs or myopia human resource management in the URCs and RCTs.
The Chinese government believes that the long-term development of the construction industry should still be centrally planned (Mayo et al, 1995). The goals of the official long-term plan include the performance of the Chinese construction industry’s output, productivity, construction quality, housing construction, employment, and international contracting (Zhong Guo, 1992).
Project-oriented organizations are encouraged by government so that the management of construction companies are inspired to adopt project-oriented work methods to achieve their goals in the construction market. Compared with traditional construction enterprises in China, project-based organizations allow project managers to make quicker and more responsible business decisions. Therefore, instead of being parent-government-unit-driven, project-based organizations are driven by market and more efficient.
Not only in the SOEs but also in the URCs and RCTs, project-oriented work methods will improve the competence of construction companies in terms of employees’ motivation. Firstly, in project-oriented organizations, motivation policies emphasize the direct relationship between project profit and individual income and welfare. The results of this study reveal that the physiological needs and safety needs were not met very well. Thus, the project-oriented compensation method will motivate engineers more effectively than other methods. Secondly, project-oriented motivation policies contribute to developing an effective workforce. The employees in smaller construction firms prefer a stable group to an ad-hoc one when they work as a team. Effective teamwork will attract engineers to cooperate with each other and maintain a solid group. On the other hand, in a manager’s view, training and development of workforce could be applied on this stable team-base. Hence, especially in the URCs and RCTs, the project-oriented human resource management could match the organizations’ long-term strategy exactly.
Her thesis abstract is copied and posted.
Abstract
Effective motivation programs are considered as an approach to motivate employees toward organizational goals. Construction engineers, as project specialists, influence construction productivity substantially. Therefore, it is necessary to explore their motivation. A survey was conducted in Yunnan province, China on the basis of expectancy theory of construction engineer motivation as well as their needs and satisfaction on the corresponding needs. The findings of their needs and satisfaction illustrated they were less satisfied; and the results based on expectancy theory indicated that the motivational climate is very poor. Considering the construction industry reform in China, the findings were discussed on the background of the characteristics of China’s construction industry to conform to its current status.
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
Monday, 3 May 2010
Public Project Financial Planning: The Asset-Based Approach For Vietnam Transport Infrastructure
Vietnam is integrating into the global economy with many changes. There has been an urgent need in developing its infrastructure. Investment in roads, bridges and terminals, along with measures to improve efficiency, will be essential for regional access and efficient freight movement to and from ports, industries and commercial establishment. Due to financial incapability, the country has to call for foreign investments as well as local investment.
Investment in infrastructure often has a very high return in Vietnam, as inadequate service levels and bottlenecks remain a serious constraint on development and competitiveness. Despite plentiful natural energy sources in gas, hydro and coal, per capita commercial energy consumption remains one of the lowest in the world. “It could be seen that while Vietnam could still maintain its advantage of a stable political environment and rather open policies on foreign capital ratios over the recent years, its disadvantages of poor infrastructure and administrative systems are not improved." (Source: Vietnam News Agency, 2004). The transport system – despite substantial improvements in the past five years - is still overstretched, adding to costs and preventing many upland and rural areas from sharing the benefits of Vietnam's growth. In view of the huge investment needs, high priority should be given to mobilizing private sector involvement as a ways to support for infrastructure.
Vietnam now is in urgent need to find new means to finance transportation capital investment, particularly public transit. It is very interested to find out how value capture can be applied in other developing country to achieve this goal. Walther et.al. (1991) argued that this added value, the direct result of public investment, should rightfully be returned to the public and should be recaptured to pay off the capital that was spent to build the project, rather than left for opportunistic speculators to reap private gain. Smith and Gihring (2003), from their annotated bibliography on the topic of value capture, pointed out that value capture offers a promising approach for funding future transportation development, for recovering operating and environmental costs. Since Vietnam is moving toward, it is the time to invest the current transport infrastrucutre financing and try to find a mean, by which the windfall gains felling to private landowners are recaptured, to finance a portion of the transportation infrastructure system.
Miss Nguyen Thi Cam Tu made a study which general goal is to study the applicability of public-private finacial approach, known as value capture method in form of financing infrastructure projects in Vietnam. Her specific objectives were as follows:
1. Analyze current financing approach for transport infrastructure projects in Hochiminh city in order to identify the need of improvement.
2. Examine applicability of the Value Capture Approach to finance Transportation Infrastructure in order to indicate its critical aspect in term of degree of suitability and acceptability.
3. Propose the practical direction and constrains if Value Capture Approach is applied for Transportation Infrastructure financing based on the analysis of finding.
Conclusion
To support Vietnam’s high level of economic growth, greater levels of investment are needed in the coming years to overcome a variety of real and looming infrastructure bottlenecks, such as in transport, capital construction. This will require massive new investment, which will need to come from the government, donors, multilateral development banks and private sources. In fact, it is likely that the private sector will have to play a role in funding new infrastructure investment in Vietnam.
1. Current Transport Infrastructure Financing
Most problems of current financing sources are “inadequacy in capital budgeting allocation”, “limited options for borrowing by contractors to bridge their expenditures and receipts” and “corporate financing problem”, consequently. These problems may be come from weakness of Vietnamese economic as well as political. Resources of various spending options are not allocated efficiently because these options are not compared impartially. In lower level, contractor meet difficulties facing with finding working capital financing from the only source interested-commercial banks due to complex loan structure and collateral requirements.
In order to overcome the current problems, there is an urgent need to develop Public-Private Partnership (PPPs). Both COs and GOs proposed that there must have been “the sufficient political and popular support for using PPPs”, need to “involve the appropriate private sector actors early in the process and discuss the following options with them, especially in sharing of risks and responsibilities” and “set up projects with clear ownership and management structures and division of responsibilities”. In addition, NGOs can be considered as glue for PPPs work. They are essential because of their knowledge of the local environment, both the public and private sectors, and because NGOs can continue to implement the outcome of the partnership work long after the partnership.
2. Value Capture approach
Value capture, being the new concept introduced, is just knowed by the Vietnamese proffesionals for recent 5 years. In the model of VC, Public sector-Government is considered as the key role for the success. If VC is successfully applied, not only the urban sprawl is reserved, but also land speculation is reduced. In addition, the success of VC can help procedural and technical efficiencies become possible within the existing land use right regime. An example is that market valuation formulas can be improved to more closely replicate shadow markets.
In the current financing situation like in Vietnam, respondents suggest that VC should be applied partly for specific appropriate infrastructure projects. Timeframe for applying VC are unclear for local professional officer, showing on different opinion. Taking majorities’ ideas, the research suggests 11 years for its application from firstly perception to final end. However, more studies and experiments are required to confirm this proposed timeframe. It is also need for drawing formal procedures to guide people how to apply it on local condition.
Recommendation
Vietnamese professional officers in general needed to be educated and trained smoothly for financing methods in order to qualify enough for applying and handling new financing methods effectively and efficiently. Moreover, the Government and the companies should consider properly people’s back ground, professional skill, experiences, ect. prior appointing candidates for positions related to financing.
1. Current Transport Infrastructure Financing
It is recommended that Government and local companies maintaining their focus on “BOT schemes”, “Traditional Public Contracting” and “Joint Ventures”. In addition, other methods such as “Service Contracts”, “Management Contracts”, “Concession or Franchisee Agreements” and “Lease Contracts” need also pay much attention on to satisfy the huge demand of capital investment for transport infrastructure development. On the whole, in order to be successful in attracting the private sector investment for infrastructure projects in different levels of involvement, Government has to improve the quality of the concession contract and of subsequent regulatory supervision.
In order o overcome the problems in financing, it is necessary for public finance amendment. This including efficiently reallocating the budget both for capital and recurrent expenditures with clear links between these. Programs proposed or defended as investments should be evaluated against the criterion of improving long-term economic capacity. For a successful banking relationship and adequate working capital support, the government contractor should seek a banking institution that has the expertise, experience, and a proven track record in the industry in providing the services and flexibility in financing that matches the company's specific needs. Such these things are difficult, but they are not impossible.
2. Value Capture approach
In summary, the demand for research on tax policies is critical in Vietnam. In order to accomplish that goal, it is neccessary to spend more time and commitment for training local proffesional. The training should be hold in the form of seminars, which offered an educational environment where instructors and participants could share basic principles on the taxation of real property and learn from each others' experiences.
In order to implement VC into Vietnam, it is critical that the land tax policies are implemented. The research proposes a land value increment tax to capture the capital gains from land transactions. To capture land value increments and avoid speculation, Vietnam instead implemented a capital gains tax system that covers both real property and other asset transactions. To discourage land speculation, the tax rate should be fixed at about 50 percent for property sales within two years of purchase, but owners who hold properties for more than two years will have a lower capital gains tax rate (based on the experiment of Korea).
Consisting with the constitutional principles of “People’s ownership” and “state management”, the principal amendment in land administration is in the need of execution with the interventions of some donors in some points represent areas, including shifting from treating “land use rights” as concessionary privileges to inalienable and universal rights-based land leases. Ideally, amendment should move gradually to absorb the informal land system into the formal system. This process should involve a careful study of informal practices and wherever possible use them as the template for the formal system. As land reforms elsewhere have demonstrated, where the informal system is treated as sub optimal and inappropriate, it has proved extremely resistant to change.
Her thesis abstract is copied and posted.
Abstract
In recent years, transportation and infrastructure needs in Vietnam have grown more rapidly than the available funding. This lead to the need for the government to design the legislation to encourage private-sector participation in the development, financing, operation and ownership of facilities. Therefore, the research focus on main issue of current financing methods applying for Vietnamese infrastructure in order to find the inefficiencies and shortcoming. In addition, the research also explore a new financing method, Value Capture approach, a device to recover for the public the increase in land value associated with public actions that otherwise would be captured by private entities. Through the survey made on 33 Company Officers and 23 Government Officers, who are expert on the field related to infrastructure financing, viewpoints of toward current transport infrastructure financing in Vietnam context were revealed. The descriptive statistic and hypothesis tests are used to analyze the collected data. The finding shows higher knowledge and application of traditional financing methods over new financing methods. The implication from that is the need of applying nontraditional approaches to finance infrastructure investment for Vietnam infrastructure development, especially transportation. This study also mentioned some problems and weaknesses in current financing and then discussed in detail some critical keys as motives for Public-Private Partnership- the solution for financing problems. Additionally, Value Capture is found very far from Vietnamese infrastructure financing as its knowledge and application very low even it may generate more benefit than current financing methods. In order to apply Value Capture in the current Vietnamese context, it is critical that the Vietnamese property tax policies and land law should be analyze and amended. Vietnamese Government needs to address this issue with big effort to set up the environment suitable for the development of new financing methods. Especially coordination with foreign partners is more over suggested to gain mutual benefits for both sides.
Investment in infrastructure often has a very high return in Vietnam, as inadequate service levels and bottlenecks remain a serious constraint on development and competitiveness. Despite plentiful natural energy sources in gas, hydro and coal, per capita commercial energy consumption remains one of the lowest in the world. “It could be seen that while Vietnam could still maintain its advantage of a stable political environment and rather open policies on foreign capital ratios over the recent years, its disadvantages of poor infrastructure and administrative systems are not improved." (Source: Vietnam News Agency, 2004). The transport system – despite substantial improvements in the past five years - is still overstretched, adding to costs and preventing many upland and rural areas from sharing the benefits of Vietnam's growth. In view of the huge investment needs, high priority should be given to mobilizing private sector involvement as a ways to support for infrastructure.
Vietnam now is in urgent need to find new means to finance transportation capital investment, particularly public transit. It is very interested to find out how value capture can be applied in other developing country to achieve this goal. Walther et.al. (1991) argued that this added value, the direct result of public investment, should rightfully be returned to the public and should be recaptured to pay off the capital that was spent to build the project, rather than left for opportunistic speculators to reap private gain. Smith and Gihring (2003), from their annotated bibliography on the topic of value capture, pointed out that value capture offers a promising approach for funding future transportation development, for recovering operating and environmental costs. Since Vietnam is moving toward, it is the time to invest the current transport infrastrucutre financing and try to find a mean, by which the windfall gains felling to private landowners are recaptured, to finance a portion of the transportation infrastructure system.
Miss Nguyen Thi Cam Tu made a study which general goal is to study the applicability of public-private finacial approach, known as value capture method in form of financing infrastructure projects in Vietnam. Her specific objectives were as follows:
1. Analyze current financing approach for transport infrastructure projects in Hochiminh city in order to identify the need of improvement.
2. Examine applicability of the Value Capture Approach to finance Transportation Infrastructure in order to indicate its critical aspect in term of degree of suitability and acceptability.
3. Propose the practical direction and constrains if Value Capture Approach is applied for Transportation Infrastructure financing based on the analysis of finding.
Conclusion
To support Vietnam’s high level of economic growth, greater levels of investment are needed in the coming years to overcome a variety of real and looming infrastructure bottlenecks, such as in transport, capital construction. This will require massive new investment, which will need to come from the government, donors, multilateral development banks and private sources. In fact, it is likely that the private sector will have to play a role in funding new infrastructure investment in Vietnam.
1. Current Transport Infrastructure Financing
Most problems of current financing sources are “inadequacy in capital budgeting allocation”, “limited options for borrowing by contractors to bridge their expenditures and receipts” and “corporate financing problem”, consequently. These problems may be come from weakness of Vietnamese economic as well as political. Resources of various spending options are not allocated efficiently because these options are not compared impartially. In lower level, contractor meet difficulties facing with finding working capital financing from the only source interested-commercial banks due to complex loan structure and collateral requirements.
In order to overcome the current problems, there is an urgent need to develop Public-Private Partnership (PPPs). Both COs and GOs proposed that there must have been “the sufficient political and popular support for using PPPs”, need to “involve the appropriate private sector actors early in the process and discuss the following options with them, especially in sharing of risks and responsibilities” and “set up projects with clear ownership and management structures and division of responsibilities”. In addition, NGOs can be considered as glue for PPPs work. They are essential because of their knowledge of the local environment, both the public and private sectors, and because NGOs can continue to implement the outcome of the partnership work long after the partnership.
2. Value Capture approach
Value capture, being the new concept introduced, is just knowed by the Vietnamese proffesionals for recent 5 years. In the model of VC, Public sector-Government is considered as the key role for the success. If VC is successfully applied, not only the urban sprawl is reserved, but also land speculation is reduced. In addition, the success of VC can help procedural and technical efficiencies become possible within the existing land use right regime. An example is that market valuation formulas can be improved to more closely replicate shadow markets.
In the current financing situation like in Vietnam, respondents suggest that VC should be applied partly for specific appropriate infrastructure projects. Timeframe for applying VC are unclear for local professional officer, showing on different opinion. Taking majorities’ ideas, the research suggests 11 years for its application from firstly perception to final end. However, more studies and experiments are required to confirm this proposed timeframe. It is also need for drawing formal procedures to guide people how to apply it on local condition.
Recommendation
Vietnamese professional officers in general needed to be educated and trained smoothly for financing methods in order to qualify enough for applying and handling new financing methods effectively and efficiently. Moreover, the Government and the companies should consider properly people’s back ground, professional skill, experiences, ect. prior appointing candidates for positions related to financing.
1. Current Transport Infrastructure Financing
It is recommended that Government and local companies maintaining their focus on “BOT schemes”, “Traditional Public Contracting” and “Joint Ventures”. In addition, other methods such as “Service Contracts”, “Management Contracts”, “Concession or Franchisee Agreements” and “Lease Contracts” need also pay much attention on to satisfy the huge demand of capital investment for transport infrastructure development. On the whole, in order to be successful in attracting the private sector investment for infrastructure projects in different levels of involvement, Government has to improve the quality of the concession contract and of subsequent regulatory supervision.
In order o overcome the problems in financing, it is necessary for public finance amendment. This including efficiently reallocating the budget both for capital and recurrent expenditures with clear links between these. Programs proposed or defended as investments should be evaluated against the criterion of improving long-term economic capacity. For a successful banking relationship and adequate working capital support, the government contractor should seek a banking institution that has the expertise, experience, and a proven track record in the industry in providing the services and flexibility in financing that matches the company's specific needs. Such these things are difficult, but they are not impossible.
2. Value Capture approach
In summary, the demand for research on tax policies is critical in Vietnam. In order to accomplish that goal, it is neccessary to spend more time and commitment for training local proffesional. The training should be hold in the form of seminars, which offered an educational environment where instructors and participants could share basic principles on the taxation of real property and learn from each others' experiences.
In order to implement VC into Vietnam, it is critical that the land tax policies are implemented. The research proposes a land value increment tax to capture the capital gains from land transactions. To capture land value increments and avoid speculation, Vietnam instead implemented a capital gains tax system that covers both real property and other asset transactions. To discourage land speculation, the tax rate should be fixed at about 50 percent for property sales within two years of purchase, but owners who hold properties for more than two years will have a lower capital gains tax rate (based on the experiment of Korea).
Consisting with the constitutional principles of “People’s ownership” and “state management”, the principal amendment in land administration is in the need of execution with the interventions of some donors in some points represent areas, including shifting from treating “land use rights” as concessionary privileges to inalienable and universal rights-based land leases. Ideally, amendment should move gradually to absorb the informal land system into the formal system. This process should involve a careful study of informal practices and wherever possible use them as the template for the formal system. As land reforms elsewhere have demonstrated, where the informal system is treated as sub optimal and inappropriate, it has proved extremely resistant to change.
Her thesis abstract is copied and posted.
Abstract
In recent years, transportation and infrastructure needs in Vietnam have grown more rapidly than the available funding. This lead to the need for the government to design the legislation to encourage private-sector participation in the development, financing, operation and ownership of facilities. Therefore, the research focus on main issue of current financing methods applying for Vietnamese infrastructure in order to find the inefficiencies and shortcoming. In addition, the research also explore a new financing method, Value Capture approach, a device to recover for the public the increase in land value associated with public actions that otherwise would be captured by private entities. Through the survey made on 33 Company Officers and 23 Government Officers, who are expert on the field related to infrastructure financing, viewpoints of toward current transport infrastructure financing in Vietnam context were revealed. The descriptive statistic and hypothesis tests are used to analyze the collected data. The finding shows higher knowledge and application of traditional financing methods over new financing methods. The implication from that is the need of applying nontraditional approaches to finance infrastructure investment for Vietnam infrastructure development, especially transportation. This study also mentioned some problems and weaknesses in current financing and then discussed in detail some critical keys as motives for Public-Private Partnership- the solution for financing problems. Additionally, Value Capture is found very far from Vietnamese infrastructure financing as its knowledge and application very low even it may generate more benefit than current financing methods. In order to apply Value Capture in the current Vietnamese context, it is critical that the Vietnamese property tax policies and land law should be analyze and amended. Vietnamese Government needs to address this issue with big effort to set up the environment suitable for the development of new financing methods. Especially coordination with foreign partners is more over suggested to gain mutual benefits for both sides.
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Construction Process Improvement for a Mass Housing Project: A Case of Pre-cast Housing Construction
Timely completion at minimum cost satisfying quality requirements and specifications is the main objective of any construction project. However, these achievements becomes much more crucial in case of housing projects, partly because of demand of the client, for selling a product in this competitive market, the houses should demonstrate sound quality as well as should be available in time. Residential projects are generally client driven constructions, the demand of client becomes more crucial in case of housing projects. Since the houses are being built on the expense of investors and developers, the retrieving of spent money is important to maintain the cash flow.
Ms. Pratigya Pradhan made a research which particular attempt was to tackle the common management dilemma of housing projects of a newly emerging company in Thailand i.e. to achieve its objective of timely completion of project with satisfactory quality to be offered to the client. The major management dilemma is that the project is failing to achieve the schedule target as demanded by client and buildings are suffering quality problems which cause low satisfaction of client and ultimately direct or indirect loss to the company. Project is behind the schedule and displaying low quality products.
The major objective of Ms. Pradhan’s thesis is identification of factors causing delay and quality degradation in projects and propose construction process improvement in order to improve the quality and shorten the schedule. In order to achieve the major objective, the following sub-objectives were formulated.
1. Identification of managerial delay factors, its frequency of occurrence, impact on delay and impact on quality by assessing the perception of site personnel; Managers and foremen.
2. Conducting construction process diagnosis to study the work process and workers productivity, safety provisions during operations in order to identify the underlying operational factors causing delay and quality degradation in activities and their sequencing.
3. Finally, to propose construction process improvement in order to minimize the hindrances in achieving time and quality target.
Conclusion
The observation conclusions presented in this part, consists of summary from periodic observations and discussions and questionnaire survey with project manager, site engineers, foremen and quality control department including yard persons.
1. Identification of managerial delay factors (its frequency of occurrence, impact on delay and impact on quality)
The managerial factors, defined as the factors affecting overall project performance, were finalized by the literature review and informal interview and enlisted in the questionnaire and ranked by site personnel broadly categorized as managers and foremen, from nine different sites of the same company. As per the data analysis i.e. observation of mean value and hypothesis testing for frequency of occurrence, impact on delay and impact on quality as ranked by site personnel following conclusion can be drawn regarding problems affecting overall project.
a. Manpower Problem is the major problematic area which has greater impact on delay and quality of the project. It also includes four major problems such as: (a) lack of manpower, (b) crew absenteeism as the major one, (c) unskilled manpower and (d) lack of supervision as the other problems.
b. Material Problem is another major aspect of problem. The unavailability of material had major impact on delay, and problem in quality of material had greater impact on quality problem in the project. Both problems had high frequency of occurrence in the project. However, the major problem affecting the quality was ranked to be quality problem in material. The reason for late delivery of material was answered as a supplier fault due to high market demand; however the long procedure of the purchasing order from head office was complained
c. Problem in Co-ordination was ranked third problematic area as evident from structured questionnaire results. Problem between sub-contractors was basically occurring in one individual house between structure and finishing works. Problem in co-ordination rarely exist between the sub-contractors of activities of one group because each group i.e. structure and finishing were handled by one foreman so he normally handles the relating problems swiftly. However, the problem of co-ordination between the subcontractors of structure occurs with that of finishing. Normally due to carelessness of the structure workers, finishing workers have to suffer the problems such as holes, grooves and bolts left, uneven surfaces, creating problem in finishing work thus resulting to conflicts and delay in amending the faults and also quality problem in some cases such as leakage and smoothness in surface.
d. Problem in design was ranked to be moderately occurring in site. While inquired, the changes in specification of finishing works occurred moderately.
e. Financial Problem occurred moderately in the site, inadequate financial problem was ranked by foremen more than that of manager and cost overrun was ranked more by managers. When asked it was said that although the company do not much compromise in the financial supply, due to cost overrun on site, sometime there is inadequate supply to foremen level. Normally, subcontractors extend activities work to few days more, due to delay in payment. As per the direct labor (about 30%) hired in site result to more crew absenteeism than subcontractor as they only consider the daily payment and take less care of completion of the work since payment doesn’t depend upon work quality and completion.
f. Problem in equipment or shortage of equipment was rarely experienced. To reinforce the construction process and increase the target of accomplishment, equipment was readily supplied in the site with very few cases of damage and delay due to repair situation. Also evident from survey results the frequency of occurrence, impact on delay and impact on quality due to this problem is quite low.
g. Problem due to site accidents were quite less. The safety checklists show the satisfactory condition of safety provision except in some cases like not enough scaffolding provision, carelessness of the workers especially in roof tiling. The frequency of occurrence, impact on delay and impact on quality on project are quite low due to this problem.
In addition to observing the overall mean values of the attributes; frequency of occurrence, impact on delay and impact on quality, of a particular problem, the variation in view points of managers and foremen regarding a particular attribute of a problem was also compared. The comparison results shows that the significant difference in opinion was found in very few problems, in most of the cases slight difference in opinion was found.
3. Identification of Operational factors (Conducting construction process diagnosis to study the work process and workers productivity, safety provisions) in order to identify the underlying operational factors causing delay and quality degradation in activities and their sequencing
Major operational Problems in Activities
a. Structure works
For casting panels, the schedule for delivery is given to the yard by the site office before hand in order to get the material (pre-cast piles) on time. But the yard fail to meet this target, in such case sometime the stock pre-cast elements are also not enough and the schedule of that building is delayed.
The major delay was identified in installation of panels to set house, typically characterized by rejection of panels- 5%, panels not fitting – ( about 30% cases)and adjustment to be made on site showing low productivity material not ready- 2%, poor workmanship and crew absenteeism.
Other reasons of delay are late delivery of material from pre-cast yard and steel roof, unavailability of transportation for material and turnover. The cases of equipment damage are very rare.
b. Finishing Works
The major factors causing delay in finishing works is because of insufficient labor in major items like cement finishing and flooring, unavailability, late delivery or insufficient delivery of material, Poor workmanship of labor in sanitary fittings and painting;- major reason for disapproval by client. The reason for late delivery of material was answered as a supplier fault due to high market demand; however the long procedure of purchasing order from head office was also complained.
c. Work Sampling Results
As per the assessment of productivity of a gang work by several periodic observations the following facts were observed:
- The productivity rate of the group of workers were found to be varied by the type of work of activities, number of obstructions in construction process , time of the day and also from one group of worker to another group in same activity as well.
- The productive percentage is is high up to 50 % in early morning hours, diminishes after 2-3 hours ie need a sort of cigarette break and lowers down up to 20% productive percentage of labors in midday sun time and boosts up to 35 % in late hours.
- Certain gangs of workers are found to be more productive than other even for same construction activity. However, there is no solid system to compare progress to subcontractor level so as to compare or encourage them for productive works.
Whenever, there is some delay factors occurring there is direct impact on productivity as well, such as panels not fitting exactly, material not arriving at time, some person engaged in welding and next process has not started. So workers take cigarette breaks or a small nap until the problem is solved.
3. Construction Process Improvement
“Labor output is considered beyond control, other than the journeyman”, Picard 2003. Experience shows that the construction work process can be improved significantly by simply reducing or eliminating factors that interfere with crafts and technicians, and contribute to variability while diminishing the level of performance. As such after summarizing the major and minor delay factors underlying in the construction process, following recommendations are proposed.
a. Improvement in Managerial Aspects
- Proper planning of crew should be done before admitting considering the unavailability of labor in harvesting season.
- Enhance communication with head office especially for material ordering and change in design
- Strengthen quality control by increasing number of supervising staff.
- Since prefabrication is new technology for unskilled labor from farming based background.
- Proper provision of training the labor should be done.
- Change material to the available one
Some of the materials need special order that is ordering from abroad such as there is risk in ordering timely delivery as well as quality problem.
- Develop Penalty System to the supplier for late delivery
b. Improvement in Construction Process and on site Activities
Scheduling and work sequence
1. Presently, the prefabrication (2 days) and installation ( 3 days) of steel roofing are done serially after the set house. (Refer to Steel roofing, Table 2).Prefabrication of steel roof can be done previously before the set house is complete; this enables reduction of 2 days in critical path in structure works.
2. Since its clear from CPM of finishing works ( Chart1) that parqueting work (lying in the critical path) takes a significantly long time i.e. 10-15 days (3 days for installation and rest 80% of time in drying of the glue for parqueting works) which is almost 20-33% of overall schedule. Use of parqueting as a finishing work also needs to be re-evaluated, in order to shorten the schedule.
3. Proper co-ordination between site office and yard to ensure the casting. Increasing supervision in some of the activities such as set house and sanitary fitting is to be provided. Due attention should be drawn in casting schedule and quality of the panels to avoid breaking or rejection of panels which delays the setting house activity and the finishing works in
Productivity of Worker
- Increase the target in first four months of a year, so as to utilize labor availability.
- A motivation strategy can be developed to increase the efficiency of the labor on site such as comparisons of one gang work with another, incentive system and quality circle.
Conversion of cast in situ to pre-cast
- Footing for fence can be pre-cast.
- Outer door window frame can come with the pre-cast panels. The time taken to fill the gaps by mortar is reduced.
His thesis abstract is copied and posted.
Abstract
An important measure of success in the management of construction projects is the achievement of project within the prescribed time scale. Although the importance of time is realized, many projects fail to achieve them. Specially, in client driven projects like mass housing where maintaining quality and in schedule is the major issue, this challenge becomes more prominent.
The major objective of this thesis is to shorten the time and improve the quality in housing projects. The first step was to identify the factors causing delay and quality degradation. Structured questionnaire were administered in nine of the sites with same organizational systems and building types but varying in the scale. Fifteen problems grouped in seven categories of problematic areas were ranked from 36 respondents from Managerial level (including project managers and site engineers) and 54 respondents from foremen level. Each of the problems was ranked regarding frequency of occurrence, it impact on delay and impact on quality on the project. Two hypotheses were formulated to detect the perception of a particular problem in delay of a project and quality problem in the project considering the difference in perception of managers and foremen.
In order to detect the operational problems regarding detail sequence of works and other detail problems during the construction, construction process diagnosis was performed for detail activities for a particular building type (most commonly constructed) in a selected site having greatest investments among the sites. These basically include the process and sequence study of work along with the time study, labor and equipment information were collected for each of the activities. During the study observations reinforced by informal interview, observations were made in order to determine the major and minor delay factors. Further, work sampling of the selected activities of work packages, were performed for four different period of time of a day i.e. early morning, late morning, afternoon and evening, the number of samples being collected in average 340 activities and 930 for overall construction scenario.
The results showed that the most problematic issues affecting delay as well as quality degradation were problem in manpower and that in material. Problem in co-ordination and finance also had moderate impact on the delay and quality degradation of the project.
Finally, suggestions for construction process improvement were proposed in terms of management level and improvement on construction process and on-site activities and their sequencing.
Ms. Pratigya Pradhan made a research which particular attempt was to tackle the common management dilemma of housing projects of a newly emerging company in Thailand i.e. to achieve its objective of timely completion of project with satisfactory quality to be offered to the client. The major management dilemma is that the project is failing to achieve the schedule target as demanded by client and buildings are suffering quality problems which cause low satisfaction of client and ultimately direct or indirect loss to the company. Project is behind the schedule and displaying low quality products.
The major objective of Ms. Pradhan’s thesis is identification of factors causing delay and quality degradation in projects and propose construction process improvement in order to improve the quality and shorten the schedule. In order to achieve the major objective, the following sub-objectives were formulated.
1. Identification of managerial delay factors, its frequency of occurrence, impact on delay and impact on quality by assessing the perception of site personnel; Managers and foremen.
2. Conducting construction process diagnosis to study the work process and workers productivity, safety provisions during operations in order to identify the underlying operational factors causing delay and quality degradation in activities and their sequencing.
3. Finally, to propose construction process improvement in order to minimize the hindrances in achieving time and quality target.
Conclusion
The observation conclusions presented in this part, consists of summary from periodic observations and discussions and questionnaire survey with project manager, site engineers, foremen and quality control department including yard persons.
1. Identification of managerial delay factors (its frequency of occurrence, impact on delay and impact on quality)
The managerial factors, defined as the factors affecting overall project performance, were finalized by the literature review and informal interview and enlisted in the questionnaire and ranked by site personnel broadly categorized as managers and foremen, from nine different sites of the same company. As per the data analysis i.e. observation of mean value and hypothesis testing for frequency of occurrence, impact on delay and impact on quality as ranked by site personnel following conclusion can be drawn regarding problems affecting overall project.
a. Manpower Problem is the major problematic area which has greater impact on delay and quality of the project. It also includes four major problems such as: (a) lack of manpower, (b) crew absenteeism as the major one, (c) unskilled manpower and (d) lack of supervision as the other problems.
b. Material Problem is another major aspect of problem. The unavailability of material had major impact on delay, and problem in quality of material had greater impact on quality problem in the project. Both problems had high frequency of occurrence in the project. However, the major problem affecting the quality was ranked to be quality problem in material. The reason for late delivery of material was answered as a supplier fault due to high market demand; however the long procedure of the purchasing order from head office was complained
c. Problem in Co-ordination was ranked third problematic area as evident from structured questionnaire results. Problem between sub-contractors was basically occurring in one individual house between structure and finishing works. Problem in co-ordination rarely exist between the sub-contractors of activities of one group because each group i.e. structure and finishing were handled by one foreman so he normally handles the relating problems swiftly. However, the problem of co-ordination between the subcontractors of structure occurs with that of finishing. Normally due to carelessness of the structure workers, finishing workers have to suffer the problems such as holes, grooves and bolts left, uneven surfaces, creating problem in finishing work thus resulting to conflicts and delay in amending the faults and also quality problem in some cases such as leakage and smoothness in surface.
d. Problem in design was ranked to be moderately occurring in site. While inquired, the changes in specification of finishing works occurred moderately.
e. Financial Problem occurred moderately in the site, inadequate financial problem was ranked by foremen more than that of manager and cost overrun was ranked more by managers. When asked it was said that although the company do not much compromise in the financial supply, due to cost overrun on site, sometime there is inadequate supply to foremen level. Normally, subcontractors extend activities work to few days more, due to delay in payment. As per the direct labor (about 30%) hired in site result to more crew absenteeism than subcontractor as they only consider the daily payment and take less care of completion of the work since payment doesn’t depend upon work quality and completion.
f. Problem in equipment or shortage of equipment was rarely experienced. To reinforce the construction process and increase the target of accomplishment, equipment was readily supplied in the site with very few cases of damage and delay due to repair situation. Also evident from survey results the frequency of occurrence, impact on delay and impact on quality due to this problem is quite low.
g. Problem due to site accidents were quite less. The safety checklists show the satisfactory condition of safety provision except in some cases like not enough scaffolding provision, carelessness of the workers especially in roof tiling. The frequency of occurrence, impact on delay and impact on quality on project are quite low due to this problem.
In addition to observing the overall mean values of the attributes; frequency of occurrence, impact on delay and impact on quality, of a particular problem, the variation in view points of managers and foremen regarding a particular attribute of a problem was also compared. The comparison results shows that the significant difference in opinion was found in very few problems, in most of the cases slight difference in opinion was found.
3. Identification of Operational factors (Conducting construction process diagnosis to study the work process and workers productivity, safety provisions) in order to identify the underlying operational factors causing delay and quality degradation in activities and their sequencing
Major operational Problems in Activities
a. Structure works
For casting panels, the schedule for delivery is given to the yard by the site office before hand in order to get the material (pre-cast piles) on time. But the yard fail to meet this target, in such case sometime the stock pre-cast elements are also not enough and the schedule of that building is delayed.
The major delay was identified in installation of panels to set house, typically characterized by rejection of panels- 5%, panels not fitting – ( about 30% cases)and adjustment to be made on site showing low productivity material not ready- 2%, poor workmanship and crew absenteeism.
Other reasons of delay are late delivery of material from pre-cast yard and steel roof, unavailability of transportation for material and turnover. The cases of equipment damage are very rare.
b. Finishing Works
The major factors causing delay in finishing works is because of insufficient labor in major items like cement finishing and flooring, unavailability, late delivery or insufficient delivery of material, Poor workmanship of labor in sanitary fittings and painting;- major reason for disapproval by client. The reason for late delivery of material was answered as a supplier fault due to high market demand; however the long procedure of purchasing order from head office was also complained.
c. Work Sampling Results
As per the assessment of productivity of a gang work by several periodic observations the following facts were observed:
- The productivity rate of the group of workers were found to be varied by the type of work of activities, number of obstructions in construction process , time of the day and also from one group of worker to another group in same activity as well.
- The productive percentage is is high up to 50 % in early morning hours, diminishes after 2-3 hours ie need a sort of cigarette break and lowers down up to 20% productive percentage of labors in midday sun time and boosts up to 35 % in late hours.
- Certain gangs of workers are found to be more productive than other even for same construction activity. However, there is no solid system to compare progress to subcontractor level so as to compare or encourage them for productive works.
Whenever, there is some delay factors occurring there is direct impact on productivity as well, such as panels not fitting exactly, material not arriving at time, some person engaged in welding and next process has not started. So workers take cigarette breaks or a small nap until the problem is solved.
3. Construction Process Improvement
“Labor output is considered beyond control, other than the journeyman”, Picard 2003. Experience shows that the construction work process can be improved significantly by simply reducing or eliminating factors that interfere with crafts and technicians, and contribute to variability while diminishing the level of performance. As such after summarizing the major and minor delay factors underlying in the construction process, following recommendations are proposed.
a. Improvement in Managerial Aspects
- Proper planning of crew should be done before admitting considering the unavailability of labor in harvesting season.
- Enhance communication with head office especially for material ordering and change in design
- Strengthen quality control by increasing number of supervising staff.
- Since prefabrication is new technology for unskilled labor from farming based background.
- Proper provision of training the labor should be done.
- Change material to the available one
Some of the materials need special order that is ordering from abroad such as there is risk in ordering timely delivery as well as quality problem.
- Develop Penalty System to the supplier for late delivery
b. Improvement in Construction Process and on site Activities
Scheduling and work sequence
1. Presently, the prefabrication (2 days) and installation ( 3 days) of steel roofing are done serially after the set house. (Refer to Steel roofing, Table 2).Prefabrication of steel roof can be done previously before the set house is complete; this enables reduction of 2 days in critical path in structure works.
2. Since its clear from CPM of finishing works ( Chart1) that parqueting work (lying in the critical path) takes a significantly long time i.e. 10-15 days (3 days for installation and rest 80% of time in drying of the glue for parqueting works) which is almost 20-33% of overall schedule. Use of parqueting as a finishing work also needs to be re-evaluated, in order to shorten the schedule.
3. Proper co-ordination between site office and yard to ensure the casting. Increasing supervision in some of the activities such as set house and sanitary fitting is to be provided. Due attention should be drawn in casting schedule and quality of the panels to avoid breaking or rejection of panels which delays the setting house activity and the finishing works in
Productivity of Worker
- Increase the target in first four months of a year, so as to utilize labor availability.
- A motivation strategy can be developed to increase the efficiency of the labor on site such as comparisons of one gang work with another, incentive system and quality circle.
Conversion of cast in situ to pre-cast
- Footing for fence can be pre-cast.
- Outer door window frame can come with the pre-cast panels. The time taken to fill the gaps by mortar is reduced.
His thesis abstract is copied and posted.
Abstract
An important measure of success in the management of construction projects is the achievement of project within the prescribed time scale. Although the importance of time is realized, many projects fail to achieve them. Specially, in client driven projects like mass housing where maintaining quality and in schedule is the major issue, this challenge becomes more prominent.
The major objective of this thesis is to shorten the time and improve the quality in housing projects. The first step was to identify the factors causing delay and quality degradation. Structured questionnaire were administered in nine of the sites with same organizational systems and building types but varying in the scale. Fifteen problems grouped in seven categories of problematic areas were ranked from 36 respondents from Managerial level (including project managers and site engineers) and 54 respondents from foremen level. Each of the problems was ranked regarding frequency of occurrence, it impact on delay and impact on quality on the project. Two hypotheses were formulated to detect the perception of a particular problem in delay of a project and quality problem in the project considering the difference in perception of managers and foremen.
In order to detect the operational problems regarding detail sequence of works and other detail problems during the construction, construction process diagnosis was performed for detail activities for a particular building type (most commonly constructed) in a selected site having greatest investments among the sites. These basically include the process and sequence study of work along with the time study, labor and equipment information were collected for each of the activities. During the study observations reinforced by informal interview, observations were made in order to determine the major and minor delay factors. Further, work sampling of the selected activities of work packages, were performed for four different period of time of a day i.e. early morning, late morning, afternoon and evening, the number of samples being collected in average 340 activities and 930 for overall construction scenario.
The results showed that the most problematic issues affecting delay as well as quality degradation were problem in manpower and that in material. Problem in co-ordination and finance also had moderate impact on the delay and quality degradation of the project.
Finally, suggestions for construction process improvement were proposed in terms of management level and improvement on construction process and on-site activities and their sequencing.
Monday, 26 April 2010
Development of a Prediction Model and Prioritization of the Expressway Maintenance Management System
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) established the guideline of inspection and maintenance management system for the expressway system of Thailand since 1994 (JICA, 1994). However, ETA did not implement the inspection and maintenance system during that period due to limited resources. The Expressway inspection and maintenance section of ETA started to implement only the inspection database system since 1999 by following the JICA guideline.
Preserving the Expressway condition to be at serviceable level is one of the main responsibilities of ETA. Previously, Expressway in Thailand was maintained, but not managed with future planning of maintenance. Expressway Management System (EMS) could be introduced by using both the concept of Pavement Management System (PMS) and Bridge Management System (BMS).
ETA has been performing the maintenance policy by when need basis. To develop an effective expressway management system ETA should have future maintenance plan. The prediction model is needed for future maintenance policy. The ETA needs to set the minimum acceptable level of the expressway condition to determine the time when the maintenance should be performed. Especially while resources are scarce, it is more crucial that the prediction of deterioration must be effective to propose the most appropriate plan of maintenance alternatives. Also it needs to be prioritized of deteriorated expressway sections to maximize the available resources.
Pavement management activities must consider the factors that influence costs of maintenance, in addition to the performance improvement of the expressway system. The major costs of each alternative treatment includes i) cost of the actual work (materials, transport, placement, etc.), ii) vehicle operating costs (VOC), iii) cost of user delays (including extra vehicle operating costs during maintenance), iv) accident cost due to traffic hazards or interruptions associated with the maintenance, v) Environmental damages (Air or water pollution, noise, etc) and these costs are calculated in the present worth value (Haas et al., 1994). When a maintenance strategy is selected for a section in a year, the marginal cost effectiveness is calculated for the other candidate sections for ranking the candidate sections in each year with budget limitation.
Mr. Mohammad Shahidul Islam made a study which main objective of this study is to determine a maintenance prioritization policy based on the concept of single-year optimization for the Thailand Expressway System
However, his study focuses on the development of deterioration model of each expressway section. And on the prioritization of roadway sections by single-year optimization based on a heuristic, marginal cost effectiveness method. This technique for the prioritization of expressway sections is much simpler, flexible and operationally efficient, and provided results close enough to the actual optimization for all practical purposes (Haas et al., 1997).
·His secondary objectives were to: (1) determine the structural weight factors of the structural elements of the Expressway system; (2) determine the numerical condition ratings corresponding to the alphabetical damage ratings for developing the prediction model; (3) determine the Expressway Performance Index (EPI) for each section of the expressway system; (4) study the characteristics of each type of prediction models and determine the appropriate prediction model for Thailand Expressway System; and (5) determine the effectiveness of each treatment alternative for each expressway section and year combination.
Conclusions
In this study, the deterioration model has been developed for each section. An overall model has been also developed for each expressway system but for each route of the First Stage of Expressway system. The deterioration models have been developed by using the Expressway Performance Index (EPI), which considers the condition of elements together with the structural and functional importance by using the structural weight factors.
The structural weight factors have been developed from the ETA maintenance experts’ opinion based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). In the AHP, those weighting factors were used to develop the overall structural weight factors (W.F.), which comparison matrices had the consistency rating of 0.1 or less. It is concluded that the sub-structural elements for the bridge sections and pavement elements for the land sections have the greater importance than the other types of elements.
In addition to the questionnaire survey for structural weight factors, another questionnaire survey was performed on the ETA maintenance engineers for assigning a numerical value to the alphabetic condition ratings of the expressway elements, which have been practicing by ETA. Based on the average and the modal values, the used numerical condition ratings for ‘B’ and ‘C’ are 3 and 7 respectively. The lowest value for the worst condition and the highest value for the no damage condition were used as zero and 10 respectively (i.e. A=0 and D=10).
The model validation was performed based on the coefficient of determination (R2 Statistic) and the correlation test between the actual EPI and the predicted EPI for each expressway system and each route of the First Stage of Expressway system. It was found that the coefficient of determination (R2 Statistic) of each sectional model is close to one which is reasonably acceptable. It was also found that the overall model developed for the Ram-Indra Atnarong Expressway is the best, which coefficient of determination is 0.8113 and the Spearman’s correlation coefficient (rs) between actual EPI and predicted EPI is 0.939.
In the decision module, the single-year optimization based on the Marginal Cost Effectiveness (MCE) single-year optimization has been performed to select the expressway sections for maintenance with a limited budget. In this study 100 Million THB per year was used as the maintenance budget which is the average yearly maintenance budget of the Expressway and Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (ETA). All the maintenance methods were grouped into five maintenance packages for the maintenance decision analysis. These are 1) do nothing, 2) preventive maintenance, 3) minor corrective maintenance, 4) major corrective maintenance and 5) replacement of deteriorated elements. The effectiveness of each combination of section, maintenance alternative and the implementation year was calculated by using the respective sectional model. However, the overall model of the corresponding expressway system was used for those sections which were eliminated by the data manipulation and filtration process from the model development.
The MCE prioritization result shows that 661 sections of the total 506 candidate sections in each year would be maintained within the 5-year programming period with a limited budget. The average annual maintenance budget of the Expressway and Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (ETA) is 100 Million THB. The annual effectiveness has been increased with year as the needs of candidate sections increases. The cost-effectiveness ratio (CE) has been also increased, in the first year of the programming period the CE is 0.0312 and the CE has been increased to 0.1745 at the fifth year. The total effectiveness would be achieved by maintaining the 661 candidate sections with the four maintenance options is 52,162,235 with the total cost of 499,760,000.00 THB and the total cost-effectiveness ratio (CE) is the 0.1044.
From the MCE prioritization result, it can be concluded that the preventive maintenance and the minor corrective maintenance are the more cost-effective than the others for the early stage of the programming period. However, for the late stage of the programming period, the major corrective maintenance and the rehabilitation are the more cost-effective than the first two maintenance options.
His thesis abstract is copied and posted.
ABSTRACT
Maintenance management system plays an important role for infrastructures after the infrastructure facilities are constructed. The expressway system is one of the infrastructures that provides road network for road users in Thailand. An expressway road will not last for an extended period of time without application of some type of maintenance, rehabilitation, or reconstruction. Expressway Maintenance Management System (EMMS) is a process for maintaining and preserving expressway at a certain level of performance in the most cost-effective manner. The future plan for maintenance of expressway system is highly affected by the future condition and the budget allocation of the Expressway and Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (ETA).
Due to several constraints such as budget, time, manpower, equipment and other resources, it is not possible for the agency to maintain all the road sections or structural components that require maintenance within the same time period. In such cases, prioritization has to be set on which sections or components of the expressway system are to be repaired, what maintenance policy will be applied and when the repairs should be done. The prioritization of expressway sections and selection of maintenance alternatives should be such that the available resource utilization can be maximized.
In this research, the structural weight factors (W.F.) have been developed for each element of the expressway system. The structural weight factors have been developed based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process. The numerical condition ratings have been also developed for each alphabetical damage rating of the expressway elements, which have been practicing by ETA for the inspection process.
In this research, the prediction models for each 200-meter section of the expressway systems have been developed in order to develop an effective Expressway Maintenance Management System (EMMS). The single-year prioritization of the expressway sections and selection of maintenance options has been done based on the Marginal Cost-Effectiveness (MCE) for the five year programming period.
Preserving the Expressway condition to be at serviceable level is one of the main responsibilities of ETA. Previously, Expressway in Thailand was maintained, but not managed with future planning of maintenance. Expressway Management System (EMS) could be introduced by using both the concept of Pavement Management System (PMS) and Bridge Management System (BMS).
ETA has been performing the maintenance policy by when need basis. To develop an effective expressway management system ETA should have future maintenance plan. The prediction model is needed for future maintenance policy. The ETA needs to set the minimum acceptable level of the expressway condition to determine the time when the maintenance should be performed. Especially while resources are scarce, it is more crucial that the prediction of deterioration must be effective to propose the most appropriate plan of maintenance alternatives. Also it needs to be prioritized of deteriorated expressway sections to maximize the available resources.
Pavement management activities must consider the factors that influence costs of maintenance, in addition to the performance improvement of the expressway system. The major costs of each alternative treatment includes i) cost of the actual work (materials, transport, placement, etc.), ii) vehicle operating costs (VOC), iii) cost of user delays (including extra vehicle operating costs during maintenance), iv) accident cost due to traffic hazards or interruptions associated with the maintenance, v) Environmental damages (Air or water pollution, noise, etc) and these costs are calculated in the present worth value (Haas et al., 1994). When a maintenance strategy is selected for a section in a year, the marginal cost effectiveness is calculated for the other candidate sections for ranking the candidate sections in each year with budget limitation.
Mr. Mohammad Shahidul Islam made a study which main objective of this study is to determine a maintenance prioritization policy based on the concept of single-year optimization for the Thailand Expressway System
However, his study focuses on the development of deterioration model of each expressway section. And on the prioritization of roadway sections by single-year optimization based on a heuristic, marginal cost effectiveness method. This technique for the prioritization of expressway sections is much simpler, flexible and operationally efficient, and provided results close enough to the actual optimization for all practical purposes (Haas et al., 1997).
·His secondary objectives were to: (1) determine the structural weight factors of the structural elements of the Expressway system; (2) determine the numerical condition ratings corresponding to the alphabetical damage ratings for developing the prediction model; (3) determine the Expressway Performance Index (EPI) for each section of the expressway system; (4) study the characteristics of each type of prediction models and determine the appropriate prediction model for Thailand Expressway System; and (5) determine the effectiveness of each treatment alternative for each expressway section and year combination.
Conclusions
In this study, the deterioration model has been developed for each section. An overall model has been also developed for each expressway system but for each route of the First Stage of Expressway system. The deterioration models have been developed by using the Expressway Performance Index (EPI), which considers the condition of elements together with the structural and functional importance by using the structural weight factors.
The structural weight factors have been developed from the ETA maintenance experts’ opinion based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). In the AHP, those weighting factors were used to develop the overall structural weight factors (W.F.), which comparison matrices had the consistency rating of 0.1 or less. It is concluded that the sub-structural elements for the bridge sections and pavement elements for the land sections have the greater importance than the other types of elements.
In addition to the questionnaire survey for structural weight factors, another questionnaire survey was performed on the ETA maintenance engineers for assigning a numerical value to the alphabetic condition ratings of the expressway elements, which have been practicing by ETA. Based on the average and the modal values, the used numerical condition ratings for ‘B’ and ‘C’ are 3 and 7 respectively. The lowest value for the worst condition and the highest value for the no damage condition were used as zero and 10 respectively (i.e. A=0 and D=10).
The model validation was performed based on the coefficient of determination (R2 Statistic) and the correlation test between the actual EPI and the predicted EPI for each expressway system and each route of the First Stage of Expressway system. It was found that the coefficient of determination (R2 Statistic) of each sectional model is close to one which is reasonably acceptable. It was also found that the overall model developed for the Ram-Indra Atnarong Expressway is the best, which coefficient of determination is 0.8113 and the Spearman’s correlation coefficient (rs) between actual EPI and predicted EPI is 0.939.
In the decision module, the single-year optimization based on the Marginal Cost Effectiveness (MCE) single-year optimization has been performed to select the expressway sections for maintenance with a limited budget. In this study 100 Million THB per year was used as the maintenance budget which is the average yearly maintenance budget of the Expressway and Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (ETA). All the maintenance methods were grouped into five maintenance packages for the maintenance decision analysis. These are 1) do nothing, 2) preventive maintenance, 3) minor corrective maintenance, 4) major corrective maintenance and 5) replacement of deteriorated elements. The effectiveness of each combination of section, maintenance alternative and the implementation year was calculated by using the respective sectional model. However, the overall model of the corresponding expressway system was used for those sections which were eliminated by the data manipulation and filtration process from the model development.
The MCE prioritization result shows that 661 sections of the total 506 candidate sections in each year would be maintained within the 5-year programming period with a limited budget. The average annual maintenance budget of the Expressway and Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (ETA) is 100 Million THB. The annual effectiveness has been increased with year as the needs of candidate sections increases. The cost-effectiveness ratio (CE) has been also increased, in the first year of the programming period the CE is 0.0312 and the CE has been increased to 0.1745 at the fifth year. The total effectiveness would be achieved by maintaining the 661 candidate sections with the four maintenance options is 52,162,235 with the total cost of 499,760,000.00 THB and the total cost-effectiveness ratio (CE) is the 0.1044.
From the MCE prioritization result, it can be concluded that the preventive maintenance and the minor corrective maintenance are the more cost-effective than the others for the early stage of the programming period. However, for the late stage of the programming period, the major corrective maintenance and the rehabilitation are the more cost-effective than the first two maintenance options.
His thesis abstract is copied and posted.
ABSTRACT
Maintenance management system plays an important role for infrastructures after the infrastructure facilities are constructed. The expressway system is one of the infrastructures that provides road network for road users in Thailand. An expressway road will not last for an extended period of time without application of some type of maintenance, rehabilitation, or reconstruction. Expressway Maintenance Management System (EMMS) is a process for maintaining and preserving expressway at a certain level of performance in the most cost-effective manner. The future plan for maintenance of expressway system is highly affected by the future condition and the budget allocation of the Expressway and Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (ETA).
Due to several constraints such as budget, time, manpower, equipment and other resources, it is not possible for the agency to maintain all the road sections or structural components that require maintenance within the same time period. In such cases, prioritization has to be set on which sections or components of the expressway system are to be repaired, what maintenance policy will be applied and when the repairs should be done. The prioritization of expressway sections and selection of maintenance alternatives should be such that the available resource utilization can be maximized.
In this research, the structural weight factors (W.F.) have been developed for each element of the expressway system. The structural weight factors have been developed based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process. The numerical condition ratings have been also developed for each alphabetical damage rating of the expressway elements, which have been practicing by ETA for the inspection process.
In this research, the prediction models for each 200-meter section of the expressway systems have been developed in order to develop an effective Expressway Maintenance Management System (EMMS). The single-year prioritization of the expressway sections and selection of maintenance options has been done based on the Marginal Cost-Effectiveness (MCE) for the five year programming period.
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
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.
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.
Monday, 19 April 2010
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.
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.
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