Matching Items (32)
Description
Using experience, observations, data, current research, and writings in the field of volunteer management, it was determined there was a need to study the effects of leadership/management practices on the productivity outcomes of a volunteer construction workforce. A simple wood bench that would be tiled and painted was designed to test the areas of Time, Waste, Quality, Safety, and Satisfaction of different volunteer groups. The challenge was bolstered by giving the teams no power tools and limited available resources. A simple design of experiment model was used to test highs and lows in the three management techniques of Instruction, Help, and Encouragement. Each scenario was tested multiple times. Data was collected, normalized and analyzed using statistical analysis software. A few significant findings were discovered. The first; the research showed that there was no significant correlation between the management practices of the leader and the satisfaction of the volunteers. The second; the research also showed when further analyzed into specific realistic scenarios that the organizations would be better to focus on high amounts of Help and Encouragement in order to maximize the productivity of their volunteer construction workforce. This is significant as it allows NPO's and governments to focus their attention where best suited to produce results. The results were shared and the study was further validated as "significant" by conducting interviews with experts in the construction nonprofit sector.
ContributorsPrigge, Diedrich (Author) / Sullivan, Kenneth (Thesis advisor) / Wiezel, Avi (Committee member) / Badger, William (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Heating of asphalt during production and construction causes the volatilization and oxidation of binders used in mixes. Volatilization and oxidation causes degradation of asphalt pavements by increasing the stiffness of the binders, increasing susceptibility to cracking and negatively affecting the functional and structural performance of the pavements. Degradation of asphalt binders by volatilization and oxidation due to high production temperature occur during early stages of pavement life and are known as Short Term Aging (STA). Elevated temperatures and increased exposure time to elevated temperatures causes increased STA of asphalt. The objective of this research was to investigate how elevated mixing temperatures and exposure time to elevated temperatures affect aging and stiffening of binders, thus influencing properties of the asphalt mixtures. The study was conducted in two stages. The first stage evaluated STA effect of asphalt binders. It involved aging two Performance Graded (PG) virgin asphalt binders, PG 76-16 and PG 64-22 at two different temperatures and durations, then measuring their viscosities. The second stage involved evaluating the effects of elevated STA temperature and time on properties of the asphalt mixtures. It involved STA of asphalt mixtures produced in the laboratory with the PG 64-22 binder at mixing temperatures elevated 25OF above standard practice; STA times at 2 and 4 hours longer than standard practices, and then compacted in a gyratory compactor. Dynamic modulus (E*) and Indirect Tensile Strength (IDT) were measured for the aged mixtures for each temperature and duration to determine the effect of different aging times and temperatures on the stiffness and fatigue properties of the aged asphalt mixtures. The binder test results showed that in all cases, there was increased viscosity. The results showed the highest increase in viscosity resulted from increased aging time. The results also indicated that PG 64-22 was more susceptible to elevated STA temperature and extended time than the PG 76-16 binders. The asphalt mixture test results confirmed the expected outcome that increasing the STA and mixing temperature by 25oF alters the stiffness of mixtures. Significant change in the dynamic modulus mostly occurred at four hour increase in STA time regardless of temperature.
ContributorsLolly, Rubben (Author) / Kaloush, Kamil (Thesis advisor) / Bearup, Wylie (Committee member) / Zapata, Claudia (Committee member) / Mamlouk, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The goal of this research study was to identify the competencies the Project Manager (PM) will need to respond to the challenges the construction industry faces in 2022 and beyond. The study revealed twenty-one emerging challenges for construction PMs grouped into four primary disruptive forces: workforce demographics, globalization, rapidly evolving technology, and changing organizational structures. The future PM will respond to these emerging challenges using a combination of fourteen competencies. The competencies are grouped into four categories: technical (multi-disciplined, practical understanding of technology), management (keen business insight, understanding of project management, knowledge network building, continuous risk monitoring), cognitive (complex decisions making, emotional maturity, effective communication), and leadership (leveraging diverse thinking, building relationships, engaging others, mentoring, building trust). Popular data collection methods used in project management research, such as surveys and interviews, have received criticism about the differences between stated responses to questions, what respondents say they will do, and revealed preferences, what they actually practice in the workplace. Rather than relying on surveys, this research study utilized information generated from games and exercises bundled into one-day training seminars conducted by Construction Industry Institute (CII) companies for current and upcoming generations of PMs. Educational games and exercises provide participants with the opportunity to apply classroom learning and workplace experience to resolve issues presented in real-world scenarios, providing responses that are more closely aligned with the actual decisions and activities occurring on projects. The future competencies were identified by combining results of the literature review with information from the games and exercises through an iterative cycle of data mining, analysis, and consolidation review sessions with CII members. This competency forecast will be used as a basis for company recruiting and to create tools for professional development programs and project management education at the university level. In addition to the competency forecast, the research identified simulation games and exercises as components of a project management development program in a classroom setting. An instrument that links the emerging challenges with the fourteen competencies and learning tools that facilitate the mastering of these competencies has also been developed.
ContributorsKing, Cynthia Joyce (Author) / Wiezel, Avi (Thesis advisor) / Badger, William (Committee member) / Sullivan, Kenneth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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
Qualifications based selection (QBS) of construction services uses a variety of criteria to evaluate proponents and select a contractor for the project. The criteria typically fall into three categories: past performance and technical capability, key personnel, and price, with price often being considered the most important factor in selection. Evaluation and the merits of the key personnel category is not well described or discussed in research. Prior research has investigated the evaluation criteria elements and their ability to differentiate proponents. This case study uses QBS evaluation data from fifty-eight construction projects to show that use of a structured interview process provides the highest level of differentiation of qualifications of proponents, as compared to the proposed price and the technical proposal. The results of the analysis also indicate: 1) the key personnel element (the interview) is statistically more important than price,
2) Contractors who propose on projects using QBS should use their best people in proposal response, and 3) Contractors should educate/prepare their teams for interviews, people count.
2) Contractors who propose on projects using QBS should use their best people in proposal response, and 3) Contractors should educate/prepare their teams for interviews, people count.
ContributorsSawyer, Jeff T (Author) / Sullivan, Kennth S (Thesis advisor) / Wiezel, Avi (Committee member) / Badger, William (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Alternative Project Delivery Methods (APDMs), namely Design Build (DB) and Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR), grew out of the need to find a more efficient project delivery approach than the traditional Design Bid Build (DBB) form of delivery. After decades of extensive APDM use, there have been many studies focused on the use of APDMs and project outcomes. Few of these studies have reached a level of statistical significance to make conclusive observations about APDMs. This research effort completes a comprehensive study for use in the horizontal transportation construction market, providing a better basis for decisions on project delivery method selection, improving understanding of best practices for APDM use, and reporting outcomes from the largest collection of APDM project data to date. The study is the result of an online survey of project owners and design teams from 17 states representing 83 projects nationally. Project data collected represents almost six billion US dollars. The study performs an analysis of the transportation APDM market and answers questions dealing with national APDM usage, motivators for APDM selection, the relation of APDM to pre-construction services, and the use of industry best practices. Top motivators for delivery method selection: the project schedule or the urgency of the project, the ability to predict and control cost, and finding the best method to allocate risk, as well as other factors were identified and analyzed. Analysis of project data was used to compare to commonly held assumptions about the project delivery methods, confirming some assumptions and refuting others. Project data showed that APDM projects had the lowest overall cost growth. DB projects had higher schedule growth. CMAR projects had low design schedule growth but high construction schedule growth. DBB showed very little schedule growth and the highest cost growth of the delivery methods studied. Best practices in project delivery were studied: team alignment, front end planning, and risk assessment were identified as practices most critical to project success. The study contributes and improves on existing research on APDM project selection and outcomes and fills many of the gaps in research identified by previous research efforts and industry leaders.
ContributorsBingham, Evan Dale (Author) / Gibson Jr., G. Edward (Thesis advisor) / El Asmar, Mounir (Thesis advisor) / Bearup, Wylie (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
Over the last two decades, Alternative Project Delivery Methods (APDM), such as Design-Build (DB), have become more popular in the construction industry, specifically in the U.S., and the competition for APDM projects has risen among construction companies. The Engineering News Record (ENR) magazine analyzes DB firms and publishes the list of the top 100 every year. According to ENR articles and many scientific papers, the implementation of DB method has grown drastically over the last decade, however, information about growth trends depending on firm size and segment is lacking. Also missing is knowledge the future market trends over the next five years. Furthermore, public agencies and DB firms may be worried that DB projects do not distribute wealth equally among DB firms. Using the top 100 firms deemed representative of the DB market, the author has divided the market into volumes based on rankings to analyze the total DB market revenue growth. A comparison between international and domestic revenues indicated that the top five DB firms have 64% more involvement in the international market compared to the domestic market. Furthermore, while the research shows increasing market share only for the top five firms, the author has found that (1) a large portion of their market share is due to a large growth in their international market, and (2) revenues for all volumes of the DB market have increased. Moreover, regression and time series analyses allow for the forecasting of the DB market growth, which the author anticipate to move from about $100B to about $150B in 2020.
ContributorsVashani, Hossein (Author) / El Asmar, Mounir (Thesis advisor) / Ernzen, James (Committee member) / Bearup, Wylie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
As a developing nation, China is currently faced with the challenge of providing
safe, reliable and adequate energy resources to the county's growing urban areas as well as to its expanding rural populations. To meet this demand, the country has initiated massive construction projects to expand its national energy infrastructure, particularly in the form of natural gas pipeline. The most notable of these projects is the ongoing West-East Gas Pipeline Project. This project is currently in its third phase, which will supply clean and efficient natural gas to nearly sixty million users located in the densely populated Yangtze River Delta.
Trenchless Technologies, in particular the construction method of Horizontal
Directional Drilling (HDD), have played a critical role in executing this project by
providing economical, practical and environmentally responsible ways to install buried pipeline systems. HDD has proven to be the most popular method selected to overcome challenges along the path of the pipeline, which include mountainous terrain, extensive farmland and numerous bodies of water. The Yangtze River, among other large-scale water bodies, have proven to be the most difficult obstacle for the pipeline installation as it widens and changes course numerous times along its path to the East China Sea. The purpose of this study is to examine those practices being used in China in order to compare those to those long used practices in the North American in order to understand the advantages of Chinese advancements.
Developing countries would benefit from the Chinese advancements for large-scale HDD installation. In developed areas, such as North America, studying Chinese execution may allow for new ideas to help to improve long established methods. These factors combined further solidify China's role as the global leader in trenchless technology methods and provide the opportunity for Chinese HDD contractors to contribute to the world's knowledge for best practices of the Horizontal Directional Drilling method.
safe, reliable and adequate energy resources to the county's growing urban areas as well as to its expanding rural populations. To meet this demand, the country has initiated massive construction projects to expand its national energy infrastructure, particularly in the form of natural gas pipeline. The most notable of these projects is the ongoing West-East Gas Pipeline Project. This project is currently in its third phase, which will supply clean and efficient natural gas to nearly sixty million users located in the densely populated Yangtze River Delta.
Trenchless Technologies, in particular the construction method of Horizontal
Directional Drilling (HDD), have played a critical role in executing this project by
providing economical, practical and environmentally responsible ways to install buried pipeline systems. HDD has proven to be the most popular method selected to overcome challenges along the path of the pipeline, which include mountainous terrain, extensive farmland and numerous bodies of water. The Yangtze River, among other large-scale water bodies, have proven to be the most difficult obstacle for the pipeline installation as it widens and changes course numerous times along its path to the East China Sea. The purpose of this study is to examine those practices being used in China in order to compare those to those long used practices in the North American in order to understand the advantages of Chinese advancements.
Developing countries would benefit from the Chinese advancements for large-scale HDD installation. In developed areas, such as North America, studying Chinese execution may allow for new ideas to help to improve long established methods. These factors combined further solidify China's role as the global leader in trenchless technology methods and provide the opportunity for Chinese HDD contractors to contribute to the world's knowledge for best practices of the Horizontal Directional Drilling method.
ContributorsCarlin, Maureen Cassin (Author) / Ariaratnam, Samuel T (Thesis advisor) / Chong, Oswald (Committee member) / Bearup, Wylie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Semiconductor manufacturing facilities are very complex and capital intensive in nature. During the lifecycle of these facilities various disciplines come together, generate and use a tremendous amount of building and process information to support various decisions that enable them to successfully design, build and sustain these advanced facilities. However, a majority of the information generated and processes taking place are neither integrated nor interoperable and result in a high degree of redundancy. The objective of this thesis is to build an interoperable Building Information Model (BIM) for the Base-Build and Tool Installation in a semiconductor manufacturing facility. It examines existing processes and data exchange standards available to facilitate the implementation of BIM and provides a framework for the development of processes and standards that can help in building an intelligent information model for a semiconductor manufacturing facility. To understand the nature of the flow of information between the various stakeholders the flow of information between the facility designer, process tool manufacturer and tool layout designer is examined. An information model for the base build and process tool is built and the industry standards SEMI E6 and SEMI E51 are used as a basis to model the information. It is found that applications used to create information models support interoperable industry standard formats such as the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) and ISO 15926 in a limited manner. A gap analysis has revealed that interoperability standards applicable to the semiconductor manufacturing industry such as the IFC and ISO15926 need to be expanded to support information transfers unique to the industry. Information modeling for a semiconductor manufacturing facility is unique in that it is a process model (Process Tool Information Model) within a building model (Building Information Model), each of them supported more robustly by different interoperability standards. Applications support interoperability data standards specific to the domain or industry they serve but information transfers need to occur between the various domains. To facilitate flow of information between the different domains it is recommended that a mapping of the industry standards be undertaken and translators between them be developed for business use.
ContributorsPindukuri, Shruthi (Author) / Chasey, Allan D (Thesis advisor) / Wiezel, Avi (Committee member) / Mamlouk, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011