Matching Items (7)
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- All Subjects: Construction Management
- All Subjects: Overuse Injuries
- Creators: Wiezel, Avi
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
Description
Owner organizations in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry are presented with a wide variety of project delivery approaches. Implementation of these approaches, while enticing due to their potential to save money, reduce schedule delays, or improve quality, is extremely difficult to accomplish and requires a concerted change management effort. Research in the field of organizational behavior cautions that perhaps more than half of all organizational change efforts fail to accomplish their intended objectives. This study utilizes an action research approach to analyze change message delivery within owner organizations, model owner project team readiness and adoption of change, and identify the most frequently encountered types of resistance from lead project members. The analysis methodology included Spearman's rank order correlation, variable selection testing via three methods of hierarchical linear regression, relative weight analysis, and one-way ANOVA. Key findings from this study include recommendations for communicating the change message within owner organizations, empirical validation of critical predictors for change readiness and change adoption among project teams, and identification of the most frequently encountered resistive behaviors within change implementation in the AEC industry. A key contribution of this research is the recommendation of change management strategies for use by change practitioners.
ContributorsLines, Brian (Author) / Sullivan, Kenneth (Thesis advisor) / Wiezel, Avi (Committee member) / Badger, William (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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 construction industry faces important performance problems such as low productivity, poor quality of work, and work-related accidents and injuries. Creating a high reliability work system that is simultaneously highly productive and exceptionally safe has become a challenge for construction practitioners and scholars. The main goal of this dissertation was to create an understanding of high reliability construction work systems based on lessons from the production practices of high performance work crews. High performance work crews are defined as the work crews that constantly reach and maintain a high level of productivity and exceptional safety record while delivering high quality of work. This study was conceptualized on findings from High Reliability Organizations and with a primary focus on lean construction, human factors, safety, and error management. Toward the research objective, this dissertation answered two major questions. First, it explored the task factors and project attributes that shape and increase workers' task demands and consequently affect workers' safety, production, and quality performance. Second, it explored and investigated the production practices of construction field supervisors (foremen) to understand how successful supervisors regulate task and project demands to create a highly reliable work process. Employing case study methodology, this study explored and analyzed the work practices of six work crews and crew supervisors in different trades including concrete, masonry, and hot asphalt roofing construction. The case studies included one exceptional and one average performing crew from each trade. Four major factors were considered in the selection of exceptional crew supervisors: (1) safety performance, (2) production performance, (3) quality performance, and (4) the level of project difficulty they supervised. The data collection was carried out in three phases including: (1) interview with field supervisors to understand their production practices, (2) survey and interview with workers to understand their perception and to identify the major sources of task demands, and (3) several close field observations. Each trade's specific findings including task demands, project attributes, and production practices used by crew supervisors are presented in a separate chapter. At the end the production practices that converged to create high reliability work systems are summarized and presented in nine major categories.
ContributorsMemarian, Babak (Author) / Bashford, Howard (Thesis advisor) / Boren, Rebecca (Committee member) / Wiezel, Avi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The discipline of continuing professional development (CPD) is well defined and established within a variety of industries, such as medical, legal, and financial. The built environment is a less defined and mature industry with respect to educational pathways and professional education, with no uniform structure. Occupational licensing, such as registered nurses, certified professional accountants, and others are well known within both their industries and the public. Additionally, occupational core-competencies are well established. Planning is a core skill set within the built environment and construction management. Definitions of the term “planning” vary quite broadly across the built environment, but generally includes activities such as risk identification, scope identification, and scheduling. Understanding how professionals in the built environment learn to plan is critical to meeting CPD needs for planning skills and the ability of a professional to “plan” effectively. Many planning tools and software have been developed, but often rely on an individual professional’s personal experiences and abilities. Limited literature in the field of professional education in the built environment has left a gap on the topic of how to train professionals in planning competencies. Survey results indicate that current training is not meeting the expectations of professionals, as only 16 percent of professionals are trained how to plan using their preferred method of learning. While on-the-job training is the primary format, the most preferred format is internal company training, but only 54 percent of companies provide this format. Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests were conducted and revealed that organizations with internal training programs have higher employee satisfaction with their organization’s planning process. Further, organizations with internal training programs are seen as having a more formal internal planning process. Research is needed to develop CPD within construction management and provide the foundation upon which a professional education structure can be created. An andragogically-centered schema for a heuristic approach to construction CPD is developed and tested on a seminar for pre-project planning. The full instructional design of the seminar using the model is disclosed and seminar results showed positive results and participants achieved high levels of learning.
ContributorsHurtado, Kristen (Author) / Sullivan, Kenneth (Thesis advisor) / Wiezel, Avi (Committee member) / Badger, William (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Youth club sport has become a dominant part of society and the forefront of many childhoods. Youth sport participation holds various physical, psychological, and social benefits for children but as this industry continues to expand, when poorly managed, sport participation can become detrimental (Meân, 2013, p. 339). In this study the experiences and perceptions of female youth club volleyball players (ages 15-17) were explored through semi-structured interviews with a particular focus on key areas of concern identified in the research literature: early specialization, overuse injury, and burnout (Hedstrom & Gould, 2004, p. 4, 15-37). A thematic analysis was used to explore these a priori themes alongside emergent themes that were identified: early motivation and perception, current motivation and perception, pressure and athletic scholarships, perception of high school volleyball, and schedules. The positive perceptions arising from the themes were addressed as a foundation to improve on the negative perceptions. Recommendations to reduce the pressure and stress associated with winning are made, in addition to proposals regarding the schedule of club volleyball in an effort to provide athletes with adequate rest period in order to reduce risks of burnout and overuse injury.
Keywords: youth sport, specialization, overuse injury, burnout, club volleyball.
Keywords: youth sport, specialization, overuse injury, burnout, club volleyball.
ContributorsLifgren, Taylor Nicole (Author) / Mean, Lindsey (Thesis director) / Cayetano, Catalina (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
For this project, I analyzed both the amount of overuse injuries or repetitive stress injuries occurring in college baseball and tried to understand why they were happening so frequently. I interviewed over a dozen people to get thoughts and messages on the subject from a variety of people from current college players, to Major League players, to current college coaches. While I spent the majority of the project working on the research and interviews of how these injuries effect college athletes, I always spent time speaking with journalists about the proper ways they go about reporting on injuries, especially those within college athletes. I found data that showed that the average rate of fastballs in Major League Baseball is going up and that is indirectly affecting the way in which players and specifically pitchers are learning to play as they go through college baseball. I got valuable perspective on how the game changing is affecting the injuries that are so common today. The most common occurring repetitive stress issue in baseball has been happening most with pitchers so much of the project is tailored toward the views of some of the best pitchers in college baseball. I found out how college pitchers are taking care of their bodies and using the offseason to help regain strength. Why do some pitchers not take as long an offseason as others? How intense is the pressure to stay healthy in college, as many of these athletes are pursuing professional baseball? What is the mental toll these student-athletes have on a day-to-day basis? All these questions and more are answered in the paper. Included in the long-form paper are all of the full transcripts from the interviews with players, coaches, trainers, doctors, and reporters.
ContributorsWerner, Robert Joseph (Author) / Kurland, Brett (Thesis director) / Dieffenbach, Paola (Committee member) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Comm (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
Description
Construction work is ergonomically hazardous, as it requires numerous awkward postures, heavy lifting and other forceful exertions. Prolonged repetition and overexertion have a cumulative effect on workers often resulting in work related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). The United States spends approximately $850 billion a year on WMSDs. Mechanical installation workers experience serious overexertion injuries at rates exceeding the national average for all industries and all construction workers, and second only to laborers. The main contributing factors of WMSDs are ergonomic loads and extreme stresses due to incorrect postures. The motivation for this study is to reduce the WMSDs among mechanical system (HVAC system) installation workers. To achieve this goal, it is critical to reduce the ergonomic loads and extreme postures of these installers. This study has the following specific aims: (1) To measure the ergonomic loads on specific body regions (shoulders, back, neck, and legs) for different HVAC installation activities; and (2) To investigate how different activity parameters (material characteristics, equipment, workers, etc.) affect the severity and duration of ergonomic demands. The study focuses on the following activities: (1) layout, (2) ground assembly of ductwork, and (3) installation of duct and equipment at ceiling height using different methods. The researcher observed and analyzed 15 HVAC installation activities among three Arizona mechanical contractors. Ergonomic analysis of the activities using a postural guide developed from RULA and REBA methods was performed. The simultaneous analysis of the production tasks and the ergonomic loads identified the tasks with the highest postural loads for different body regions and the influence of the different work variables on extreme body postures. Based on this analysis the results support recommendations to mitigate long duration activities and exposure to extreme postures. These recommendations can potentially reduce risk, improve productivity and lower injury costs in the long term.
ContributorsHussain, Sanaa Fatima (Author) / Mitropoulos, Panagiotis (Thesis advisor) / Wiezel, Avi (Committee member) / Guarascio-Howard, Linda (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011