Matching Items (4)
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- All Subjects: Construction Management
- All Subjects: Design Build
- Genre: Masters Thesis
- Creators: El Asmar, Mounir
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
- Resource Type: Text
- Status: Published
Description
The current paradigm to addressing the marginal increases in productivity and quality in the construction industry is to embrace new technologies and new programs designed to increase productivity. While both pursuits are justifiable and worthwhile they overlook a crucial element, the human element. If the individuals and teams operating the new technologies or executing the new programs lack all of the necessary skills the efforts are still doomed for, at best, mediocrity. But over the past two decades researchers and practitioners have been exploring and experimenting with a softer set of skills that are producing hard figures showing real improvements in performance.
ContributorsMischung, Joshua (Author) / Sullivan, Kenneth T. (Thesis advisor) / El Asmar, Mounir (Committee member) / Wiezel, Avi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The water and wastewater industry in the United States is in dire need of renovation due to dwindling infrastructure and requires substantial reinvestment. Design-bid-build (DBB) is the traditional method of project delivery most widely applied in this industry. However, alternative project delivery methods (APDM) are on the rise and touting the benefits of reduced project schedule and cost. The main purpose of this study is to conduct a qualitative and quantitative performance evaluation to assess the current impact of APDM in the water and wastewater industry. A national survey was conducted targeting completed water and wastewater treatment plant projects. Responses were obtained from 75 utilities and constructors that either completed their projects using DBB, construction manager at risk (CMAR), or design-build (DB). Data analysis revealed that CMAR and DB statistically outperformed DBB in terms of project speed and intensity. Performance metrics such as cost growth, schedule growth, unit cost, factors influencing project delivery method selection, scope changes, warranty and latent defects, and several others are also evaluated. The main contribution of this study was that it was able to show that for the same project cost, water and wastewater treatment plants could be delivered under a faster schedule and with higher quality through the utilization of APDM.
ContributorsFeghaly, Jeffrey (Author) / El Asmar, Mounir (Thesis advisor) / Ariaratnam, Samuel (Thesis advisor) / Bearup, Wylie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
The built environment is responsible for a significant portion of global waste generation.
Construction and demolition (C&D) waste requires significant landfill areas and costs
billions of dollars. New business models that reduce this waste may prove to be financially
beneficial and generally more sustainable. One such model is referred to as the “Circular
Economy” (CE), which promotes the efficient use of materials to minimize waste
generation and raw material consumption. CE is achieved by maximizing the life of
materials and components and by reclaiming the typically wasted value at the end of their
life. This thesis identifies the potential opportunities for using CE in the built environment.
It first calculates the magnitude of C&D waste and its main streams, highlights the top
C&D materials based on weight and value using data from various regions, identifies the
top C&D materials’ current recycling and reuse rates, and finally estimates a potential
financial benefit of $3.7 billion from redirecting C&D waste using the CE concept in the
United States.
ContributorsAldaaja, Mohammad (Author) / El Asmar, Mounir (Thesis advisor) / Buch, Rajesh (Committee member) / Kaloush, Kamil (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
During the rapid growth of infrastructure projects globally, countries pay high environmental and social costs as a result of the impacts caused from utilizing the traditional open-cut utility installation method that still widely being used in Egypt. For that, it was essential to have alternatives to reduce these environmental impacts and social costs; however, there are some obstacles that prevent the implementation and the realization of these alternatives.This research is conducted mainly to evaluate the environmental impacts of open-cut excavation vs. trenchless technology in Egypt, through two main methodologies. Firstly, a field survey that aims to measure knowledge of people working in the Egyptian construction industry of trenchless technology, and the harms caused from keeping utilizing open-cut for installing all kinds of underground utilities. In addition to investigating the reasons behind not relying on trenchless technology as a safe alternative for open-cut in Egypt.
Furthermore, in order to compare the greenhouse gases emissions resulted from both open-cut vs trenchless technology, a real case study is applied quantifying the amounts of the resulted greenhouse gases from each method. The results show that greenhouse gases emissions generated from open-cut were extremely higher than that of horizontal directional drilling as a trenchless installation method.
ContributorsKhedr, Ahmed Mossad Saeed Hafez (Author) / Ariaratnam, Samuel (Thesis advisor) / El Asmar, Mounir (Committee member) / Chong, Oswald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023