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This paper presents an overview of the philosophy, structure and key objectives of R&D activity in the Japanese construction industry. It argues that this unique model of a close partnership between industry, government and society is based on shared values, and delivers significant benefits not only for firms but for society at large. Additionally, the Japanese system acts as an efficient market entry barrier that protects the Japanese domestic market from foreign competition while concurrently providing the basis of Japan's competitive advantage in international markets. To illustrate how significantly different the Japanese model is from those of other advanced economies, an empirical comparison of the belief structures concerning responsibility for R&D of key players in the construction industries in Japan and Australia is presented. The results illustrate the point that, unlike Australia, Japanese contractors play a much more extensive role in society than do their Australian counterparts. This role incongruence may be the true barrier to penetration of the Japanese construction market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The morality of tendering practices is an issue of economic and social significance, especially when large government contracts are involved. Criticisms are mostly concentrated around collusive tendering: illegal agreements between tenderers that result in seemingly competitive bids, price fixing or market distribution schemes that circumvent the spirit of free competition and defraud clients. Although collusion has been identified as an endemic malaise of tendering, its behavioural and moral dimensions have not been systematically studied before. The paper addresses this knowledge gap and describes part of an exploratory empirical investigation of the decision-making patterns utilised by estimators in Australia's largest construction organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Morality is fast becoming an integral part of the mandate for business through both societal and regulatory pressures. Collusive tendering is one of the moral choices facing decision-makers in the construction industry. This paper describes an empirical investigation of the attitudes and behavioural intent towards collusive tendering of key individuals in the tendering process. It also explores the factors that determine these attitudes. The results of the empirical investigation indicate that there is a minority of decision-makers that admit they would consider participating in some form of collusive tendering agreement under certain circumstances. These people form a distinct group in their demographic as well as decision-making profile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cash flow management is a significant issue in the management of a building or construction firm. This paper steps back from the well researched area of poor cash management and its relationship with failure, to focus on the funds which are generated through operations, and the positive benefits which can follow in a well managed organization. A stochastic model is developed which illustrates how an average of 16% of turnover can be available for reinvestment. This is sufficient to allow investment in non-liquid assets, provided that this is managed carefully and precautions are taken against a severe reduction in turnover. This level of funds is sufficient to encourage firms to enter the industry with the motivation of generating funds, rather than a desire to build. This has implications for large clients and for government when dealing with the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The duration of Australian construction has been modelled by a time-cost formula expressed in the form of T = KCB<, where T is the actual construction time in working days, C is the final cost of contract in millions, K is a constant characteristic of building time performance, and B is a constant indicative of the sensitivity of time performance to cost level. This paper applies the relationship to building projects in Hong Kong using time and cost data from 110 projects. Regression analysis was used to compute the values of K and B and check how well the model actually fits, and the best predictor of average construction time of building projects in Hong Kong is found to be T 152C0.29. It is also found that the Hong Kong private sector takes a shorter time (120 days) to complete a hypothesized project with a contract sum of HK$1 million (at December 1994 price) than its government counterpart (166 days). The time-cost relationship serves as a convenient tool for both project managers and clients for predicting the actual optimum time required for delivery of a building project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Construction Industry Institute in Australia, modeled on the U.S. group of the same title, published a "Constructability Principles File" in November 1992. These principles include precepts used in conducting a postconstruction analysis by a project team drawn from the staff of Prince-Bisley Pty. Ltd., Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, and the University of Southern Queensland. There may be a danger in conducting such an evaluation if participants wrongly believe that managers will seek to apportion blame for disappointing outcomes. A protocol was therefore established and is presented in this paper; the protocol clearly sets out guidelines and states that the aim is not to seek scapegoats but to improve company performance. Case-study material is presented for a feed mill project, that was designed and fabricated in Australia for erection in China, which ran over budget and was late in shipment. Feedback from participants in the review is summarized, together with recommendations for action by management to improve the organization's performance on similar future projects. Experience has shown that postconstruction evaluation is a valuable exercise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the profits from 221 construction projects undertaken by an Australian building firm in the period 1910-1938 and examines the factors that influence the firm's profit levels. This involves a series of multiple regression analyses with three dependent variables representing profit and 26 independent variables representing economic conditions and project characteristics. From these, 11 models are derived of which two are chosen as having the best explanatory power in explaining approximately 72% of the variability in profit levels movements. The results show that unemployment, interest rates, level of construction activity in the state, change of wage level, inflation rate of building material and project value significantly influenced the firm's profit level during the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most building contracts make provisions for the contract administrator to issue orders for variations from the original design. Often, these changes involve additional cost and disruption to work already under way, leading to cost and time overruns. Thus, reducing variations is one of the prerequisites of keeping the cost within budget and completing the project on time. The main objective of this paper is to investigate methods of reducing variations. A series of structured interviews were carried out with the practitioners in the construction industry to identify the prevailing strategies for variation reduction. The identified strategies then formed the basis of a questionnaire which was sent randomly to 100 construction firms in Australia and Malaysia, respectively. The respondents were asked to rank the relative usefulness of the identified strategies for variation reduction. Thirty-two sets of questionnaires from Australia and 33 sets from Malaysia were returned, respectively, which represented an overall response rate of more than 32%. Concordance analysis was used to provide some evidence of any abnormal data source. When applied to the study data, a significant amount of agreement was found on the ranking strategies for the reduction of variations amongst the respondents in each country. Respondents from both countries considered clear and thorough brief as the most useful strategy for reducing variations and avoiding the use of nominated subcontractors as the least effective measure. However, when the rankings of the two countries were compared using the Spearman correlation coefficient, it was found that there was significant disagreement between the two sets of ranking. The significant difference might be attributable to the difference between the countries in terms of culture, politics, regulations, economic conditions and construction practice. These differences could also be reflected in their attitude towards contract claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Construction projects follow a life-cycle that is dynamic and goal oriented. They are managed by a project team, each phase of the project life-cycle is different in nature demanding different skills, roles and responsibilities from the team. This paper explores the dynamic and changing focus of the management of construction projects and the ingredients of performance drawing on case studies of major projects in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Industry Commission's 1995 study of the growth and revenue implications of Hilmer and related reforms has been influential in the debate over microeconomic reform. In addition to reform of Telstra, Australia Post, the Federal Airports Corporation, the Civil Aviation Authority, state electricity, gas and water authorities, and rail, road and port authorities, the Commission examined a broad-ranging program including competitive tendering for the provision of public services, deregulation of the building industry and a move to self-regulation of industries such as meat processing. The Commission estimated that the implementation of these reforms would result in a 5.5 per cent increase in GDP. In this paper, the Commission's analysis is subjected to a detailed critique. It is argued that most of the estimated productivity gains are overoptimistic, representing upper bounds to possible achievement rather than likely outcomes. Furthermore, it is argued that the dominant flow-on effects of microeconomic reform will be negative, arising from the fact that at least some of the workers directly displaced by reform will be permanently displaced from the employed labour force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main features of the Australian building industry is the high level of subcontracting of building works. This paper reports on a survey of 43 subcontractors regarding various aspects of the relationship between subcontractors and general contractors. In particular it reports on the practice of 'bid shopping' in which the general contractor in various ways attempts to reduce the subcontractor's price below that of the tender. Generally the subcontractors were strongly against bid shopping attempts to tie with general contractors and negotiations in general. However, the strength of the responses was determined by the size of the firms. The larger firms were more open to negotiations and deals than the smaller firms. The overall benefits to the general contractors who 'shop' are doubtful, most subcontractors adjust their mark up by up to 20% to allow for such negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The first Australian Construction Control Structure and first application of STAMP in the domain. • The structure presents the first network of construction actors, controls and feedback mechanismsmodel presents the first network of construction actors, controls and feedback mechanisms. • Coronial inquest findings are analysed to demonstrate the benefit of the new structure for Coroners. • The structure provides opportunity for future predictive and retrospective analysis. • Construction safety is not the responsibility of one isolated person or entity. • Existing system effectiveness feedback mechanisms are progressively limited and less intuitive. • Many feedback mechanisms to higher system levels focus on financial and compliance performance. Limitations surrounding knowledge of the construction safety operating system have contributed to a failure to understand and prevent fatal incidents. The aim of this paper is to present a control structure model of construction in Australia to provide an improved understanding of the construction operating system. The model was developed by applying and extending the Systems Theoretic and Accident Model and Processes (STAMP) method to show the actors, organisations, controls, communication loops and relationships that are involved in managing safety throughout the Australian construction industry. The control structure was validated by subject matter experts from across all levels of the system. The analysis highlights a disconnect between the upper and lower levels of the system in terms of feedback mechanisms and relationships that limit the understanding and effectiveness of safety controls. To demonstrate the limitations of current approaches to understanding accident causation in the construction domain, the model is used to represent the findings from a recent Coronial investigation into a fatal construction incident. The benefits of applying systems thinking in accident analysis and countermeasure development by construction organisations, clients, regulators and law makers are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]