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Agile ways of working have garnered recognition for their capacity to drive innovation, placing a strong emphasis on adaptability to change and a user-centric approach. Inspired by these proven principles, the authors envision that applying scaled agile—an extension of agile methodologies—can serve as a catalyst for revolutionary transformations in how buildings are redesigned, refurbished, and operated, ushering in a new era of practices within the industry. This paper conducts an in-depth literature review to explore the application of agile ways of working in building adaptation projects. Drawing on insights from the literature review and expert validations, the authors propose the development of the Agile Building Adaptation (AgiBuild) framework, delineating its core components and outlining the probable implementation process. Notably, the framework’s successful integration hinges on crucial factors, including effective leadership influence and comprehensive training. By embracing the AgiBuild framework, the building adaptation industry holds the potential to position itself as a highly innovative and user-centered sector, bolstering productivity and performance within the broader construction domain. By aligning with the framework’s principles, the industry can cultivate a culture of adaptability and collaboration, facilitating the delivery of sustainable and customer-focused building adaptation projects that cater to the evolving needs of the built environment.

Knowledge management (KM) is imperative for the successful completion of complex projects. This research, which constitutes a recent doctoral dissertation, centers on exploring the KM practices of internal project stakeholders in managing emergent events within construction projects during the construction stage. Herein, a qualitative approach was utilized. Twenty-five semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts from five internal project stakeholders. A thematic analysis was subsequently conducted using NVivo12 qualitative data analysis software. This study identified a total of eleven types of events categorized into four major themes. Furthermore, the analysis highlighted KM mechanisms applied by construction project stakeholders to overcome the events. In the emergent events context, personalization techniques, such as face-to-face meetings and discussions, are more effective for problem-solving. This study aims to enable Vietnamese construction companies to understand the importance of different KM mechanisms in the emergent events context and offers recommendations on effective KM.

The latest industrial revolution 4 enabled significant performance improvement through technological advancements. Simultaneously, the industry is setting high-level expectations for changing business practices toward long-term benefits in all three sustainability dimensions. The concept of sustainability embraces all production and operation processes in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. This study systematically explores the literature on sustainability with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Building Information Modelling (BIM) technologies in the AEC industry and the sustainability vision for their integration. The different types of ERP and BIM implementations have similarities in addressing the broad scope of functionalities. The emergence and proliferation of ERP and BIM have brought crucial changes to the business environment. Further evolution to cloud-based operations is transforming companies from technology-oriented practices to data-centric decision-making smart infrastructures. The narrative literature review investigates the sustainability insights and ideas in ERP and BIM solutions, presenting state of the art on systems integration topics. The relevant literature was retrieved to achieve the research objectives which were qualitatively analyzed to generate the basis for further research.

The public–private partnership (PPP) is a potential procurement strategy for delivering complex construction projects. However, implementing PPPs has not been explored extensively in developing countries like Pakistan. A performance framework is developed in this study to evaluate the application of PPP projects based on 10 key performance indicators (KPIS) and 41 performance measures (PMS). This framework was reviewed by experts for coverage and relevance, then validated through two case studies involving road construction. A triangulation approach was adopted to collect the relevant data through multiparty focus group sessions, archives, and site observations, which enhances the reliability of the data. Results showed there is a difference in performance for six KPIS, but similar practices were reported for four KPIS. The developed performance evaluation framework (PEF) for PPP projects is suitable for developing countries transitioning toward adopting this procurement strategy.

Public private partnerships (PPPs) have gained widespread adoption as an innovative way of procuring public infrastructure projects over the last two decades. Risk identification, assessment, and allocation have received considerable attention from researchers due to the risk heavy nature of PPP projects. Adoption of PPPs has triggered a sudden increase in research interest in the area in recent years. This study attempts to provide an updated systematic review of literature related to risks in PPPs using a PRISMA flowchart. The results of the study offer some valuable insights into the future and current state of research. The study found that the focus of research on PPPs has shifted from an overall risk identification and assessment approach to individual risk analysis. Moreover, this research trend is on the rise in developing countries, and that quantitative methods for risk management in PPP research and qualitative methods in practice are preferred. In developed economies, due to negative public sentiments, transparency concerns, and arguments of value for money not being achieved, PPPs are becoming less popular. For these reasons a shift to availability-based payment mechanisms such as in Design-Build-Finance-Maintain (DBFM) from traditional revenue-based mechanisms as in Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) has been observed. These shifts in research trends and practice offer researchers future opportunities to investigate these relatively newer approaches.

Amongst different aspects of a capital construction project, procurement is found to be the most important area and represents over 80% of the contract value. The selection of an appropriate procurement strategy is an important contributor to overall project success. Within several procurement methods, Early Contractor Involvement (ECI), a relatively new strategy to procure a construction project, is becoming more popular for infrastructure projects across Australia. However, it appears that ECI has been adopted as a preferred procurement option with little research or piloting, and decisions to select ECI for a project have been mostly judgmental, and subject to biases of the decision-makers. This paper focuses on this important issue and proposes a conceptual model for selecting ECI for a construction project. Grounded Theory research methodology is employed for this study that facilitates the generation of categories and contextualises theory. Validation of the theory was ensured by carefully practicing the theoretical coding procedures through ‘open coding’, ‘axial coding’, and ‘selective coding’. The data is collected through individual interviews with experts within client organisations who held senior management level roles in their organisations and were involved in the selection process of ECI and could provide input into their experience in that area. The proposed selection model integrates the procurement selection criteria specifically related to the project characteristics, client’s objectives, and internal and external project environments with alternative selection approaches and practices. This paper also discusses the notion of social, process, and output control by using ECI.

New Zealand’s rising demand for new and affordable homes is driving innovative and effective methods for project delivery. Prefabrication or off-site construction is considered an innovative approach to project delivery that eliminates the limitations of traditional construction methods. However, the prefabrication industry struggles with several challenges, including poor coordination and low supply chain integration amongst its partner organisations. There has been previous literature on improving the prefabrication supply chain integration, but few studies about the role of technology in this sector. Therefore, this article provides intuitions into the applicability and benefits of advanced technologies, namely blockchain, for improving supply chain integration in the context of prefabrication in New Zealand. A questionnaire survey was used to identify the channels used for information exchange between clients and contractors. Moreover, the questionnaire ascertained the positive effects of blockchain on enhancing supply chain integration between the two partners. Blockchain has proven to be a secure information integration instrument that can improve the integration of the prefabrication supply chain by fostering collaboration between organisations.

Green buildings have been actively spreading as a solution for sustainability issues of the construction industry in at least the last two decades. As green building practices unfold in developing countries, the need of identifying factors that both hinder and drive its spread rises. Multiple studies reveal a general inconsistency among results in different parts of the world, caused by each country’s environmental, economic, and social conditions. Taking into account the experience of developing international green buildings and the current state of green building development in Kazakhstan, this study aims to spread the understanding of the factors that hinder and have the potential to drive the development of green buildings in Kazakhstan. A questionnaire survey was carried out among 38 industry experts in Kazakhstan to accomplish study objectives. Multiple data analysis methods were used to identify correlations among groups of experts and rank the factors. The results revealed a lack of skill/experience, a lack of government support, and the high cost of sustainable materials and products as the most crucial barriers. Water and energy efficiency, improved health of occupants, comfort, and satisfaction were identified as the most influential drivers. By expanding knowledge on factors affecting the implementation of green buildings, the study uncovered common trends in the responses of professionals, providing valuable information for field professionals and suggesting future research recommendations.

The use of building information modeling (BIM) for building sustainability assessment (BSA) is a thriving topic within the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. Despite the various research approaches to employing BSA with BIM support, the research is limited to the BIM implications of BSA methods in developing countries. This paper presents how BIM can assist the BSA processes in Kazakhstan, using a previously developed building sustainability assessment framework for Kazakhstan (KBSAF). This framework has 46 assessment indicators grouped into nine assessment categories. The categories and assessment indicators of KBSAF were derived considering the regional variations and country-specific differences in the assessment factors. In this paper, BIM functions for BSA were identified through literature review; their applicability for KBSAF was evaluated by mapping the functions with the assessment indicators of KBSAF and a BIM-based BSA framework (BIM-KBSAF) was proposed. The proposed framework was validated through a three-round Delphi survey. One of the results demonstrates that for KBSAF, BIM can assess 24 out of 46 assessment indicators. The proposed framework could serve as a systematic guide to the application of BIM for BSA. Furthermore, it can facilitate the BSA process and save considerable time and effort.

Building Information Modeling (BIM), also called n-D Modeling or Virtual Prototyping Technology, is a revolutionary development that is quickly reshaping the Architecture-Engineering-Construction (AEC) industry. BIM is both a technology and a process. The technology component of BIM helps project stakeholders to visualize what is to be built in a simulated environment to identify any potential design, construction or operational issues. The process component enables close collaboration and encourages integration of the roles of all stakeholders on a project. The paper presents an overview of BIM with focus on its core concepts, applications in the project life cycle and benefits for project stakeholders with the help of case studies. The paper also elaborates risks and barriers to BIM implementation and future trends.

The main driver behind the adoption of supply chain management (SCM) philosophy into the construction industry was the successes within other industry sectors. SCM can be defined as network of different organisations, linked upstream and downstream in a chain, aiming to produce quality and value in the services and products for the end consumers through integrated processes and activities. In order to achieve the optimised level of integration of the whole supply chain, the industry has responded in various forms. This paper will discuss different initiatives by the researchers,construction industry,and the UK government in order to achieve optimal level of supply chain integration. This paper will discuss the concept of aggregation,and also look at other supply chain integration related concepts including client-led supply chain, knowledge about the whole supply chain, effects of procurement on integration of supply chain, etc. The paper will give a brief overview and initial findings of a project undertaken by the authors, and also include examples from the UK construction industry on bundling of the supply and demand.

In an increasingly competitive business environment, improvedtime-to-market, reduced production cost, quality of the productand customer involvement are rapidly becoming the key successfactors for any product development process. Consequently, mostorganisations are moving towards the adoption of latest technologyand new management concepts and philosophies such as totalquality management and concurrent engineering (CE) to bringimprovement in their product development process. This paperdiscusses the adoption of integrated processes and CE withinthe construction industry to enable construction organisations toimprove their project development process. It also discusses aproposed integrated database model for the construction projects,which should enable the construction process to improve, becomemore effective and more efficient.

Building Information Modeling (BIM), also called n-D Modeling or Virtual Prototyping Technology, is a revolutionary development that is quickly reshaping the Architecture-Engineering-Construction (AEC) industry. BIM is both a technology and a process. The technology component of BIM helps project stakeholders to visualize what is to be built in a simulated environment to identify any potential design, construction or operational issues. The process component enables close collaboration and encourages integration of the roles of all stakeholders on a project. The paper presents an overview of BIM with focus on its core concepts, applications in the project life cycle and benefits for project stakeholders with the help of case studies. The paper also elaborates risks and barriers to BIM implementation and future trends.