Construction sector spending makes a significant contribution to the global economy, with approximately $10 trillion being spent on building and construction activities annually. However, the construction industry has traditionally been perceived as slow to adapt to new technologies compared to other sectors. Recently, the construction industry has experienced a substantial shift towards Digital Transformation. As new technologies have emerged, the construction industry has begun to realize the importance of Digital Transformation in the pre-construction, construction, and facility management phases. A high degree of Digital Transformation has been seen regarding site monitoring, wearables, sensors, and identifying hazards. This paper intends to sketch a global picture of digital technologies implemented in the construction industry throughout the entire project lifecycle. By fully analyzing more than 200 papers, the paper finds that various aspects of the construction industry, including technologies, policies, regulations, and infrastructures, are still in the early stages of Digital Transformation. The findings from this review will help researchers and practitioners in the construction industry understand the global picture of digital technology implementation and where the construction industry stands in the Digital Transformation process. This paper also serves as a starting point for future work on Digital Transformation in the construction industry. The research paper is limited to vertical aspects in building projects and does not include horizontal integration. Finally, this study will give a guideline with successful examples of which technologies are being used in specific phases, so future researchers can get a holistic view of the use of digital technology in the entire building environment.

Cost and time are the targeted outcomes of any construction project’s success. One of the main issues that hinder projects from attaining their desired outcomes are disputes on cost and time. As escalated levels of disputes are becoming highly unavoidable, the construction industry has always resided to dispute identification models and strategies to reduce and eliminate them during construction. However, it was also apparent that existing research on construction disputes appears to give greater consideration towards the dispute resolution rather than averting conflict and disputes to arise in the first place. In light of this, this paper aims to minimize disputes during construction by addressing the causes of disputes during the pre-construction phase. As an integral part of the on-going search, a thorough study encompassing a critical review of previous research on disputes in construction have been performed and the results are shown in this paper. Several conflict and disputes are categorized and analyzed in order to allow for future determination of their direct and/or indirect links to the pre-construction phase. This review also elaborates on the different methods of research that were adapted in literature and the relevant research tools utilized. The research highlights fuzzy logic coupled with structural equation modeling (SEM) to be a recognized and valid modeling tool in construction projects intending to model and establish appropriate framework for dispute modeling and evaluation. In light of this, the findings in this review calls for a further investigation and deep research in regards to the relationship or link between characteristics of the pre-construction phase and the types of disputes and their likelihood of taking place in the actual construction phase that can be utilized for the development of an operational framework for predicting dispute occurrences during construction. The paper concludes with providing a developed hybrid fuzzy-SEM model to quantify the probability of dispute occurrence in construction projects, enabling project stakeholders predicting, identifying, and properly managing disputes occurrence in advance during the pre-construction phase of their projects.

Background: Few studies have reported how students enact learner agency in a team setting or examined what elements of team settings students perceive as more supportive of their learning in problem‐ and project‐based learning (PBL) processes.Purpose: This study explores how engineering students perceive their enactment of learner agency, particularly which aspects of the PBL process they find most important.Method: Thirty‐nine students from two PBL civil engineering courses in Qatar participated in the study. Q methodology was chosen for both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. A 40‐item Q set based on a theoretical model of learner agency was used.Results: Eight significantly different student viewpoints emerged from the Q methodological factor analysis, indicating a range of individual perceptions of learner agency. Intrapersonal dimensions were highlighted by three of the eight viewpoints, behavioral dimensions were underlined by seven viewpoints, and environmental dimensions were valued by all viewpoints.Conclusion: While the results reveal a wide range of individual experiences with learner agency across the three dimensions, students addressed self‐directed learning aspects both actively and passively, suggesting that many participants still value instructors' roles of providing direct instruction and authorized knowledge in PBL. The results highlight the need for more awareness of learner agency and more opportunities for students to enact learner agency by increasing PBL knowledge, skills, and efficacy. Q methodology can contribute to engineering education research by providing new theoretical and empirical insights into learners' subjective understanding of agency in a PBL setting as a complex system.

ABSTRACT Effective Healthcare Facility Management (HFM) remain a crucial concern for high quality built healthcare sectors, both in the public and private areas. The anticipated resource efficiencies, complex systems, and maintenance are all driving up demand for efficiency and flexibility. However, it has been almost impossible with limited human and machinery resources to cope with the healthcare sector’s demands. The added value of Digitization will assist organizations overcoming the limited resources issue to deal with the increasing healthcare demands. Based on an extensive literature review, the aim of this paper is to suggest innovative digital and facility management methods that improve the healthcare sector experience. The same literature has been used to extract significant variables to build a causal loop diagram (CLD) that assists in better understanding the interrelationship between those variables within healthcare systems. Furthermore, to prepare for the technology adoption, the paper conducted a cross-sectional survey to forecast the acceptance level in 550 participants from Qatar’s healthcare sector. It also discusses applying the most innovative healthcare artificial intelligence techniques through an organized digital transformation process to guarantee delivering the healthcare services efficiently while optimizing resources and costs.

Managing change order is a critical area of concern in the construction industry, owing to the resulting disputes, claims, productivity losses, delays, and cost repercussions. There have been various studies proposing both quantitative and qualitative approaches to tackle the effect of change orders on project performance and success. Previous studies have almost solely focused on specific organizational policies, procedures, causes, and recommendations with the goal of capturing the essence of change-order management (CHM) within an area, organization, or kind of contract. However, their contributions are context-specific, limited to simple statistical method and make no reference to an inclusive concept of CHM performance factors. Furthermore, the existing literature urges a need for a realistic strategy to managing change orders, as well as limiting their negative consequences. Therefore, to address the research gap in the literature, this study proposes an operational and systematic CHM framework based on multidimensional performance factors to enhance the overall project success (OPS) factors, utilizing a partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach to develop the model. For evaluating CHM’s performance in terms of OPS, a conceptual model was developed. A questionnaire survey was used to conduct an empirical analysis to test the conceptual model. The information was gathered from 334 construction specialists that work in the field. The result of the analysis found that the explanatory power ($R^2$ ) value of the CHM model is 0.665, which revealed that CHM performance factors in projects is responsible for 66.5% of project performance, which has a significant impact and demonstrating a strong influence. Furthermore, the management of communication and relationships, dispute resolution, and financial issues have a significant impact on CHM based on outer loading values of ($\beta$ ) 0.433, 0.432, and 0.422, respectively. Documentation, procurement, design, and quality management come next in terms of influence on CHM effectiveness, with outer loading values of ($\beta$ ) 0.402, 0.367, 0.345, and 0.289, respectively. This study adds to the body of knowledge by providing new insights and assisting in the identification and better understanding of CHM performance factors in construction projects and their impact on OPS, as well as the use of an advanced statistical method, PLS-SEM. The outcomes of this study can be utilized as a starting point for implementing CHM in construction projects. The practical applications of the proposed quantitative approach model can be utilized by the client, the consultant, and the contractor to successfully plan, manage, evaluate, monitor, and control the CHM performance. The findings of this study will aid policymakers and decision makers around the world in focusing on the industry’s most critical difficulties and challenges.

The rapid advancement of digital technology has enabled digital transformation across various sectors, including construction. The construction industry has long been associated with conventional, labor-intensive practices that can adversely influence the entire construction process. However, this culture is changing as key players in the sector are progressively identifying and embracing the vast opportunities and associated benefits of using digital tools and technologies to improve the performance and outcomes of the overall project lifecycle. To this end, this study uses the Delphi technique to identify 70 factors that contribute to the digital transformation of the construction industry, categorizing them into five groups: management, design, technology, policy, and infrastructure. Delphi analysis is used to examine the critical success factors for digital transformation identified in the literature and rate their importance during the preconstruction, construction, and facility management phases. Furthermore, this research results in the introduction of the Digital Transformation Level of Readiness Framework (DTRLF) to help facility management firms, clients, organizations, contractors, and designers comprehend the implementation of digital transformation within their respective domains and support decision-makers in establishing action to adapt related technologies in their respected project phases.