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Description
Utilizing the Arizona State University's Performance Based Studies Research Group, and their PIPS program, a roofing materials manufacturing company can evaluate performance of representatives, products and contractors. Service life of the systems can be tracked and customer satisfaction measured it provides an objective viable tool for the consumer to choose

Utilizing the Arizona State University's Performance Based Studies Research Group, and their PIPS program, a roofing materials manufacturing company can evaluate performance of representatives, products and contractors. Service life of the systems can be tracked and customer satisfaction measured it provides an objective viable tool for the consumer to choose a quality product and contractor without the distractions of marketing, promises, or a salesman's hype. Facilities purchasing a new roof system, can benefit from the information gathered as a guide in making sound, value based decisions. Creating a historical, concise and accurate documentation of roofing systems is a benefit to all involved. The procurement process, installation and longevity of the roofing systems can be tracked and graded.
ContributorsGreenfeld, Larry (Author) / Kashiwagi, Dean T. (Thesis advisor) / Sullivan, Kenneth T. (Committee member) / Badger, William W. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
As a term and method that is rapidly gaining popularity, Building Information Modeling (BIM) is under the scrutiny of many building professionals questioning its potential benefits on their projects. A relevant and accepted calculation methodology and baseline to properly evaluate BIM's benefits have not been established, thus there are mixed

As a term and method that is rapidly gaining popularity, Building Information Modeling (BIM) is under the scrutiny of many building professionals questioning its potential benefits on their projects. A relevant and accepted calculation methodology and baseline to properly evaluate BIM's benefits have not been established, thus there are mixed perspectives and opinions of the benefits of BIM, creating a general misunderstanding of the expected outcomes. The purpose of this thesis was to develop a more complete methodology to analyze the benefits of BIM, apply recent projects to this methodology to quantify outcomes, resulting in a more a holistic framework of BIM and its impacts on project efficiency. From the literature, a framework calculation model to determine the value of BIM is developed and presented. The developed model is applied via case studies within a large industrial setting where similar projects are evaluated, some implementing BIM and some with traditional non-BIM approaches. Cost or investment metrics were considered along with benefit or return metrics. The return metrics were: requests for information, change orders, and duration improvements. The investment metrics were: design and construction costs. The methodology was tested against three separate cases and results on the returns and investments are presented. The findings indicate that in the tool installation department of semiconductor manufacturing, there is a high potential for BIM benefits to be realized. The evidence also suggests that actual returns and investments will vary with each project.
ContributorsBarlish, Kristen Caroline (Author) / Sullivan, Kenneth T. (Thesis advisor) / Kashiwagi, Dean T. (Committee member) / Badger, William W. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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Description
Commodity contracts are often awarded on the basis of price. A price-based methodology for making such awards fails to consider the suppliers' ability to minimize the risk of non-performance in terms of cost, schedule, or customer satisfaction. Literature suggests that nearly all risk in the delivery of commodities is in

Commodity contracts are often awarded on the basis of price. A price-based methodology for making such awards fails to consider the suppliers' ability to minimize the risk of non-performance in terms of cost, schedule, or customer satisfaction. Literature suggests that nearly all risk in the delivery of commodities is in the interfacing of nodes within a supply chain. Therefore, commodity suppliers should be selected on the basis of their past performance, ability to identify and minimize risk, and capacity to preplan the delivery of services. Organizations that select commodity suppliers primarily on the basis of price may experience customer dissatisfaction, delayed services, low product quality, or some combination thereof. One area that is often considered a "commodity" is the delivery of furniture services. Arizona State University, on behalf of the Arizona Tri-University Furniture Consortium, approached the researcher and identified concerns with their current furnishing services contract. These concerns included misaligned customer expectations, minimal furniture supplier upfront involvement on large capital construction projects, and manufacturer design expertise was not being utilized during project preplanning. The Universities implemented a best value selection process and risk management structure. The system has resulted in a 9.3 / 10 customer satisfaction rating (24 percent increase over the previous system), for over 1,100 furniture projects totaling $19.3M.
ContributorsSmithwick, Jake (Author) / Sullivan, Kenneth T. (Thesis advisor) / Kashiwagi, Dean T. (Committee member) / Badger, William W. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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Description
Human resources have always been the most critical factor in the construction industry, and now, with a historic generation entering the age of retirement, the construction industry needs to place greater effort in preparing for the succession of their most important of human resource, their leaders. A significant body of

Human resources have always been the most critical factor in the construction industry, and now, with a historic generation entering the age of retirement, the construction industry needs to place greater effort in preparing for the succession of their most important of human resource, their leaders. A significant body of research has shown that succession planning minimizes the negative effects that come with leadership transition; however, little research has focused specifically on the construction industry. The majority of construction companies are family owned or have small pools of potential successors, which make them more susceptible to the negative impacts that occur with poor planning for succession. The objective of this research focuses on developing a methodology that will assist construction companies plan and prepare for a leadership transition. Data is gathered from case studies of twelve construction companies that have recently experienced leadership succession. The data is analyzed for practices and characteristics that correlate to successful leadership transitions. Through the findings in the literature review and data analysis of the case studies, the research successfully achieves the objective of developing a potential methodology for increasing the effectiveness of succession planning in a construction company.
ContributorsPerrenoud, Anthony (Author) / Sullivan, Kenneth T. (Thesis advisor) / Badger, William (Committee member) / Schleifer, Thomas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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Description
Within the vast area of study in Organizational Change lays the industrial application of Change Management, which includes the understanding of both resisters and facilitators to organizational change. This dissertation presents an approach of gauging levels of change as it relates to both external and internal organization factors. The arena

Within the vast area of study in Organizational Change lays the industrial application of Change Management, which includes the understanding of both resisters and facilitators to organizational change. This dissertation presents an approach of gauging levels of change as it relates to both external and internal organization factors. The arena of such a test is given through the introduction of the same initiative change model, which attempts to improve transparency and accountability, across six different organizations where the varying results of change are measured. The change model itself consists of an interdisciplinary approach which emphasizes education of advanced organizational measurement techniques as fundamental drivers of converging change. The observations are documented in the real-time observed cased studies of six organizations as they progressed through the change process. This research also introduces a scaled metric for determining preliminary levels of change and endeavors to test both internal and external, or environmental, factors of change. A key contribution to the work is the analysis between both observed and surveyed data where a grounded theory analysis is used to help answer the question of what are factors of change in organizations. This work is considered to be foundational in real-time observational studies but has a promise for future additional contributions which would further elaborate on the phenomenon of prescribed organizational change.
ContributorsStone, Brian (Author) / Sullivan, Kenneth T. (Thesis advisor) / Verdini, William (Committee member) / Badger, William (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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Description
As global competition continues to grow more disruptive, organizational change is an ever-present reality that affects companies in all industries at both the operational and strategic level. Organizational change capabilities have become a necessary aspect of existence for organizations in all industries worldwide. Research suggests that more than half of

As global competition continues to grow more disruptive, organizational change is an ever-present reality that affects companies in all industries at both the operational and strategic level. Organizational change capabilities have become a necessary aspect of existence for organizations in all industries worldwide. Research suggests that more than half of all organizational change efforts fail to achieve their original intended results, with some studies quoting failure rates as high as 70 percent. Exasperating this problem is the fact that no single change methodology has been universally accepted. This thesis examines two aspect of organizational change: the implementation of tactical and strategic initiatives, primarily focusing on successful tactical implementation techniques. This research proposed that tactical issues typically dominate the focus of change agents and recipients alike, often to the detriment of strategic level initiatives that are vital to the overall value and success of the organizational change effort. The Delphi method was employed to develop a tool to facilitate the initial implementation of organizational change such that tactical barriers were minimized and available resources for strategic initiatives were maximized. Feedback from two expert groups of change agents and change facilitators was solicited to develop the tool and evaluate its impact. Preliminary pilot testing of the tool confirmed the proposal and successfully served to minimize tactical barriers to organizational change.
ContributorsLines, Brian (Author) / Sullivan, Kenneth T. (Thesis advisor) / Badger, William (Committee member) / Kashiwagi, Dean (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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Description
The success or failure of projects is not determined only by procedures, tasks, and technologies, but also by the project team and its effectiveness. In order to lead project teams towards successful outcomes, project managers must maintain high quality relationships in the workplace. When looking at employees’ relationships in the

The success or failure of projects is not determined only by procedures, tasks, and technologies, but also by the project team and its effectiveness. In order to lead project teams towards successful outcomes, project managers must maintain high quality relationships in the workplace. When looking at employees’ relationships in the workplace, Social Exchange Theory introduces two types of exchanges: employee-organization and leader-member exchanges. While both types of exchanges focus exclusively on the employee’s longitudinal relationships, the interpersonal relationships among the team members are usually overlooked.

This research presents the results of a quantitative study of the interpersonal relationships of 327 project managers and assistant project managers in their workplace. Specifically, the study investigates if the quality of the relationship with particular stakeholders, such as one’s immediate supervisor (boss), peers, or subordinates, drives the individual’s quality of the relationship with other stakeholders.

Contrary to the expectations, in strictly hierarchical organizations (one direct supervisor), there is no significant correlation between the quality of relationships with the boss and the overall quality of the individual’s relationships. However, in the case of matrix organizations (two or three bosses), there are significant correlations between several variables such as the quality of the relationship, perceived importance and the time spent with each stakeholder, as well the inclination of the participant towards leadership actions. The driving relationship in matrix organizations is the one with “the most important peer”.
ContributorsK. Jamali, M. Hossein (Author) / Wiezel, Avi (Thesis advisor) / Sullivan, Kenneth T. (Committee member) / Badger, William (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
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Description
Over the last twenty years, governments at all levels have made changes to increase their level of accountability and transparency. The researcher proposed that the concepts of organizational agility (OA) (leveraging core competencies, proactively seeking new opportunities, implementation of performance metrics, and strategically planning projects) are well-aligned with the

Over the last twenty years, governments at all levels have made changes to increase their level of accountability and transparency. The researcher proposed that the concepts of organizational agility (OA) (leveraging core competencies, proactively seeking new opportunities, implementation of performance metrics, and strategically planning projects) are well-aligned with the public accountability systems. In the first part of this dissertation, the researcher examined the components of a “Value-Based Model” for public works contractor selection and project delivery, and its propensity to increase public accountability. The researcher studied 415 projects ($561.47M value) delivered with the Value-Based Model at eight different public agencies over a ten-year period.

Next, the researcher analyzed factors affecting contractor organizational agility. In light of the “Great Recession”, the concepts of organizational agility offers insights into companies could have made different strategic decisions to avoid many of the issues faced. Construction was particularly affected: by January 2010, unemployment reached approximately 20 percent. One way to combat declining profits is to adjust general overhead costs (indirect expenses). These costs include items such as home office expenses, business development, and bonuses. The objective of the second part of this research was to conduct a study of how contractors responded to dynamic market conditions and to identify if whether contractors’ company attributes impacted their responses to the market changes. A total of 437 contractors responded to the survey, and 92 percent reported that they reduced overhead costs in five areas, by an average of about 15 percent. Additional analysis suggests that there are distinct categories of overhead flexibility.
ContributorsSmithwick, Jake (Author) / Sullivan, Kenneth T. (Thesis advisor) / Badger, William W. (Committee member) / Schleifer, Thomas C. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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Description
The alternative project delivery methods (APDMs) today are being increasingly used by owner organizations in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. Yet the adoption of these methods can be extremely difficult to accomplish and requires significant change management efforts. To facilitate the APDM adoption, this research aimed to better

The alternative project delivery methods (APDMs) today are being increasingly used by owner organizations in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. Yet the adoption of these methods can be extremely difficult to accomplish and requires significant change management efforts. To facilitate the APDM adoption, this research aimed to better understand how AEC owner organizations have changed from only using the design-bid-build method to also successfully implementing APDMs from an organizational change perspective. This research utilized a literature review, survey and interviews to fulfill the research objectives. The dissertation follows a three paper format. The first paper focuses on identifying organizational change management (OCM) practices that, when effectively executed, lead to increased success rates of adopting APDMs in owner AEC organizations. The results of the first paper indicated that the five OCM practices with the strongest correlations to successful APDM adoption were realistic timeframe, effective change agents, workload adjustments, senior-leadership commitment, and sufficient change-related training. The second paper focuses on investigating AEC employees’ reactions to the adoption of APDMs. The findings of the second paper revealed that employees in AEC organizations react favorably to adopting a change in their project delivery systems. The findings further revealed that increasing the use of OCM practices is related to decreased employee resistance to change. The third paper aimed to provide guidelines detailing on how to lead APDM adoption. The findings of the third paper indicated that there was a general sequence of four implementation phases, which were preparing and planning, pilot project testing, expanding to the intended scale, and sustaining and evaluating. The phases include specific OCM practices that increase the probability of successful APDM adoption. The dissertation results can help in guiding the senior managers of construction organizations and OCM consultants to effectively implement APDMs for the first time in the construction sector.
ContributorsAldossari, Khaled Medath (Author) / Sullivan, Kenneth T. (Thesis advisor) / Hurtado, Kristen C (Committee member) / Standage, Richard (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
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Description
The delivery of construction projects, particularly with respect to design phase or preconstruction efforts, has changed significantly over the past twenty years. As alternative delivery methods such as Construction-Manager-at-Risk (CMAR) and Design-Build models have become more prominent, general contractors, owners, and designers have had the opportunity to take advantage of

The delivery of construction projects, particularly with respect to design phase or preconstruction efforts, has changed significantly over the past twenty years. As alternative delivery methods such as Construction-Manager-at-Risk (CMAR) and Design-Build models have become more prominent, general contractors, owners, and designers have had the opportunity to take advantage of the collaborative planning opportunities that exist during the preconstruction portion of the project. While much has been written regarding the benefits of more collaborative approaches and the utilization of various tools and practices during preconstruction to mitigate risk and maximize positive outcomes, what is lesser known is how to teach a coursework that exposes students to various tools and practices that are being utilized today. The objective of this research was to create a testable methodology that can be used to analyze a developed approach that answers the question of how to teach preconstruction tools and practices. A coursework was developed and taught as a graduate level class and data was collected from the actual teaching of that class. In addition, feedback was solicited from the construction industry concerning recommended content applicable to such a class. Data was then analyzed to ascertain student retention of the material and topical content of the course. Through these findings and literature review process the methodology and baseline coursework was shown as an effective means to teach preconstruction tools and practices.
ContributorsKutz, Barry Thomas (Author) / Sullivan, Kenneth T. (Thesis advisor) / Standage, Richard (Committee member) / Hurtado, Kristen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019