Success has always been the ultimate goal of every activity, and a construction project is no exception. Due to the ambiguous definition of project success and the different perceptions of participants toward this concept, it may be difficult to tell whether a project is successful as there is a lack of consensus. Time, cost, and quality have long been the success criteria used to evaluate the performance of a construction project. However, such a list has been criticized as not being comprehensive. Even studies of the project success of a particular construction method, such as the design/build procurement system, are lacking in most previous research considering construction projects in general. This paper sets out to establish criteria for project success for a design/build project in construction, first by identifying relevant measures of project success for a construction project in past studies, with particular emphasis on design/build projects, and then by establishing a comprehensive assessment fr...

A construction project is mostly initiated by the needs of the client. In order to satisfy the client’s requirements in terms of time, cost, and quality, various procurement methods are recommended for selection to increase the chance of success for the complex sequence of activities. Design-build (D&B) integrates design and construction to overcome some of the hurdles inherent in the traditional design-bid-build method. It has been extensively used worldwide and its distinctive features are claimed to deal with the problems of the traditional design-bid-build method. An investigation into the determinants of successful D&B projects can therefore help set a benchmark study for industry practitioners to compare their project performance. To better indicate the success level of D&B projects, the writers developed a project success index for D&B projects in the Hong Kong context, which is assessed by the key project performance indicators of time, cost, quality, and functionality. Multiple regression analysi...

Hong Kong’s construction industry has shown significant improvement in safety performance since the turn of the century. The number of industrial accidents in the construction industry has decreased from 11,925 in 2000 to 3,833 in 2004, which is an encouraging drop of almost 68%. However, the category “fall of person from height” has always represented a large proportion of the industrial accidents, particularly fatal accidents. In 2004, fall of person from height represented just over 47% of the total number of fatal accidents in the construction industry. The statistics show that although the overall number of accidents has dropped immensely, the same does not apply for fall from height accidents. According to statistics provided by the Labor Dept. of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, there were a total of 22 fatal industrial accidents associated with fall of persons from height in repair, maintenance, alteration, and addition works during 2000–2004. When analyzing these case studies, 12 common factors were identified for analyzing these case studies and strategies were suggested to prevent recurrence of similar accidents in each case. The top five strategies were: (1) provide and maintain a safe system of work; (2) provide a suitable working platform; (3) (tier) provide safety information/training/instruction/supervision; (4) (tier) provide suitable fall arresting system/anchorage; and (5) maintain safe workplace.

Learning from incidents (LFI) is a process to seek, analyse, and disseminate the severity and causes of incidents, and take corrective measures to prevent the recurrence of similar events. However, the effects of LFI on the learner’s safety performance remain unexplored. This study aimed to identify the effects of the major LFI factors on the safety performance of workers. A questionnaire survey was administered among 210 construction workers in China. A factor analysis was conducted to reveal the underlying LFI factors. A stepwise multiple linear regression was performed to analyse the relationship between the underlying LFI factors and safety performance. A Bayesian Network (BN) was further modelled to identify the probabilistic relational network between the underlying LFI factors and safety performance. The results of BN modelling showed that all the underlying factors were important to improve the safety performance of construction workers. Additionally, sensitivity analysis revealed that the two underlying factors—information sharing and utilization and management commitment—had the largest effects on improving workers’ safety performance. The proposed BN also helped find out the most efficient strategy to improve workers’ safety performance. This research may serve as a useful guide for better implementation of LFI practices in the construction sector.

Purpose – The paper aims to develop a project success index (PSI) to benchmark the performance of design-build projects from a number of key performance indicators (KPIs). Design/methodology/approach – This research collected 92 responses from Design and Build (D&B) project participants of the Hong Kong construction industry via ordinary postal mail. In addition, a project success equation is formulated from the principal components analysis. Findings – D&B project participants suggests that time, cost, quality and functionality should be the principal success criteria for D&B projects. A single index can also be computed from the project success equation to apply different weightings to the respective KPI with different significance. Practical implications – The concept of success remains vague among project participants, which makes it difficult to assess whether the performance of a project is a success or failure. The development of PSI can quantify the success concept in a scientific manner. Originality/value – PSI indicates the success level of a construction project for benchmarking purposes. It also enables project stakeholders to measure the success of a D&B project and to compare the relative success level among different D&B projects in a scientific manner.