Every capital-intensive constructions project goes through various challenges throughout their project life cycle. However, one crucial challenge is to understand and trace cost development over-time at planning phase. The research aim is threefold: firstly, to identify the critical factors of cost development in the planning phase. Secondly, to investigate empirically a dyadic relationship of cost deviation over time and quantitatively chart their developments. Thirdly, to analyze the construction cost data, discuss their cost developments and identify critical projects based on their actual financial impacts. The research considers 110 projects and analyze them using qualitative and quantitative research methods. The results showed higher cost escalation in the planning phase. The research identified critical factors for cost escalations at the planning phase. The average cost escalation of 110 projects (<5%) seems good, but some projects showed large cost deviations with lower financial impacts and vice versa

Purpose: – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between quality management practice and labor productivity in labor-intensive manufacturing companies in a developing nation and benchmark with the world average. Design/methodology/approach: – Primary and secondary data were collected from 34 selected companies. The primary data were obtained using a questionnaire survey to determine the quality management adoption level of each company using the European Business Excellence Model. Secondary data also collected in order to compute labor productivity of each organization and benchmark with international norms. Findings: – In this research, labor productivity is measured by revenues per employee and total assets per employee and found that adopting quality management has strong relationships with revenue per employee unlike total asset per employee that is weakly related. Originality/value: – Several authors suggest a positive relationship between adoption quality management principles and productivity in large organizations located in developed countries. However, this paper particularly focuses on labor productivity of labor-intensive companies.

Competing with successful products has become perplexing with several uncertainties and transmutes from time to time as customers’ expectations are dynamic. That is why manufacturing firms exhaustively strive to look for a better competitive frontier using well-established and innovative product development (PD) processes. In this paper, we would like to answer three research questions: (i) What would be the effects of front-loading in PD? (ii) Can we improve our PD process endlessly? (iii) When is the critical time that the firm should take remedial action for improvements? As a contribution to the vast numbers of improvement methods in new product development (NPD), this paper investigates the effects of front-loading using set-based concurrent engineering (SBCE) on cost and lead time. Models are developed and treated using a system dynamics (SD) approach. We assign a hypothetical upfront investment for SBCE and compare its effects on total cost and lead time of the development process. From the research, it is found that the total cost of PD is reduced almost by half—although the front loading is higher in order to encompass multiple design alternatives. The total product lead time is reduced by almost 20 %. The model reveals the critical time for improvement of the PD process. We use SD tool (e.g., STELLA) for simulation and visualization of the complex PD model, using SBCE as one of several strategies to front-load activities in the NPD process.

The impact of multi-criteria performance measurement on business performance improvement

Large public-investment construction projects require advanced decision support systems. The traditional (static) cost benefit analysis (CBA) is one of the early-phase decision support system in construction business. The purpose of this paper is to develop a resilient and dynamic CBA framework for road construction projects. The research systematically reviewed academic quality ensured and rigorous peer-reviewed articles (from web of science and publish or perish databases) and discuss selected Norwegian construction projects. The research identified some key attributes (e.g. resiliency, dynamics, system thinking) that the traditional CBA lacks and the framework developed integrates these attributes to fill the gap. The research has theoretical implication from the methodological improvement perspective (e.g. attempting to integrate complex attributes). The practical implication is to avoid inefficiencies and obtain better regulation in government policies. The results could be used on go/no go decision for the Norwegian Megaproject (E39 ferry-free coastal highway construction).

Cost increase during the planning phase of major infrastructure projects is a crucial challenge which is typical in construction management. This research aims to provide a better understanding of the cost development of road-construction projects and enhance the knowledge on various project attributes that affect cost development. A detailed cost development study (quantitatively chart the cost- trends) and analysis on cost departures at each key-milestone starting from the initial to the final cost is conducted. The impact of different project attributes/settings (size, location, and quality assurance) on cost development are investigated. The research used a dataset of 110 projects from the last two-decades and analyzed using various statistical tests such as trend-analysis, probability-plots, and cost development over-time at the different project milestones. The results showed a decrease in cost-deviation after quality assurance scheme implemented (except few projects). The overall cost development showed an average increase of 5%. The research found different project-setting affect cost development at different magnitude. It provides new insight for construction managers, quality assurers, and cost-estimators to consider different project settings at the early-phases of the project. It helps to understand the individual and combined effects of project-settings and enable decision-makers to act proactively in cost decisions.