Chan, Tam and Cheung claim that the whole of Hong Kong's construction sector is shrinking under the prevailing deflationary economy. Local contractors are facing tremendous financial problems in the few years after 1997, the Asian Economic Crisis. By using financial ratios together with Altman's Z‐score, it is possible to monitor and assess the financial health of a construction company in Hong Kong. The authors have also highlighted the importance of having an effective advance warning system for contractors at a time of economic downturn.
Li, Akintoye, Edwards and Hardcastle have reviewed the concept of success in public/private partnership projects. Their main argument is that while the critical success factors (CSF) for public/private partnership projects are all considered important, some must be more important than others. They used an opinion survey to explore the relative importance of 18 CSFs derived from the literature. They discovered that the robustness of the private consortium was the most important factor. This has practical implication for project clients (sponsors) who must encourage, and allow sufficient time for the development of a strong private consortium.
Nyström argues that there are many definitions of partnering, because partnering projects differ from each other. However, this inevitable abundance of definitions makes the concept fuzzy. Nyström develops two contributions in this paper, both with the intention of making the concept clearer. First is a separation between general prerequisites, components and goals of partnering. It is argued that since general prerequisites and goals in no way are unique for partnering, the focus should be on the components when trying to understand partnering. Second, Nyström applies the German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept of “family resemblance” to the literature review. Partnering is then defined as “flower” that always includes trust and common goals. One or several other components are then added to form different variants of partnering.
The increased importance attributed to Value Management (VM) in the delivery of projects has been reflected over recent years by the growth in the number of published VM guidance documents, from a variety of sources. Proposing a systematic and disciplined procedure, these publications highlight opportunities for a sequence of interventions throughout the project lifecycle and suggest enormous potential for value improvement. Ellis, Wood and Keel explore the relationship between VM theory and practice in the UK construction industry, and conclude that practice is pragmatic and competent but not particularly sophisticated: clients dedicate only limited time to VM exercises, VM practitioners are often engaged too late in the process and cost‐cutting remains the objective of many VM commissions. Consequently, the impact of VM is restricted and the theoretical underpinning of VM is not as well advanced is it could be.
Given the different options available to construction organizations in measuring business performance, there is a need for developing a comprehensive framework. Bassioni, Price and Hassan report on the development and empirical evaluation of such a framework, building upon the principles of the Balanced Scorecard, and the Excellence Models of EFQM in Europe and Baldrige in the US. The empirical evaluation included 16 expert interviews and five case studies, and resulted in a framework that was found to measure performance in a manner similar to that of excellence models. In addition, the intricate relationships among performance factors were expressed using the IDEF0 process modelling technique.
Ling, Ibbs and Cuervo investigated foreign architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) firms' business practices in China that led to project success. Their study uncovered effective ways to enter China's market to win and subsequently manage construction projects. The researchers used a questionnaire to collect data by post, and complemented their findings with interviews of foreign experts in China. The recommendations to foreign practitioners planning to work in China are to provide specialized and superior service and pay great attention to customer satisfaction. In addition, foreign firms should set up a physical office in China in order to understand the constantly changing local by‐laws and be nearer to clients.
Maintaining the UK National Health Service (NHS) estate is a complex and costly exercise. With a diverse building stock ranging from modern university through to Victorian cottage hospitals, it presents government and policy‐makers with a truly complex management scenario. Methods for monitoring, planning and implementing service life maintenance strategies should form the centrepiece of any policy that is responsible for managing such a large scale built asset portfolio. Considering that the NHS Estate has a market value of £23 billion, a replacement value of £76 billion and running costs of £11 billion, the implications of poor estate management are serious. Kirkham and Boussabaine present a mathematical approach to modelling the service life of hospital buildings, as an improvement of the more pragmatic measures currently available. This not only allows the analyst to understand service life prediction from an enhanced analytical perspective, but also provides meaningful advice on budgets and maintenance strategies for NHS Trusts.
Zayed and Halpin focus on techniques for predicting both productivity and cost of constructing bored piles. Their prediction is important to estimators because it is influenced by a variety of difficulties, such as unseen subsurface obstacles, lack of experience and site planning. The authors have considered many variables in developing their prediction process, such as pile size, depth, pouring method, soil type, and construction method. They have come up with five deterministic mathematical models to predict productivity, cycle time, and cost. Based on these, they have developed three sets of charts that are useful to contractors and clients in planning and bidding their jobs.
Lee, Thomas and Tucker examines how construction practices affect cost and schedule project outcomes using multivariate descriptive discriminant function analysis, allowing project managers to better allocate limited resources to achieve better project performance. Based on their statistical analysis, it seems that each practice has a unique impact on project cost and schedule performance. Pre‐project planning, project change management, and design/information technology are critical practices indicating important impacts on both cost and schedule performance. Thus, the authors conclude that if limited resources prevent full implementation of all six practices, these practices should be given priority in order to achieve better performance.
Forthcoming papers
Mei‐Yung Leung, Paul O. Olomolaiye, Alice Chong and Chloe C. Y. Lam
Impacts of stress on estimation performance in Hong Kong
Frens Pries and André Dorée
A century of innovation in the Dutch construction industry
D. Darshi De Saram and S. L. Tang
Pain and suffering costs of persons in constructions accidents: Hong Kong experience
Low Sui Pheng and Wu Min
Just‐in‐time management in the ready mixed concrete industries of Chongqing, China and Singapore
We Mild Spaulding, Adrian Bridge and Martin Skitmore
The use of function analysis as the basis of value management in the Australian construction industry
Helen Lingard and Valerie Francis
Does work‐family conflict mediate the relationship between job schedule demands and burnout in male construction professionals and managers?
Pierre Bonnal, Didier Gourc, Ari‐Pekka Hameri and Germain Lacoste
A linear‐discrete scheduling model for the resource‐constrained project scheduling problem
Andreas Wibowo
Estimating General Threshold Traffic Levels of Typical Build, Operate, and Transfer Toll Road Projects in Indonesia
K. C. Lam, T. S. Hu and S. T. Ng
Using the principal component analysis method as a tool in contractor prequalification
Gul Polat and David Arditi
The JIT materials management system in developing countries
Julaikha B. Hossain and Kyoko Kusakabe
Sex segregation in construction organizations in Bangladesh and Thailand
Emrah Acar, Ismail Kocak, Yildiz Sey and David Arditi
Information and communication technology innovations in small vs. large construction enterprises
Nicola Costantino
The contribution of Ranko Bon to the debate on sustainable construction
Joe Tak‐Yun Wong, Eddie C. M. Hui, William Seabrooke and John Raftery
A study of the Hong Kong property market: housing price expectations
Stuart Green, Scott Fernie and Stephanie Weller
Making sense of supply chain management: a comparative study analysis of aerospace and construction
Jasper Mbachu and Raymond Nkado
Conceptual framework for assessment of client needs and satisfaction in the building development process
Xiao Hua Jin and Florence Yng Ling
Building relationships and trusts in project organizations: a case study of building projects in China
N. Ankrah and David A. Langford
Architects and contractors: a comparative study of organizational cultures
Paul W. Chan, Rachel Cooper, Stuart Carmichael, Patricia Tzortzopoulos, Peter McDermott and Malik M. A. Khalfan
Organisational learning: conceptual challenges from a project perspective
Toke Reichstein, Ammon Salter and David M. Gann
Last among equals: a comparison of innovation in construction, services and manufacturing in the UK
Mohammed Fadhil Dulaimi, Madhav Prasad Nepal and Moonseo Park
A hierarchial structural model of assessing innovation
and project performance
Wen‐der Yu
PIREM: a new model for conceptual cost estimation
Y. C. Huang
Graphical‐based multistage scheduling method for RC buildings
Kelu Guo, Edward Minchin and Ted Ferragut
The shift to warranties and performance specifications: what of method specifications?
Ronie Navon and Y. Shpatnitsky
A model for automated monitoring of road construction
Xing Wu and Zhihui Zhang
Input‐output anlysis of Chinese construction sector
Max Bergström and Lars Stehn
Benefits and disadvantages of ERP in industrialized timber frame housing in Sweden
Chuan Chen and John I. Messner
An investigation of Chinese BOT projects in water supply: a comparative perspective
Stephen D. Pryke
Towards a social network theory of project governance
Anna Kadefors
Fairness in inter‐organizational project relations: norms and strategies
Hong Zhang and Heng Li
Heuristic scheduling of resource‐constrained, multiple‐mode and repetitive projects
Danny Myers
Note: A review of construction companies' attitudes to sustainability
Nick Blismas, Christine Pasquire and Alistair Gibb
Benefit evaluation for off‐site production in construction
Tarek M. Zayed, Daniel W. Halpin and Ismail M. Basha
Productivity and delays assessment for concrete batch plant‐truck mixer operations
Manish Gangwar and Paul M. Goodrum
The effect of time on safety incentive programs in the U.S. construction industry
Igal M. Shohet and Monica Paciuk
Service life prediction of exterior cladding components under failure conditions
Roberto Pietroforte and Tullio Gregori
Does volume follow share? The case of the Danish construction industry