The COVID-19 pandemic has been the largest global health crisis in decades. Apart from the unprecedented number of deaths and hospitalizations, the pandemic has resulted in economic slowdowns, widespread business disruptions, and significant hardships. This study focused on investigating the early impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the U.S. construction industry since the declaration of the national emergency on 13 March 2020. The study objectives were achieved through 34 telephone interviews with project managers, engineers, designers, and superintendents that represented different states and distinct industry sectors in the United States (U.S.). The interviewees offered information on their experience with the pandemic, including the general and adverse effects experienced, new opportunities created, and risk management efforts being undertaken. The reported adverse effects included significant delays on projects, inability to secure materials on time, reduction in productivity rates, material price escalations, and others. The new opportunities that were created included projects involving the fast-track construction of medical facilities, construction of residential buildings, transportation-related work, and opportunities to recruit skilled workers. The risk management measures that were widely adopted included measures to enhance safety and reduce other project risks. The safety measures adopted included requiring employees to wear cloth face masks, adoption of social distancing protocols, staggering of construction operations, offering COVID-19-related training, administering temperature checks prior to entry into the workplace, and others. Measures to manage other project risks included the formation of a task force team to review the evolving pandemic and offer recommendations, advocating that construction businesses be deemed essential to combat delays and taking advantage of government relief programs. The study findings will be useful to industry stakeholders interested in understanding the early impacts of the pandemic on the construction industry. Industry stakeholders may also build upon the reported findings and establish best practices for continued safe and productive operations.

The rapid growth of complex projects in the construction industry worldwide has triggered a growing number of studies over the past two decades, suggesting that understanding project complexity is a key component of successful construction project management. This study aims to investigate the status and trends in project complexity research through a four-stage literature review that can benefit both researchers and practitioners. Seventy-four relevant articles were identified from studies published during the years 1996–2015, and results indicate that research in construction project complexity primarily focuses on four areas: influencing factors contributing to project complexity, the impact of project complexity, complexity measurement methods, and considerations for managing project complexity. Future research should concentrate on specific factors that drive complexity for different types of construction projects and the development of management guidelines for addressing complexity throughout the project lifecycle. This paper provides both a timely summary of literature in the area of project complexity and insights into opportunities for future study of and guidance for successfully managing complexity in construction projects.

Most construction safety activities focus on managing identified hazards. Hazards that remain unrecognized, and as a result unmanaged, can potentially result in catastrophic and unexpected injuries. Therefore, proper hazard recognition is foundational to the success of any safety program. However, recent research has revealed that a large proportion of construction hazards remain unrecognized in construction projects. To improve hazard recognition performance, employers provide their workers with safety and hazard recognition training. Despite these efforts, desirable levels of hazard recognition have not been achieved, and the anticipated return on investment (ROI) from training has not been attained. Such failures in training efforts are partly because knowledge acquired through training programs is often not transferred or applied in the workplace. Subsequently, training efforts do not alter work practices or behavior once workers return to the field. Other reasons for training failure include ...

Unrecognized or unmanaged hazards can expose workers to unanticipated safety risk and can potentially result in catastrophic safety incidents. Unfortunately, recent research has demonstrated that a large proportion of safety hazards remain unrecognized in construction workplaces. To improve hazard-recognition levels, employers adopt a variety of safety and hazard-recognition training programs. However, desirable levels of hazard recognition have not been achieved, and the expected benefits from training have not been attained. Such failure in training efforts have generally been attributed to the adoption of poor and ineffective training practices. While efforts are being undertaken to address these issues, construction research has not focused on developing or evaluating personalized training solutions that are customized to the learning needs of individual workers. To advance theory and practice, the objective of this study was to develop the first personalized training strategy targeted at impr...

This is the first study to apply the barrier option model to predict defaults of construction contractors and to assert that the path-dependent characteristic of the model is very suitable for describing the behavior of contractor default. Different from existing contractor-default prediction models, this research uses a much larger contractor sample in empirical analyses to alleviate sample-selection biases, and employs a Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curve to assess the model performance. Empirical results of this study show that the proposed model outperforms traditional financial ratio models in differentiating the risk of defaulted and nondefaulted construction contractors. Additionally, the barrier option model has markedly better discriminatory power than when applied to non–construction-related industries. The results of this paper support the postulation that the barrier option model has significant advantages for the construction industry.

Members of the construction project team (e.g., owner, designer, and contractor) have increasingly become more interested in and concerned about improving communications, coordination, and cooperation during the drawing and specification development process. The current use of black and white construction drawings is not the best tool to permit designers and contractors to communicate efficiently and accurately. This study examines methods to improve the quality of drawing clarity through the use of color drawings and other technologies. A survey was used to collect feedback from designers to better understand the current challenges faced and potential solutions. An analysis of the survey results revealed the best approaches in the construction industry to improve drawing readability, and includes: (1) Using colored drawings, (2) improving design details, (3) reviewing drawings and specifications for consistency, and (4) using more three-dimensional (3D) modeling techniques. An example is presented that c...