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Lean implementation aims to maximize customer satisfaction while minimizing waste. However, the Lean philosophy has not yet been well understood in the construction industry due to complex and dynamic nature of construction projects. Even though Lean efforts in construction have recently gained popularity, there are still problems with the implementation processes. Therefore, it is essential to identify critical success factors (CSFs) in Lean implementation for conducting projects more effectively. Due to lack of studies in revealing CSFs in Lean implementation and the need for an up-to-date Lean implementation roadmap, this article provides an extensive set of CSFs for construction practitioners to benefit in their projects. Within this context, 27 variables were identified through an in-depth literature review. Moreover, a survey is designed and given to Lean practitioners to rank the variables based on their importance. The findings of the survey indicate that management commitment is ranked as the most important driver of Lean implementation, whereas the supportive nature of governmental regulations in Lean is ranked as the least important. A factor analysis of CSFs result in six factor groups, namely motivational factors, project factors, strategic and policy factors, company factors, technical factors, and workforce and resource factors.

The construction industry is one of the leading industries in the economy of any country. However, the industry is vulnerable to changes and uncertainties, either external or internal, due to its fragmented and dynamic nature. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which first emerged in Wuhan, China in 2019, is considered a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). COVID-19 has quickly spread all over the world resulting in significant social and economic consequences. The main objective of the study is to determine the challenges and opportunities due to pandemic in the construction industry and to categorize them. Through a review of the existing literature and interviews with construction experts, the challenges and opportunities arising from the COVID-19 pandemic were listed. A questionnaire survey was designed to evaluate them. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was utilized to group the identified challenges and opportunities. PCA was conducted with SPSS Version 25.0 software. The most critical challenges of the pandemic were determined as ‘the requirement of COVID-19 protocols’, ‘restriction on movement and travel’, ‘additional safety equipment use’, where the most important opportunities were found as ‘hygiene programs’, ‘use of technological tools effectively’, and ‘BIM-enabled construction’. The research contributes to the body of knowledge in terms of making construction practitioners beware of the main challenges and opportunities along with leading them to act towards change and uncertainty. This study further provides general guidelines and implications for practitioners and policymakers in case of similar outbreaks.

PurposeConstruction safety is heavily affected by using new technologies in this growing trend of technology adoption. Especially, safety performance is enhanced through the utilization of some effective technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, BIM and wearable devices. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of emerging technologies on construction safety performance and quantify the relationship between those. The proposed components of emerging technologies are BIM, GIS, VR, RFID, AI, ML, eye tracking and serious games and wearable devices, whereas the dimensions of construction safety performance are safety planning, safety training, safety inspection and monitoring, safety audits and reviews and safety leadership.Design/methodology/approachA structural model was composed consisting of emerging technologies and safety performance indicators. Then, a questionnaire was designed and administered to construction professionals, and data from 167 projects were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The data were analyzed by using software, called SPSS AMOS.FindingsThe analysis of the structural model proves that there is a positive and significant relationship between emerging technologies and construction safety performance. Moreover, the factor loadings for each factor were found to be high indicating a good representation of the construct by the components developed. Among the technologies, BIM, robotics and automation, AI and wearable devices were detected to be the most significant technologies in terms of impacting safety performance.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the body of knowledge in that it develops a conceptual framework consisting of specific technologies in terms of emerging technologies, reveals the impact of such technologies on safety performance and proposes several tools and strategies for enabling effective safety management along the project lifecycle. Industry practitioners may benefit from the framework developed by adopting such technologies to enhance their safety performance on construction projects.

PurposeThis study aims to observe the impact of peripheral vision on construction safety. The study further intends to create awareness of eye diseases in construction safety, an important root cause for most construction-related hazards and accidents.Design/methodology/approachThis study focuses on the impact of peripheral vision in terms of construction site safety. Experiments were conducted with construction employees with different qualifications, ages, expertise and previous safety training experience. The experiments were conducted with an experiment set consisting of a tangent screen to measure the peripheral angle of the participants. The study measured peripheral vision, which helped determine the vision field accordingly. In this context, a total of 32 participants were investigated in terms of their peripheral visual angle and the field of vision. The data collected were analyzed in terms of several statistical tests such as One-Sample t-test, multivariate ANOVA and multiple linear regression.FindingsThe results of the study indicated that there are significant differences in peripheral vision in terms of age of participants, work qualification, work experience, area of expertise and previous safety training experience. The study further revealed that most of the participants failed to satisfy both OSHA requirements about peripheral vision, and normal limits defined in the previous literature. The study further implies that participants, who reported previous sight problems or eye diseases are more vulnerable to construction site accidents.Originality/valueConstruction site safety remains a major concern for most construction companies despite the latest developments in technology. Several companies are struggling with poor safety performance, occupational injuries and illnesses, and work-related accidents resulting in fatalities. However, the root causes behind several construction accidents are still vague due to different dynamics in the construction industry. Among these root causes, poor sight, vision and or eye diseases constitute an important part. Hence, the study provides empirical evidence with the workers checked for eye health to help policymakers and industry practitioners in terms of developing awareness for eye-related injuries and accidents and review their safety programs accordingly.

Lean aims to maximise value while minimising waste. Hence, it is essential to use Lean tools and techniques for achieving higher value in construction projects. Being one of the Lean techniques, ti...

The philosophy of Lean aims to maximize customer satisfaction while minimizing waste. However, complex, dynamic, and project-based nature of construction projects bring up uncertainties in achievin...

Prior to the COVID pandemic, workspace design lowers workstation panels, densifies work seating, and increases spontaneous interaction to provide amenity spaces and engage community collaboration. As a recent response to COVID-19, workplaces were forced to shut down and allow employees to work in the comfort of their homes, allowing the opportunity to re-prioritize their use of time. There are mixed reviews on how employees respond to the work-from-home conversation. However, none of these responses address any of the design trends. This year-long social experiment of working from home informed the future. It provided a new outlook on what employees truly want in workplace design. This study aims to determine which environment allows workers the most productivity and which lifestyle they prefer. Survey and focus group methods were used in this research. The survey questionnaire was sent to the AED community to determine overall productivity, the value of office space amenities and resources, comfort for the personal and professional blend of life. Respondents were narrowed down to the AED (architectural, engineering, design) community to those knowledgeable and experienced in the design trends. Based on the research findings, the workplace would thrive from a normalized hybrid work culture where remotely perform routine tasks. The total elimination of a workplace site may be unrealistic. However, days would be best set at home for routine tasks accounting for most designers. Productivity is studied to be higher while accommodating for a better work-life balance.

An Analytical Network Process (ANP) was created to test the Lean and BIM concepts with data collected from U.S. companies to find the success factors of the Lean/BIM framework. After an extensive literature review, a total of 17 sub-categories for Lean/BIM are classified into three clusters, namely Communication, Production, and Visualization. An ANP network is then established to station the links between the attributes of the framework while computing their importance weights. Eight experienced civil engineers took part in the questionnaire study to assess the relations between the attributes. The main purpose of this study is to reveal the synergy between Lean and BIM with different components reflecting this synergy and present the Lean and BIM synergy on a comprehensive model. The results indicate that Production is the prominent cluster and Production Control, Standardization and Information accuracy are the most important factors in the Lean/BIM synergy. To validate the model, five construction projects were selected to test and observe the results accordingly. The study is expected to help construction industry leaders set their priorities, benefit more from the interaction between Lean and BIM, and revise their strategies accordingly. This study identifies Lean/BIM categories and subcategories as a roadmap for research and implementation. In this context, the study reveals the relationship between the categories/subcategories along with the weights and most and less important categories for Lean/BIM implementation and research.

The construction industry is a risky endeavour. Therefore, it is essential to develop significant safety measures for lowering risks and ensuring safety during projects. However, current safety app...

The construction industry is hazardous, which requires careful consideration of occupational health and safety measures. Among various strategies that are proposed to enhance construction safety, Lean construction practices were widely implied and proved to be effective. However, the link between Lean implementation and construction safety has not been completely studied yet in previous research in terms of psychological safety context. This study implies that psychological safety is of utmost importance in terms of explaining the association between Lean and safety. Lean implementation elements such as respect for people, trust, leadership, and continuous improvement positively affect employees’ psychological safety. In this context, semi-structured interviews and a survey were conducted with employees working in U.S. construction companies. The interviews provided that the majority of the construction employees do not feel psychologically safe at their workplaces either in traditional or Lean construction projects due to a number of reasons such as heavy workload, and deadline pressures. However, it was found that construction workers feel safer psychologically in Lean construction projects compared to traditional projects. According to the interview results and literature review, a conceptual model was proposed. Therefore, this study can contribute to the research area of psychological safety in the construction industry.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the challenges hindering the adoption of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) among construction companies. Design/methodology/approach The construction industry needs innovative technologies due to its complex and dynamic nature. In this respect, the latest trends such as digitalization, building information modeling (BIM), Internet of things (IoT) are of utmost importance in terms of fostering the change in managing projects and encouraging industry practitioners to adopt the change for better performance. This paper focuses on I4.0adoption among construction companies. In this respect, a questionnaire was designed and administered to construction professionals to reveal the challenges in I4.0 adoption among construction firms. The respondents were requested to fill in the questionnaire on the I4.0 efforts of their companies. The questionnaire was intended to collect the perceptions of industry practitioners working at large construction companies. Based on these, the challenges listed were ranked based on their relative importance and success indices. Finally, the Mann–Whitney U test was conducted to test whether statistically significant responses exist among groups of respondents (i.e. young and old companies, large and small, high and low revenue and main area of expertise). Findings The results of the study indicated that resistance to change, unclear benefits and gains and cost of implementation are the major important challenges in terms of I4.0 adoption in construction projects. On the other hand, the data analysis implied that the majority of construction organizations successfully deal with the problems arising from lack of standardization, legal and contractual issues and cost of implementing in terms of promoting I4.0 adoption. Research limitations/implications The study is expected to guide construction practitioners in terms of benefitting from I4.0 applications and deliver projects with better outcomes. This study might be used as a guide for the companies aiming to start their I4.0 transformation knowing the challenges and develop strategies for how to handle them. A concrete plan would help them achieve greater performance and benefit from the I4.0 implementation at the maximum level. Finally, the study implies that construction firms shall prepare action plans for handling each challenge listed and monitor their performance based on the planned and actual data of their projects. Originality/value This study investigates the major challenges of I4.0 among construction companies. This is one of the important studies, which puts I4.0 focus forefront of the construction industry with a clear identification of challenges that construction organizations have to address to transform their organizations into construction 4.0. The study has the potential to guide both industry practitioners and researchers to develop awareness for the benefits of using the latest technology and fostering innovation. This is expected to create value for construction clients in terms of achieving the product with serious gains such as time and cost.

Lean manufacturing first emerged in the automotive industry. However, low productivity and low efficiency in production are major problems for the majority of industries relying on a heavy workforce. Being one of these, the construction industry suffers from low productivity rates along with inefficient work practices. To prevent those, the industry has shifted its focus from the traditional approach to a more innovative one, which is called Lean construction. Lean construction aims to maximize value while minimizing waste. Therefore, it intends to create safer, smoother, and more efficient processes to eliminate waste. This chapter focuses on Lean construction and highlights the generic Lean tools and techniques practiced in the construction industry indicating its historical journey from Lean manufacturing. The chapter aims to raise awareness towards the efficiency of Lean methods in the construction industry with respect to practices observed in manufacturing.

Construction is a hazardous industry. The project-based nature and fragmentation in the industry lead to change and uncertainty requiring special expertise. To handle those, construction firms must develop strategies and action plans along with the experience gained from lessons learned. Among the risks, safety risks are of critical importance leading to accidents. Hence, firms need to strengthen their safety programs, review their strategies for safety management, and develop effective safety training sessions to protect their workers. This study focuses on the success factors promoting safety performance. In this respect, a questionnaire was designed and administered to the Engineering News-Record (ENR) 2020 Top 400 Contractors. The questionnaire data was utilized in conducting a factor analysis to group and name the factors considering the total variance. The analysis of the factors resulted in six-factor groups; namely, project and firm-related factors, demographic factors, practical factors, motivational factors, organizational factors, and humanrelated factors. Project and firm-related factors were found to be the most essential factor group in terms of promoting the effectiveness of safety training. The results of this study are expected to guide industry practitioners in terms of reviewing and revising their safety training programs. WOS:000642786300001 Q2

Quality control is essential to a successful modular construction project and should be enhanced throughout the project from design to construction and installation. The current methods for analyzing the assembly quality of a removable floodwall heavily rely on manual inspection and contact-type measurements, which are time-consuming and costly. This study presents a systematic and practical approach to improve quality control of the prefabricated modular construction projects by integrating building information modeling (BIM) with three-dimensional (3D) laser scanning technology. The study starts with a thorough literature review of current quality control methods in modular construction. Firstly, the critical quality control procedure for the modular construction structure and components should be identified. Secondly, the dimensions of the structure and components in a BIM model is considered as quality tolerance control benchmarking. Thirdly, the point cloud data is captured with 3D laser scanning, which is used to create the as-built model for the constructed structure. Fourthly, data analysis and field validation are carried out by matching the point cloud data with the as-built model and the BIM model. Finally, the study employs the data of a removable floodwall project to validate the level of technical feasibility and accuracy of the presented methods. This method improved the efficiency and accuracy of modular construction quality control. It established a preliminary foundation for using BIM and laser scanning to conduct quality control in removable floodwall installation. The results indicated that the proposed integration of BIM and 3D laser scanning has great potential to improve the quality control of a modular construction project.

Construction project performance relies on different dimensions of project management. Among those, integration management is of paramount importance since effective project management starts with the integration of processes and people within a construction project. This study investigates the influence of various components of integration management on construction project management performance and quantifies the relationship between those components and integration management. The proposed components of integration management are the development of a project charter, knowledge integration, process integration, staff integration, supply chain integration, and integration of changes; whereas the dimensions of project management performance are time, cost, quality, safety, and client satisfaction. A questionnaire was designed and administered to construction professionals and data from 121 projects was analyzed using structural equation modeling. The data was analyzed by using software, called SPSS AMOS. The findings of the research indicate that integration management has a strong impact on project management performance. The study contributes to the project management body of knowledge in that it develops a conceptual framework consisting of specific components for integration management, reveals the impact of integration management on performance, and proposes several tools and strategies for enabling effective integration along the project life cycle. Industry practitioners may benefit from the framework developed by considering the components proposed and following strategies recommended for construction phases.

This study develops construction-specific determinants and indicators of project management performance based on the 14 knowledge areas of the project management body of knowledge guide. Interrelat...

Lean aims to maximize value while minimizing waste. Lean practices are likely to reduce the number potential hazards and errors. The use of Lean practices in construction is essential to experience less hazards. Benefitting from Lean practices has gained much attention in the last decade. Especially, the destroying effect of hazards and accidents is of utmost importance in terms of seeking for better strategies. Within this context, Lean practices offer a wide variety of advantages and provide means for achieving greater success in projects. This study investigates the use of Lean practices in post disaster management. Since post disaster management includes the activities to help community in rebuilding, Lean tools and techniques might be employed to better handle post disaster management processes. The study also scrutinizes the integration of Lean practices with the post disaster processes and encourages the community to compete against the destroying effect of disasters thanks to using Lean tools and techniques. The main contribution of this study is that it introduces Lean practices to be used in the post disaster management processes, which might potentially remove safety concerns in construction sites up to a great extent.

The effectiveness of safety training practices is an important part of safety management on a construction site. Safety professionals’ perceptions of the effectiveness of training practices in safety training sessions were sought in a survey administered to the top 400 contractors in the U.S. The study shows that contractors are sensitive to organizational, feedback, content, process, and worker issues. Whenever they encounter language problems, they use visual aids, and provide translators and safety guidelines written in workers’ own language. Very few statistically significant differences are observed when the findings are analyzed from the point of view of the demographic characteristics of the respondents. The contribution of this study is that it conveys the views of safety personnel about how safety learning can be achieved, sustained and improved by addressing organizational, feedback, content, process, and worker issues in training sessions. It provides project managers with best practices in safety training sessions.

Knowledge management is a critical issue among construction firms. Since acquiring, sharing, and using knowledge in construction are crucial, knowledge management is considered to be one of the key sources of success for the construction projects. However, project-based nature of construction is among the most important barriers to organizational learning. Nevertheless, project information is one of the main assets of contractors and should be institutionalized. An effective means of knowledge management across construction sites and headquarters is information systems. The major objective of this study is to propose a web-based database system to aid construction companies in capturing, storing, sharing, and using project and corporate information. In this respect, a tool named WEB-CONS is developed and tested within a construction company. The main advantage of this system is to create organizational memory and to assist companies in terms of their project management activities. This tool is expected to increase the organizational learning competence of construction companies and to help create organizational memory.

Innovation has been regarded as a means of improving performance in construction. Despite its benefits, management of innovation is a difficult task and its measurement is complicated. A comprehensive model comprising interrelated components of construction innovation has not yet been developed and tested. The major objective of this research is to propose a framework to analyze construction innovation. In this respect, a total of 38 factors associated with innovation are identified and grouped under six components, namely the drivers, barriers, enablers, inputs, project-level benefits, and firm-level benefits. The interrelations among these components are examined through a questionnaire survey. Data collected from 110 projects were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The findings of the study suggest that the innovation decision is governed by those factors specified as the drivers; investment in innovation results not only in project-level but also firm-level outcomes; however, the hyp...

Lean aims to maximize customer satisfaction while minimizing waste. However, Lean philosophy has not been well understood yet in the construction industry for the fact that the complexity and dynamic nature of construction projects bring up uncertainties that may be hardly handled by construction practitioners. Moreover, project-based nature of construction business makes Lean implementation even more challenging for construction people. Even though Lean efforts in construction have recently increased, there are problems with the implementation processes. It is undeniable that successful Lean implementation strongly affects project performance. Therefore, it is essential to reveal enablers and barriers in Lean implementation so that the construction industry practitioners might conduct projects more effectively and satisfy project requirements (i.e. schedule, budget, safety). This study aims to provide a set of core enablers and barriers of Lean implementation in construction projects and guide construction professionals to better satisfy project requirements. Within this context, the study proposes seven major enabler and barrier groups, namely the financial, managerial, technical, workforce, culture, government, and communication and twenty-seven components for each group. Moreover, a survey was designed and administered to Lean practitioners to rank the enablers and barriers based on importance level. Clear understanding of technical requirements in Lean practices was ranked as the most important enabler of Lean implementation whereas lack of top management support was ranked as the most important barrier in the Lean implementation. However, the average rankings were not found to be diverging indicating that selected components of enabler and barrier groups are properly chosen. The study is expected to lead Lean practitioners with creating value to customers while preventing them from experiencing waste.

Construction projects are complex and require the involvement of several parties in order to complete the work with success. Therefore, many construction firms subcontract some of their work packages to successfully execute the projects. To achieve higher rates of performance, contractors need to enhance teamwork and collaboration among project participants. Thinking that complex construction projects require the involvement of multiple subcontractors, it is challenging for main contractors to select best subcontractor for the works requiring special expertise. Especially, projects conducted with Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) or Engineering-Procurement-Construction (EPC) consists of several parties, where some tasks are challenging and bring the need for collaborative structures. This paper focuses on subcontractor selection, which is a major challenge for many construction firms and uses choosing-by-advantages (CBA) methodology to select the best alternative among different subcontractors. CBA is selected as the research methodology due to its ease of use and priorities over the other multi criteria decision making methodologies such as Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) or Weighting Rating and Calculating (WRC). Within this context, the paper first identifies each subcontractor as the alternative and develops factors and attributes for each subcontractor based on various criterion. The paper is expected to guide main contractors to adopt CBA in their subcontractor selection process and assign tasks to the experts of each work package in their projects along with making transparent decisions. The main contractors would best benefit from CBA method to document and track their subcontractors' performance and involve them in the processes at the right time.

PurposeConstruction is a risky industry. Therefore, organizations are seeking ways towards improving their safety performance. Among these, the integration of technology into health and safety leads to enhanced safety performance. Considering the benefits observed in using technology in safety, this study aims to explore digital technologies' use and potential benefits in construction health and safety.Design/methodology/approachAn extensive bibliometrics analysis was conducted to reveal which technologies are at the forefront of others and how these technologies are used in safety operations. The study used two different databases, Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus, to scan the literature in a systemic way.FindingsThe systemic analysis of several studies showed that the digital technologies use in construction are still a niche theme and need more assessment. The study provided that sensors and wireless technology are of utmost importance in terms of construction safety. Moreover, the study revealed that artificial intelligence, machine learning, building information modeling (BIM), sensors and wireless technologies are trending technologies compared to unmanned aerial vehicles, serious games and the Internet of things. On the other hand, the study provided that the technologies are even more effective with integrated use like in the case of BIM and sensors or unmanned aerial vehicles. It was observed that the use of these technologies varies with respect to studies conducted in different countries. The study further revealed that the studies conducted on this topic are mostly published in some selected journals and international collaboration efforts in terms of researching the topic have been observed.Originality/valueThis study provides an extensive analysis of WoS and Scopus databases and an in-depth review of the use of digital technologies in construction safety. The review consists of the most recent studies showing the benefits of using such technologies and showing the usage on a systemic level from which both scientists and practitioners can benefit to devise new strategies in technology usage.